This outer island was little more than a collection of a few farms, a couple of sturdy farmhouses, and a series of terraces carved into the steep slopes to grow olives. Sideralis hunkered down behind a retaining wall along with the others, watching a lone, solitary changeling that paced back and forth quite some distance away.

It was confirmation, but Mjölna didn’t trust it. The changeling clearly wanted to be seen. It made no effort to hide, no effort to disguise itself, it walked out in the open, revealing itself. It was clear, to Mjölna at least, that they were expected.

“Okay, pay attention and listen up. I’m about to give you an example of experience versus training,” Mjölna said in a low voice to her fellow C/Equines. “Keep your eyes on that bug and stay quiet.”

Saying nothing else, Mjölna pulled a brick out of the retaining wall, hefted it in her telekinesis, and then went still, staring at the changeling as it paced back and forth, as if it was a soldier on guard duty.

Sideralis waited, not knowing what else to do. He zoomed in on the changeling to study it. The changeling looked very much like the other changelings he knew. Changelings that he liked. Changelings that he had made laugh. According to his heads up display, the enemy changeling was about three hundred and fifty yards away, or about three hundred and twenty meters. The wind was blowing at a steady thirteen point zero three knots per hour.

“Why are we waiting?” Mustang demanded in an impatient whisper.

“Hush,” Mjölna said, still holding her brick in the telekinetic field projected from her hoof. “Just be quiet and pay attention. Watch.”

“Nothing to watch, I could have killed him by now,” Mustang muttered.

Scootaloo squirmed beside Apple Bloom and her wings gave an impatient twitch. “I could have blitzed the bug by now. He would have never seen me coming. This is booo-ring.”

“Shut up,” Mjölna demanded.

The companions lapsed into silence and Sideralis waited, watching, knowing that Mjölna was going to do something. Maybe something amazing. The changeling paced back and forth, moving as though it was made of clockwork.

Saying nothing, Mjölna extended her foreleg towards the sky and launched the brick. It shot upwards, tumbling end over end, and Sideralis noticed that the brick was launched in a direction away from the changeling. His vision zoomed in on it, a little red target reticle forming on the brick as it flew, and he watched as it flew off at an angle.

The wind pushed the brick, changing the flight path. Sideralis’ eyes narrowed and he locked onto the changeling again. Techno-garble flashed in his vision, and numbers of probability began flashing. The brick was being pushed by the wind, correcting its off angle flight, and the brick reached the top of its long parabolic arc.

The changeling continued to pace back and forth as the brick began its downwards descent. Sideralis could feel the tension in the air—Stout, Mustang, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo were all watching, all wide eyed, each one of them waiting. Time felt slow, sludgy, and the brick tumbled lazily through the air.

“No way…” Mustang breathed. “Impossible.”

“Improbable,” Apple Bloom said in a low voice.

Just as Stout was about to say something, the brick collided with the changeling’s head, the bug walking right into the brick’s falling trajectory. The enemy bug slumped down as its chitinous head was crushed into paste by the falling brick. The companions all stood in silence, staring, except for Mjölna, who stood there looking smug.

“Experience,” Mjölna whispered to her fellow C/Equines.

As Scootaloo was about to reply, at least a dozen changelings popped up out of the dirt and began to look around. Scootaloo remained silent, watching, and after a moment, she glanced at Mjölna, who was grinning.

“Just as I thought, the lone guard was bait to lure us in and attack.” Mjölna looked at Mustang and then at Sideralis. “We’re gonna go in hot and heavy. Flying wing. Keep Scootaloo behind us and shield her. Sideralis, we’re gonna need you up front… let your targeting system do all the work. Mustang, Stout, keep an eye on our flanks. Something will try to blindside us I bet. Apple Bloom, eyes on the ground for more hidden bugs. Scootaloo… anything that targets Sideralis, terminate with extreme prejudice.”

Wings snapped out, horns began glowing, and as a group, the C/Equines took to the air…

It was over before it even started. Telekinetic pulses rained down, brilliant bursts of colour and light flashed, and the changelings were blown to pieces before they even knew what had hit them. Sideralis watched pieces of the last one tumble to the ground. Ichor oozed. Nothing else tried to flank them and there were no more bugs lurking underground.

It was over. Sideralis hardly even had time to think. One moment they were coming in, lights flashed, the air filled with a burning smell, and then it was all over. Something beeped in Sideralis ear and he came in for a landing, a rough landing on the soft, black volcanic soil.

He had killed four of them. His left leg and had pulsed twice, and his right leg had done the same, and each pulse had scored a killing blow. He approached his fallen foes, feeling peculiar, feeling bad. He liked changelings. He liked Queen Chrysalis. He looked down at the dismembered bodies of his fallen foes, who were little more than twitching bits on the ground.

It was awful. Sideralis felt awful. He had done something awful. He lowered his head and looked down at what he had done as his companions began landing around him. Guilt flooded his mind. He had done this without thinking, without effort, he had gunned these poor changelings down.

Inside, something broke, and Sideralis began weeping, his sides heaving and hitching. He sat down in the dirt, feeling terrible and ashamed for what he had done. He felt like a bad pony. He had taken life away from a living, breathing, thinking, feeling thing.

“Sid?” Stout prodded Sideralis in the ribs and asked, “Sid, why are ya crying? They’re bugs, Sid… the enemy. They’d kill you in a second and rip all of us apart.”

“I feel bad.” Sideralis felt wretched inside. His biomechanical innards all squished around inside of him in a most unpleasant way.

“Sid, they’re just bugs…” Stout shook her head.

“You know, for somepony who says they love him so much, there’s a lot you don’t understand about him,” Mustang said to her sister in an acidic voice. “You don’t get it, do you? You’re so wrapped up in what you want from him, that’s all you can do when you’re with him is think about your own hopes and dreams… you barely even understand him… you don’t even know what he is—”

“Hey!” Stout snapped as she glared at Mustang.

“You don’t even understand why he’s hurting!” Mustang returned her sister’s death stare, her arctic blue eyes flashing with anger.

“Fuck you!” Stout’s lip curled back into a snarl.

Stepping forwards, Apple Bloom inserted herself between the two sisters. “Mustang, you’re being a real bitch about this—”

“Apple Bloom!” Mjölna shoved her way forwards and gave Apple Bloom a disapproving look.

“What?” Apple Bloom gave Mjölna an innocent look as the two sisters continued to glare at one another, and Sideralis sobbed over the bodies of the fallen changelings. “I was just being honest.”

Mjölna rolled her eyes in frustration as Scootaloo sat down beside Sideralis and tried to comfort him. Apple Bloom stared at Mjölna, not quite sure what she had done wrong. Mustang turned away from her sister and heaved a sigh.

“Bloom is right… I was being a bitch… I’m sorry…” Mustang took a deep breath and then continued, “Stout, don’t you understand?” Mustang pointed at Sideralis with her hoof. “He has an adult body, he can do adult things, but deep down on the inside, he’s still just a colt. A little one. He’s never grown up. That’s why he’s a goofball. He’s a colt trapped in a stallion’s body. He’s the only pony around that has the same maturity level as Rainbow Dash. Why do you think they get along so well?”

Stout’s anger melted away and vanished, like the flame of a candle being extinguished with a strong wind. She looked at her sister, then over at Sideralis, and she felt ashamed. Now that Mustang had said it, it was obvious. Sideralis looked very much like a colt that accidentally killed something, perhaps a butterfly, and had learned the hard lesson that life was fragile.

This was not something she had expected to encounter in the field. She watched as Scootaloo patted his side and pressed herself up against him. Sideralis was crying so hard that he was whooping. Mjölna stood nearby, looking frustrated, and seeing Mjölna’s expression, Stout could not help but feel disappointed with herself. All of this had gone wrong.

“Oh fuck me,” Stout swore and then she gritted her teeth as Sideralis continued his whooping wails. The sound infuriated her—she wasn’t angry with Sideralis, no, she was angry with herself. She eyed her sister and felt even more ashamed.

“Oh fuck everything, we’re a mess. We don’t have the conditioning of soldiers.” Mjölna stomped her hoof in frustration, her eyes narrowed, and for the lack of anything else to do, she began to study the skies around her, keeping a wary eye out for trouble.

“I’m sorry, Mustang,” Stout said, apologising to her sister.

“So am I… I don’t know what came over me… I care about Sid too… and it hurt me that you didn’t have a clue… I wanted to make you feel bad for it,” Mustang replied, trying to explain herself.

“We should go back to the ship,” Mjölna said, “we’ve botched this mission. We’re a mess. I’ll tell Twilight that we ran into complications and I’ll—”

“No,” Sideralis said, interrupting Mjölna. “We have to keep going.” He sucked in a deep breath as Scootaloo kept patting him, trying to comfort him, and he fought to be able to keep speaking, choking back his sobs. “We have a job to do. That’s why we’re here. I’ll be okay.”

“This guy right here”—Mustang pointed with her hoof—“he’s getting a rootbeer float when we get back.” She moved to Sideralis’ side and gave his neck a friendly nuzzle. “That’s the spirit… we’ve got a job to do. Just hold it together and when this is over, we’ll all be there for you when you need to let it out.”

“Thanks.” Sideralis gave a nod and felt a little better. He didn’t feel ashamed. He loved and trusted these ponies, they were going to see him at his best and his worst. These were his friends.

Overhead, the clouds drifted as the wind picked up. The nearby olive trees rustled in the wind. The breeze carried a sweet scent that did nothing to cover up the smell of burnt bugs. The smoking remains oozed green ichor and severed limbs lay scattered.

“What’s next, Mjölna?” Apple Bloom asked.

“We get our shit together, that’s what’s next,” was Mjölna’s terse reply. “After we get our shit together, we’re going to investigate more of this island before we move further in towards the main island.”

“We cut them down a lot quicker than I thought we would.” Mustang looked down at her front hooves. “There’s been some significant upgrades. We’ve been trusted with a lot of power—”

“All the more reason to keep our shit together,” Mjölna snapped.

The wind tousled Mustang’s mane and she nodded. Sideralis was calming down a bit and Mustang looked over at Stout. It was clear that her sister was hurting, going through her own emotional crisis. Stout never liked hurting or killing anything. Mustang left Sideralis’ side and went to Stout.

She pressed her snoot against Stout’s neck, inhaled, and then blew a raspberry against her sister’s flesh. There was a delay, but Mustang was rewarded with a laugh. Mustang looked her sister in the eye. “I can be a bit of a bitch sometimes… I don’t mean to be… it just.. happens… I’m still so angry and when a chance comes for me to vent, I just let go and do it… I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Stout said as she wiped her muzzle. “You were right. There’s a lot I need to learn about Sid. Maybe you can share some of your insight with your sister…”

“I’d like that,” Mustang replied. “He’s my friend too. And so are you. At least I hope you still are… I was kind of a bitch.”

Stout nodded. “But it needed to be said.” she cleared her throat, let out a grunt, and looked over at Mjölna. “We need to stow our shit and get our act together. Let’s get Sid up on his hooves so we can get moving.”

Mustang nodded. “Sure thing, Sis.”

Wide eyed, Apple Bloom, who had watched and listened to everything, began to sniffle. “I miss my sister… I miss her so much. That’s why I’m doing this… for her… I want her to be proud of me… those were the best moments of my life… when my sister was proud of me. I wish she was here.”

“Come on, all of you… we need to get moving.” Mjölna’s wings snapped out and she began to circle the group. “Enough navel gazing… let’s go…”

Author's Notes:

Next chapter... the thick of it.