“Patty cake, patty cake, baker's mare,” Starlight and Sucker Pop chanted, in unison and with gleeful smiles, seated as they clapped each others' and their own hooves in a rhythm, “Bake me a cake as fast as you care; pat it and shape it and mark it with 'B', and bake it in the oven for baby and me." The centaurs were surprisingly fast in building that fort they'd wanted. It helped that there were plenty of abandoned mud brick buildings in Athon that could be broken down and reconstructed into a basic palisade and keep, the latter of which she resided in with the rest of the party, and found surprisingly cozy, especially near the fireplace. “Patty cake, patty cake, baker's mare. Bake me a cake as fast as you care; roll it up, roll it up; and bake it with a pear! Patty cake, patty cake, baker's mare.”

“I still do not understand you Equestrians' obsession with sweet pastries,” the Wanderer said, still standing over a wooden table and studying the crude topographic map of the Wasteland that they'd snatched from the Athon libraries.

“Oh, if only you had a normal sense of taste,” Starlight replied, “then you'd understand.” She paused. “You've been looking at that thing non-stop for hours. Why don't you take a break? I have some nice board games over here that the filly is a bit too… disadvantaged to play.”

“Miss Luna and Mister Rat are coming any time now. I would like to be prepared.”

“Come on. You know what they say about all work and no play.”

“Hmm…” He looked to Starlight. “Perhaps I can do one game. Which one did you have in mind?”

“Well…” She turned her head to the right, which was stacked with three wooden boxes containing board games. The mayor of Athon happened to have a collection of them in the town hall, which doubled as his home, so naturally, the collection was now theirs. As she stood up, she levitated the stack and walked over to the table, where she laid the boxes next to each other on the table. The boxes creaked as she pried them open. “We have chess, checkers, and chutes and ladders.”

“I have never heard of those games.”

With magic, and a smile on her face, she lifted up the first box's contents. A granite chess board painted in the usual black and white pattern, and chess pieces made of glass, which she set neatly down on the table. “This one's chess. I think you'd like this one. I know I do. Easy to learn, but hard to master.”

Suddenly, she heard a booming female voice laughing from the other side of the cloth curtain which covered the entrance. “Chess?” the voice said. “We, ourselves, are an avid fan of chess. May we play?”

Starlight looked in the voice's direction, where she saw the curtain being pulled aside by a dark blue aura, revealing the grinning face of the Princess of Night, herself, clad in full plate armor as black as death, but a bit shorter than she'd expected.

The Wanderer snapped his gaze to the Princess. “Ah. Princess Luna. I was not informed of your arrival.”

Luna's grin shrunk down to a bitter frown as she took glances at Starlight and the Wanderer. “So the rumors are true. Two new alicorns, with neither the approval of ourselves nor our sister.” She took harsh, deliberate steps into the room, then locked her eyes onto Starlight, examining her from top to bottom with cynical detachment. “You are built like our sister, and dressed even more frivolously. Starlight Glimmer, I take it?”

Starlight nodded with a polite smile. “Yes.” She extended a hoof for a hoofshake. “Starlight Glimmer, at your service.”

Luna, with a sardonic expression, reluctantly accepted her gesture, then looked to the Wanderer to examine him the same way she examined Starlight. She shook her head and sighed. “A male, Imperial alicorn. In armor with about the same color palette as our sister's.” She paused, then groaned. “What is the world coming to?”

“It is a pleasure meeting you too, Princess.”

“You would not be the commander of these forces, would you?”

“I am afraid so, your pleasantness.”

“Great!” She turned herself to the table in a huff. “Just what we needed. A superpowered psycho in charge of an entire army.”

“Better a superpowered psycho than a superpowered social retard.”

Luna charged her horn with a humming blue orb, powerful enough to send vibrating waves through the air and glared at the Wanderer with utter searing hatred. “You want to fight, you slovenly beast? DO YOUR WORST.”

The Wanderer charged his own horn, and stared down at Luna with it pointed to her. “My plan exactly.”

Starlight wedged her way between the Wanderer and Luna, and pushed them away from each other in a frantic haste. “Break it up!” Both their horns ceased their glows. “We're supposed to be allies, and here you two are fighting over petty nonsense like children not one minute after meeting each other.” She looked to the Wanderer first. “Look, I know Princess Luna hasn't made the best first impression, but being snarky with her isn't gonna make things any better. She clearly thinks you're too malicious and untrustworthy to work with, and you're only proving her right by acting this way.” She then turned to Princess Luna. “And you, I know it isn't easy to accept what's in front of you, and I understand why you would make those assumptions about my friend here, but you should at least give him a chance. He's on your side, after all. That has to count for something. Do you think your sister would approve of you being so closed-minded?”

Luna looked away and sighed. “No.”

“Okay then.” She took a fast stride backward. “Now, apologize, please. Both of you.”

The two stared at each other in silence, until Luna spoke first. “We apologize, good sir, for our uncouth behavior.”

“And I as well, Princess,” he said, extending a hoof for a shake.

“Hm. Perhaps you are not as uncivilized as we thought you were,” she said as she returned the gesture. “Let us start over then, shall we?” They broke the hoofshake and set their hooves back down. “We call ourselves Princess Luna. Lord of Night, Goddess of the Moon, second-in-command of the Equestrian Armed Forces. Who might you be?”

“You may simply call me 'Wanderer', your highness.”

“Wanderer?” She looked to Starlight. “Does your companion not have a proper name?”

“No. He doesn't. We've known each other for a really long time now, and we still haven't found it out.” She paused. “I might just give him one at this rate,” she muttered.

“So,” the Wanderer said to Luna, “second-in-command? Would that make your sister first-in-command?”

“Correct.”

“Would you explain why she is absent, then?”

She hesitated. “We are afraid our sister has taken the death of Miss Sparkle rather poorly. She lies in her chamber bed in fetal position, uttering some incomprehensible babble about an absurd alternate universe where Discord is her servant and Princess Cadance is married to Miss Sparkle's older brother. We cannot imagine why. Miss Sparkle should not have been going around chasing windmills because a silly map told her to.”

“I see. Give her our condolences once this war is finished, would you?”

She nodded. “We will. We thank you for your concern. It is most appreciated.” Her horn glowed, and the boxes of board games were lifted off the table, then set down against the brick wall. “So, what do you know of the enemy army, Wanderer?”

“Well, there are six Legions, bolstered by a far greater number of auxiliaries. A Legion is commanded by a Legate, and is ma-”

“We know of your basic command structure. Adopted from the ancient Romulan system, and has been modified relatively little since.”

Starlight looked to Luna. “You remember the ancient Romulans?”

Luna looked back to her. “We do. A brutal society in its own right, but it at least treated its slaves with a modicum of respect and dignity, and was quite advanced in the sciences, arts, and humanities for its day.”

“How did it fall?”

“It was already in a state of instability and turmoil, but Planetvoid's wars of conquest were what locked the Romulan Empire in its tomb.” She sighed. “This place was not so unrelentingly ghastly until Planetvoid showed his face here. An utterly repulsive individual if there ever was one. He destroyed lives by the thousands, he crushed what little joy this place had under an iron hoof, and in a final act of cruelty, he bestowed his conquered lands with unimaginative and downright silly names. Once banished to this place, he conquered it; ruled it as a tyrant for millenia; sealed it in a cultural and technological time capsule. He was finally struck down in battle, not long before my own fall from grace.” She paused. “We had a choice, you know, between the moon and this place. You know why we chose the moon?”

“I dunno. Why?”

“Because deep inside, we did not want to be corrupted further.” She paused. “You understand now, why we were apprehensive about trusting your friend. But now that we see that friendship has touched even him, our faith in this place has been restored. Now, we shall digress no further.” She looked down to the map on the table. “What do you know of the enemy positions, Wanderer?”

“I have not received the scout reports yet. They are due today.”

A raspy and tin Ruusonian voice from the other side of the curtain said, “You'll be getting them right now.” When Starlight looked to the entrance with the rest of them, they saw an elderly gray pegasus with a scraggly white beard push the curtain aside and enter the room in strides, staggered by a limp in one of his back legs. The white rat's head cowl sported beady black glass eyes, whiskers plucked from cats' faces, and buck teeth fashioned from grinded bone. The rest of his body was covered in a flowing gray cloak. Comrade Bright followed closely behind him, in saddlebags.

“Greetings, Elder Big Rat,” the Wanderer said, “we meet again at last.”

“Yeah, greetings to you too, ya jerk.”

As they waited for Rat to limp his way to the table, Starlight walked up close to the Wanderer so she could whisper to him. “That's him?”

“Correct.”

“What's wrong with his leg?”

“Hey lady,” Rat growled, “I'm right here. Maybe try bein' sneaky with a guy who ain't head of a goddamn spy organization.”

'And I thought Luna was bad at introductions,' Starlight thought to herself.

“And about my leg, ain't your business.” After he finally made his way to the table, he lifted a shaky hoof up and let it drop onto a place in the middle of the map. “The Empire has all its forces north of the river here. Weren't expectin' Equestrian intervention. They got all the Ruusoinian auxiliaries, a small chunk of their Byzuntonians, and all their Legions just north of the bridge, near Benn. Most of the Byzontonians are further east, closer to this position, defending outside Byzuntam, eighty k strong.”

Luna looked to Rat. “Do you know of their numbers?”

“Legions number about thirty k. Don't sneeze at that number, missy; one a' theirs is worth ten a' yours, at least. Ferocious, bloodthirsty, disciplined, hard to rout, hits your lines like a hammer on an egg shell. You wanna avoid a close-up fight with 'em if possible.”

“Hmm. And what of ranged weapons?”

“Unless you're packing serious heat, worthless. They got a specific formation for dealing with that. 'Turtle-shield.' Each century bunches itself up real tight and covers itself in rectangular shield spells. Takes way too much firepower to beat in mass, and even when they're not in that specific formation, they're real good at blocking things individually.”

The Wanderer tapped a place on the map with a hoof. “You want to keep your forces fortifying the south side of the bridge, Princess. The best way to fight the Empire is to starve it. Of funds, and of food, both of which are in short supply for them already.”

“And of nearby Brustworth?”

“How many soldiers do you have at your disposal?”

“Four hundred thousand.”

“And how many of them are professional?”

“Only about ten thousand. The rest are conscripts and fresh enlistees.”

“Do not storm it. It is not worth the number in losses. Instead, suffocate it. Split your force, one part depriving Brustworth of inward and outward traffic, and a much larger part defending the bridge crossing.”

Luna looked to the Wanderer. “We see. And what will you be doing?”

He looked back to her. “I will be attacking the defenders head-on and taking Byzuntam by storm. Ours are far superior to Byzuntonian auxiliaries as fas as I can tell, and only outnumbered two to one. Yet another blow to the Imperial coffers.”

Luna, with her lips drawn down on one side, raised an eyebrow. “Storming a city? While outnumbered two to one?” She paused. “We hope you know what you are doing. Unless the number of those escaping pursuit to within the safety of the walls is utterly minuscule, we cannot imagine such an operation resulting in anything but failure.”

“Trust me, Princess. I do not intend to let retreat be so simple for them.”

Luna turned to Big Rat. “And how many auxiliaries are with the Legions?”

“A hundred k Ruusonians, and twenty k Byzuntonians.”

“And how would we deal with keeping our own troops fed and hydrated?”

The Wanderer tapped on the map again. “The river is perfectly safe for drinking. As for food, your own supply train should remain unobstructed, and you can always extort the local farmers for food in a pinch.”

“We fear our soldiers will have moral qualms with taking food from farmers who just want to make ends' meet.”

“Have a thousand years in the moon made you forget, Princess? This is war. Nobody gets out of this with his conscience squeaky-clean.”

“Hm. You are correct. Further incentive for us to secure the safety of supply trains, we suppose. Will that be all, Wanderer?”

“Do you have any further concerns?”

“No. We believe that we will be able to function well enough with the information which we were given. We will make further planning in our own camp.”

“Then I bid you farewell, Princess Luna.”

She nodded. “Very well then. It has been a pleasure meeting you, Wanderer, Starlight Glimmer, Big Rat.”

Everyone watched Luna slip her way past the curtain, and after waiting several moments afterward, the Wanderer looked to Elder Rat. “Now, there are a few more components to this plan for your eyes only, which Miss Glimmer and I have discussed at length and agreed upon wholly, and for how vital they are to success, I would rather not speak them aloud for reasons of security.”

His horn glowed, and from under the table, he pulled a pen and paper, which he set down on the table to write. 'Oh, this is going to be so, so sweet,' Starlight thought to herself. She watched as he wrote, and although his handwriting was far too small and tight to read from several feet away, she knew exactly what was being written on that paper. Once he filled the page with the detailed orders, he gave it some gentle waving in the air. Afterwards, he bent it in half twice, first vertically then horizontally, and slipped it into a pocket in Big Rat's cloak.

“Thanks,” Rat said, “I'll read it when I get back to sanctuary. Anything else?”

“I have one more thing,” Starlight said to Rat. “Do you know who's in charge of the Imperial forces?”

“Not the Kaiser, that's for sure. The Legate, Snakefang Gelder, has been hoof-picked by the Kaiser, himself, to lead the entire operation.”

“Okay. That'll be all, Elder Big Rat.”

Starlight waited for the Elder to limp out of the room, then looked to the Wanderer beside her. “Do you know that guy, by any chance?”

“I do.” He paused. “We were peers, he and I. Both Centurions in the Second Legion's First Cohort. It seems he survived Hutten Hill with his ranks intact, and was not killed in decimation. I am not surprised. He was an extremely competent officer. An extremely savage and boisterous one, too.”

“So, you think he can be goaded into making a brash decision?”

“Back in my day, brash decisions were the only decisions he ever made. At least, he made it look that way. There is also a chance that he has calmed down with age.”

Her eyelids drooped halfway down. “Answer the question. Yes or no.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, I wanted to put Comrade Bright to some good use.”

“Oh, we do have him at our disposal, don't we?” He paused. “I would not expect the Legate to listen to any sort of reason, but I believe that a few others will.”

“Are you saying…”

“What you are guessing is probably accurate, but again, I cannot say it aloud for reasons of security.”

“But why? What's the obsession with writing things down?”

“The Secret Service has agents everywhere. Had I not met Big Rat before, I would not have been so confident in giving him the details of our plan.”

“So, everything you just said aloud… that was all…”

“False information? No. Just information that I am fairly sure the Empire already knows.”

“Oh~. I gotcha. Write up another letter for Bright, okay?”

“Of course.”

As he pulled another paper out from under the table to write on, her gaze drew to Bright. “You're gonna have quite the chat soon. Make sure you do a good job, okay? I would so dearly hate to have anything nasty happen to you.”

“Yes, ma'am.” When the second letter was folded and slipped into Bright's saddlebag, he galloped out of the room, with his steps echoing through the keep.

Starlight looked to the Wanderer again. “So, what are we going to do about the walls? We don't have any siege equipment.”

“Alicornhood has increased our magical potential several fold, remember? The walls are just target practice for us.”

“Oh, right! We do need to start practicing the bigger spells now, don't we?” She spread her wings, elated with how they felt extended in the air, and took a quick glance at each of them. “I'd like to practice with these bad girls as well.”

“It should be just instinct. Giving someone a pair of wings without the skills to use them would be a rather birdbrained thing to do.” He turned to the entrance, then began his walk out. “I look forward to seeing you in flight, Starlight.”

As Starlight retracted her wings and followed suit, she smiled as wide as a canyon and looked to Sucker Pop. “Come here, sweetie. Mommy want you to watch her fly.”

“Yay!” Sucker Pop cheered while getting up to follow Starlight. “Mommy fwy! Mommy fwy!”

Starlight smiled at the pretty orange sun setting on the western horizon. Her nostrils flared as she filled her expansive lungs with the fresh Wasteland air, and spread her wings, letting the breeze tickle her feathers.

“Go on,” the Wanderer said, standing a few meters away, “just do what feels natural.”

“You can do it, mommy!” cheered Sucker Pop next to him.

After a hearty puff, she bolted down the hill and left a trail of clouded dust behind her as she flapped her wings. In short time, she had liftoff at the first attempt. It was an invigorating feeling, flying freely in the air, not having gravity keep her grounded. Despite a few awkward jerks that kept her from getting past a low altitude, she had solid enough control to prevent an unintended crash landing. The Wanderer was right. It really was just instinct, and after she'd been in the air long enough to get used to the feeling, she found herself flying circles around the camp as well as any natural-born pegasus.

“Yay!” Sucker Pop's cheers echoed in the air for Starlight to hear. “Mommy fwy! Mommy fwy! Mommy fwy!”

Starlight was exhilarated and giddy with laughter as, with the wind blowing in her face, she finally climbed so high up that the Wanderer and Sucker Pop looked like ants below her. “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Next Chapter: Chapter 18 Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 9 Minutes