It's been a day since I woke up in Ponyville, two days since my arrival in Equestria, and myself, the members of the resistance I first met, and those in Ponyville who wished to help us fight in the front lines were preparing to leave, the ones who didn't wish to fight having gone on ahead with some escorts of changelings yesterday just after I woke up.

Fluer and myself were currently making sure the new recruits would be at the center of our formation. Silver was out, talking with the various Caribou females. I don't know how, but she seemed to know just how to talk to them. As it turns out, there were actually a few Caribou females who were on the level mares were before the fall. Moondancer had actually found a few abandoned children, Pony and Caribou, and, surprisingly, a few of the mares who left yesterday adopted a few, and even a few who are leaving today. Also turns out she was taking to being an adoptive mother quite well, even naming the two she had volunteered to take care of two days ago. I didn't know what she named them, I haven't seen her personally yet since I took off to save Fleur from Dainn's enforcers, though I had heard that she got along well with others.

"I say we have changeling scouts along the exterior," I said. "They can easily turn into Caribou soldiers, which may give us an advantage if they send hunters after us."

"I don't know," Fleur said. "I mean wiht you, I doubt any but Dainn's best hunters would try to bring us in."

I chuckled. "You rely on one's reputation too much," I say. "If reputation was everything, then Celestia and the Guard would have defeated the Caribou, and we wouldn't be here today."

"I suppose," Fleur said, sighing. "But we would still have an issue near Sweet Apple Acres."

"What?"

"According to Applejack, her sister, and her brother, the Caribou deemed it an area to grow rape vines, and that's just one problem. There are a few purple collar mares we found out in the Everfree not long after we took the town. Oh, and we found these two," she said, using her much more powerful magic to hold two unicorns I want to gut oh so much up, "in the barn, trying to rape four of the mares Big Macintosh took in."

"Why am I not surprised the Flim Flam brothers are those two," I say, glaring at the two. In a very amusing twist of fate and irony, though one I didn't condone, publicly, that is, both stallions had ball gags in their mouth, their horns cut off, that I was against full force, but had already been done when I learned of it, and various other. . . things I will only say involve doctors and rubber. Let your imaginations run wild, you with sick minds! No offense intended, trying to make a joke, and I got a dry sense of humor.

"What do you want done with them?"

I seriously thought of killing them, but the aforementioned doctors already did something worse. I heard there was a lot of blood, anger, and screaming. "I think it best if the Apples determine what is to be done with the two," I say. "It is they these two wronged the most, even before the fall."

"I thought you'd decide that, Mau'ual, which is why I asked Silver to ask them that, and bring them here so they can see it."

In fact, just as she said it, I heard hoofsteps behind us, the eyes of the two brothers going wide at that, and turned to see Silver, armor on as per fucking usual, Big Mac, who had on Legionary armor, which actually worked on him, and Applejack, wearing the same.

"Ah'll be damned," Applejack said. "Y'all really did get those varmints."

"And you get to decide what their punishments going to be," Silver said, lacking any emotion. I knew she was doing this as some kind of defense, she never liked punishment, and this was her way of coping with it.

"So, what will it be," I asked the two, and they remained silent before turning away and speaking to one another in hushed whispers. They turned back around, and it was Big Mac who answered.

"Nothin'." This got surpise from each of us, but I nodded.

"If that is what you both wish," I say, to which they nodded. "Val De Lis, keep those two restrained, and leave them in Town Hall. If they're lucky, the Caribou will get here before they starve. We will do what the Apples wish us to do to them. Nothing."

"Right," she said, nodding, before walking off to Town Hall, the two former stallion in her magical grasp.

"How are you two doing?" I asked.

"Good," Applejack said. "Why are you helping us?"

"If by 'us', you mean mares, it is because, in my world, before I was born, there was something similar. It ended long before my birth, but many still practice it illegally. I never liked those who enslaved others, even if it is willing." I turned to look at the two. "I assumed you still hated me for what I did when I arivved," I say to the Element of Honesty.

"Ah do," she said, glaring at me.

"I thought so," I say with a small chuckle. "An honest question for you two: when you found out the Caribou used a spell to turn many stallions against mares, how did you see your friends who became, for lack of a better term, fuck happy?"

"Most of them actually apologized ta us," Big Mac said.

"And the red collars?" I ask.

"Sluts who deserve everything they get," Applejack said.

"I see why you are not Loyalty," I say. "You do know many of them did so simply to keep some semblance of their old life before the fall, correct, or because they knew they would be caught eventually? It is because of thinking like that, closed mind and stubborn to a fault, that can bring much danger. It has happened many a time where I come from." Need I point out the Vietnam War, which America lost because, among other things, we thought we were superior to all? "But that is a discussion best saved for another time. For now, do you know the location of the other Elements?"

"Jus' 'bout," Applejack said. "Rainbow was taken ta Cloudsdale to be one of the Wonderbolt's 'Stress relievers'," she said, saying the title with scorn and contempt. " The others were taken to tha Empire ta be Shining Armor's. . . well, you know, a bout a week ago."

"What can you tell me about the Empire," I asked, as that was going to be my first target as one of the resistance's leader, after a few small raids and such, of course.

"That it was the first actual city the Caribou took," Applejack said. "It was thanks ta Cadence, the slut she is, and Shining Armor, her husband, and even my best friends brother, that we failed."

"You did not fail," I said, getting a look of surprise from the mare. "You are an Element, Applejack, and you never gave up. You not giving up, Rainbow Dash not giving up, and even the Princesses fighting in their own way, whether they know it or not, is the reason you are free today. The payoff to something is not always instantly seen, and the longer the wait is, the more it is. And I swear, we will help your friends return to some semblance of their pre-fall minds." By which I mean that I will try to get them to see that fighting to bring the old Equestria back is best, whether or not they act like sluts afterwards being their own choice.

Before I could add anything, though, Silver walked up. "Mau'ual, we have an issue," she whispered.

"What?"

"Some former red collar mares and does," as in the female kind; I figured if there would be female Caribou involved here, they should have something non-insulting for their gender, "are refusing to move, saying that, even with you and them in this fight, we'll lose."

"Where?"

"The library." Great. Just. Fucking (no pun meant). Great. "Some even ditched the armor, and began to start a small orgy. Stallions are there, too."

"I'll fix it," I growled. Shepard, if you are a real person in some universe, give me the strength to make a damned good speech!

I made my way to the library, with the other three behind me. Fortunately, the crowd was small. Unfortunately, there was an orgy taking place. Over Spike's corpse, of all places. Jeez, and I thought humans were bad. You know I'm right!

I stopped at the crossroads that led to the library and Town Hall, and stomped on the ground with enough force to get all of their attention.

"What is with you all?" I ask. "You are free of the Caribou, mares from the collars, stallions from their mind control, so why do you insist on pertaining to their ways? In public, no less, around and on the body of one of Equestria's heroes from before this happened, and who was this town's leader afterwards! You dishonor him by doing this."

"Why should we care what you think?!" a mare yelled as she jerked a stallion off. "We don't even have a hope without all the Elements, and even then, we would lose!"

"Because I am not the Elements," I say with a wave of my hand as if I was cutting something horizontally. "And even so, it was the Element of Honesty and the Element of Loyalty who did not, have not, given in to the Caribou. Even Princess Luna and Princess Celestia fight, in their own way! It is because of them, and how they ruled, that this rebellion started! What do you think they would think of you all, right now, if they saw you, and the Caribou hadn't taken over? And for you, the female Caribou, you need not act like this! Is how mares acted before your so called 'King' arrived a testament to what females can do! It does not matter what has happened before between the pony and Caribou, of which I am certain there is something, or the Caribou could have gone to the Griffons. Regardless, what matters now is what we do today, not what we plan, not what we have done. How many of you mares surrendered, not because you wanted to be used like toys, but because you were trying to save your families, keep your lives the way they were before!" I yelled, making a fist and pounding it once over my left torso, where the dragonblood print lay. "Look at what came of that, how far you have fallen from that! There is a reason why Equestria lasted as long as it did as a nation, and why the resistance still fights for that."

It was then, to my surprise, Silver spoke up. "He is right, my sisters," she said. "I have been with the resistance since the beginning, and have seen what females are capable of, pony and Caribou. The resistance never stops fighting for what they believe. They simply wish to bring Equestria back to what it was." Then, she did the one thing I did not expect. She reached up to her head, and removed the helmet. "They wish to free the mares of their people, while I wish to restore our government to what it was before the bucks took over!" the now revealed Caribou female said, fire in her eyes. "We were once proud like the alicorns of Equestria, and the buck's simple greed caused this! I am the true inheritor of the Caribou throne, and, as such, when we win, we will return to what we once were, does and bucks equal! I ask you, as a fellow Caribou, to join me, and bring our kind back from what we have become. Who will join me, if any?" As the last sentence left her mouth, I saw a strange, black aura radiate off both me and Silver, and spread out among the town. Wonder what that is.

The stallions, mares, and does were silent for a time until, to my surprise, a doe that had mounted a stallion got up off him, stepped away from him, and said, "I will, sister."

"As well as I," a second said, standing beside the first. Those two were the catalysts, and, eventually, the other does, numbering ten, followed, and they were soon followed by the mares and stallions.

"We are going to have a talk about this," I say to Silver. "Later, though, once we get to the hive."

"I can live with that," the female Caribou said, just as a changeling came running up, out of breath.

"Sir," he said in between gasps. "We have a problem."

"What is it?"

"The Caribou Army has been sighted, and will reach the town before we can depart. They brought the mares they enslaved already, thinking they'll win," he said. "But that isn't the worst part?"

"What is, then?"

"Dainn is with them."

Author's Notes:

Yep. I made Silver a Caribou. [Hate shield active]