Worried for his friend, Gosling stood over Seville, watching as a medic began the labourious task of patching up the bloodied earth pony. Gosling gave no thought to his own wounds. All around him, his fellow soldiers were helping the wounded and rounding up the attackers. Pillars of smoke rose up into the sky and the acrid stench of things burning made everypony’s eyes water.

“I want recon patrols established immediately!” Hotspur barked. “I want these farmhouses around here checked! We need to know if those families are okay! Establish a perimeter! These pegasi came in hard and fast so check everything for a one wing radius!”

“Aye aye, Captain Hotspur!” a pegasus replied.

Turning to face his new friend, Gosling looked Hotspur in the eye. “You never told me you were a captain… I failed to address you as my superiour officer—”

“Stow it, soldier,” Hotspur said in a commanding voice. Some of his accent was gone, but not completely. He surveyed the world around him with a steely-eyed gaze, and his rage burned in his eyes like live coals. “You need to get some blood-stop on those wings.”

“I’m fine.” Gosling extended his wings and took a look. He didn’t like what he saw. Deep cuts, missing feathers, some of his injuries were gruesome to look at. Perhaps it was worse than he thought. With his adrenaline so spiked as it was, the pain seemed numbed, distant, but he was feeling it now that he looked at it. His lip curled back from his teeth as he hissed.

“Princess Luna said she would give me lashes if I failed to look after yous.” Hotspur spotted a medic hurrying along and shouted, “Hey, ya mug, yous get over here!”

The unicorn hustled over to Hotspur, who pointed at Gosling. Seeing Gosling’s wings, the unicorn pulled out a cannister of blood stop powder, and right away, he began sprinkling the powder over Gosling’s wings, applying a heavy dusting. Gosling sneezed.

The styptic powder had a marvellous cooling effect and Gosling’s wings now felt chilly. He stood with his wings out, extended, allowing the breeze to blow against his ribs. He felt a little shaky, a little dizzy, and his head was starting to ache. His wings were now dusted with white and streaked with crimson as the trickling blood scabbed over. Grooming his wings later was going to suck, of that there could be no doubt.

“Captain!” an earth pony shouted as he came running up. “Good news! We’ve made a very important capture!” The earth pony was breathless, his sides were heaving, and his eyes were glazed over with pain. “He’s still being subdued. He’ll be brought to you in a hot minute!”

“Good job,” Hotspur replied.

Turning his head, Gosling looked over at Bon Bon, who was getting a nasty gash wrapped up in gauze. He stared at her for a moment, and then, in a low voice said, “I’m guessing that you aren’t a candy maker.”

“Oh, I am,” Bon Bon replied, “but I am also special agent Sweetie Drops.” She gave Gosling a weary smile as the medic continued his work. “You delivered the very dispatch to me that told me to be prepared for this trip. It’s nice that Princess Celestia has found somepony to love.” The mare looked over at her green unicorn companion, and saw that she was busy binding somepony’s wounds. “That’s special agent Lyra. We’re both agents of S.M.I.L.E. You can expect to be hearing from us soon, Private Gosling. Ex Ignis Amicitiae.”

“Wait, yous is from the signal corps?” Gosling looked at the mare with unabashed astonishment.

“No,” Bon Bon replied, “but that is where we do about ninety nine percent of our recruitment.” She turned to look at Gosling. “Every now and then, we find a pony that makes for a worthy agent that isn’t from an intelligence background, and we recruit them. Like my friend, Lyra.”

“Wait, what’s this S.M.I.L.E. thing?” Gosling asked.

“You’ll find out soon, Private Gosling.” Bon Bon gave Gosling a wink, a nod, and a smile.

Lifting his head, Gosling watched as patrols began to take off. The situation was coming under control. A guard was being posted around the ruined, derailed train. Unicorns were using suffocation spells to put out the fire. There were times that Gosling envied magic. A simple air tight shield bubble spell that had all of the air inside of it sucked out had a wide variety of applications, and not just for subduing ponies.

Looking over to his left at the sounds of a struggle, Gosling saw a familiar pony being dragged through the dirt towards Captain Hotspur. It was the pony who had demanded that his tongue be cut out. Unable to help himself, Gosling laughed. It wasn’t a haughty laugh, or even an arrogant laugh.

One of the pegasi that was dragging the prisoner stopped and saluted Captain Hotspur. He stood, a rough grin upon his scarred face, and when the prisoner snarled, the pegasus kicked him in the face, causing the captured pony to groan in pain.

“Captain Hotspur, I present you with former Captain Tarbean.”

“Look alive fellas, we has ourselves a traitor here.” There was something mean and dangerous sounding in Hotspur’s voice, something unpleasant that held the promise of violence. And not common, garden variety violence, but terrible, horrible, awful inner city violence. There were no curbs here, but the rails might do in a pinch.

The prisoner stared up, his eyes glittering with hatred. The two pegasi glared at one another, both of them seething, each of them had murder in their eyes. Hotspur looked away and turned to face Hush. After a moment, Hotspur’s gaze fell upon Gosling. After short time spent in thoughtful contemplation, he returned his attention to the prisoner, known as Tarbean.

“This changes things,” Hotspur said in a low, quiet voice. “You ain’t some civie that we has to subdue. No… you's a turncoat and a traitor. Oh, we’re gonna do things to yous… bad things. Real bad things. We has our own way of doing things in the Broncs, don’t we Gosling?”

Stepping forward, Gosling nodded. “Captain, do we has a padlock and a pillowcase?”

“No,” Hotspur replied, “We has a Hush though.”

“That’ll do, Captain.” Gosling’s teeth clinched and the muscles in his jaw clenched.

“Ain’t nothing worse than a turncoat and a traitor,” a nearby earth pony said as she stood watching. She stood in the middle of a growing crowd of bloodied, battered looking hard cases, all of whom looked hungry for more violence.

“We need him alive,” Bon Bon said in a fearful voice.

“Don’t get your tail in a knot.” Hotspur’s wings flapped against his sides. “He’s gonna live… but he ain’t gonna wanna live.” Hotspur looked over at Hush and gave a nod. “Hush, see that he is made cooperative.”

No sooner had the words left Hotspur’s mouth than the big draconic hybrid pony responded. A wing shot out, unfurling with terrific speed, and the end of it connected with the side of Tarbean’s face. The prisoner rolled over, writhed on the ground, but didn’t make a sound.

“We has ourselves a tough guy here.” Captain Hotspur frowned, shook his head, and then spat on the ground near where the prisoner kicked and twitched. He stepped back, glanced over at Bon Bon, who was now scowling, and then returned his attention to Tarbean.

“You turned against the sisters… why?” Gosling demanded.

Not far from Gosling, Seville snapped a picture and an automated quill was scratching down every word said into a notebook. The bloody, battered earth pony had a look of grim determination upon his face, and there was anger as well. He had suffered at the hooves of the attackers.

There was no answer from Tarbean and this made Gosling angry. Hotspur, seeing anger on Gosling’s face, made a gesture at Hush. The big draconic pegasus stood over Tarbean and began prodding the prisoner’s back, just behind his wing joints. After a few pokes, he smashed his hoof right into the tender place between the ribs and the hip bones, and just below the spine.

This time, Tarbean shrieked in agony as his legs kicked and scissored. He let out a pained wail, which subsided into wheezing, gasping panting as he curled up into a fetal position.

“Future Prince Gosling asked yous a question. Yous would be wise to answer. Hush, if this clown don’t answer, I want you to do that again.” Hotspur let out a cruel, heartless sounding laugh. “He’s gonna be pissing blood for a week.”

“Hey…” Gosling found himself in an odd position. As much as he hated the pony laying on the ground, this felt wrong. He didn’t like the way Bon Bon was staring at him and he didn’t much care for the look of disapproval on her face. Gosling took a step forwards and stood beside Hotspur. “No more of that… if we start torturing them, they’ll start torturing us, if they capture us.”

“They already do,” Hotspur replied as he scowled at Gosling. “One of our scouts had his feathers plucked.”

Rage bubbled through Gosling’s mind and in that moment, he knew that if he gave the order to have Tarbean beaten or killed, the soldiers present would rush to do it. It bothered him that he was tempted. He thought about the attack, he could smell the burning, the stench of blood was heavy in the air, and the former Captain Tarbean had turned upon the sisters.

“Why did you do it?” Gosling asked. “What did you think you would accomplish? Do you understand how stupid you are? Seville didn’t even need his camera… Princess Luna could go into any of our minds and discover just what your faces look like, and your voices. You’ve picked a fight that you can’t win.”

“And that is why we fight,” Tarbean said in a weak, whimpering voice. “This is tyranny… we have no choice but to obey them… to do everything they say… we have no means to resist them… we have no means tell them no. The sisters rule over us all, whether we want them to or not. We have no choice, we have no voice, we have no option but to do as we are told… and that is tyranny. There will never be equality as long as they continue to rule… the three tribes were united and sought equality, but one tribe still remains above the others.”

“You don’t even understand what the sisters protect us from… they’re not tyrants,” Gosling replied, shaking his head. “We are free to do as we please. They’re not holding us down. We have our own sense of agency.”

“Not from where I see things, even now, I am being oppressed—”

“You just attacked us and probably killed a bunch of your former brothers and sisters!” Gosling snapped. For a moment, he was certain that he was going to lose his temper, he was positive that the command to have Tarbean beaten or killed would slip out of his mouth. He took a step back, sucked in a deep breath, and fell silent. This was not a time to debate politics.

“This whole equalist movement is a bunch of bunk.” Hotspur shook his head. “What it really is, is a thinly veiled pony supremacy movement that has managed to con a bunch of weak minded idiots into believing Starlight Glimmer’s misguided notions about equality. Yous guys hijacked her movement, twisted its already messed up ideals, and then yous made it worse. Now you prey upon the weak minded, the morons, the soft headed types, yous feed them this stream of garbage about equality and tyranny, and you’s advancing your own messed up agenda, hoping to somehow gain your own private little kingdom.”

“They believed that by capturing Gosling, they would have a bargaining chip.” Bon Bon moved to stand beside Gosling and she looked down at the prisoner. “You wanted concessions, a platform to make a statement, and an exchange of captured prisoners. You believed that Princess Celestia would agree to your demands so that you would return the one she loves.”

Turning his head, Tarbean glared up at Bon Bon, hatred visible in his eyes.

“You go out and you recruit among the homeless, the helpless, and the desperate. It was easy to infiltrate your little cult. It was easy to to locate your cells. We have agents everywhere. You aren’t as clever as you think.” Bon Bon gave the pony on the ground a sad shake of her head. “You’ve made deals with the crime families of Manehattan. You’ve conspired with others. And I’m almost certain that with enough time and effort, we’re going to find ties between you and the press… your goal is instability. By making the sisters look bad, by making them look like they have no control, or that their control is slipping, you can draw more and more ponies to your cause, a cause that leads to a dead future, a dead world, as there is no life and no world without the sisters.”

Gosling’s eyes narrowed as he pondered Bon Bon’s words. This was a different sort of war and it didn’t have conventional battlefields. If this was going to be fought, then the conditions that made ponies receptive to the messages of the equalists would need to be addressed, to be dealt with. Poverty would need to be addressed. The homeless, the helpless, and the desperate would have to be dealt with. The causes would have to be addressed.

It was a war of ideologies.

Author's Notes:

Next chapter... Gosling goes north.