"John, wake up," Chaser's voice calls to me from the end of my bed waking me from my slumber. Groaning I reluctantly sit up and rub my eyes. "Well you certainly look better then you did yesterday. Did the Princesses heal you again?"

Yawning I stretch my arms as I glance to Chaser, "Yeah, Luna patched me up again. What time is it?"

"It's 10:15. The Princesses will be going in a couple of hours, the Prime Minister has also requested to see you before they leave."

"Did he mention why?" Chaser gives a single shrug as his response. "Wow, you're so helpful, Chaser."

"I'm not your secretary, John."

"No shit, you'd be a terrible secretary. You wouldn't do any work, you'd just sit at your desk reading porn."

Chaser scoffs as he shakes his head, "You find one magazine and you believe it's all I do."

Getting out of bed my leg buckles slightly from the sudden pressure however unlike the previous night I'm able to quickly correct it and stand with ease. "You're like my old mate, he had a massive collection of porn while we were on deployment. When there was a mortar attack on the base he was devastated when he lost fifty magazines in a fire... that was nearly one-third of his entire collection."

"One hundred and fifty magazines!? Holy heck that's a lot of porn, surely you're exaggerating." Chasers voice shows his disbelief.

"Only by a little bit, that's the messed up thing."

"Well I haven't got a collection."

Chuckling I start to move towards the shower, "I bet if I search your room back in Ponyville I'd find tonnes of porno mags."

Chaser smirks as he moves to leave the room, "That would be an easy bet for me to win. Get showered and meet the Prime Minister, you can't exactly go when you've still got blood on you."

Lifting my hand I quickly examine it to see the dried blood which remains on the skin from when I removed the catheter yesterday. Entering the bathroom I close the door behind me and finally get an opportunity to clean up, despite Luna fixing my wounds the magic did nothing to clean any of the blood and dirt left on my skin. Stripping out of my boxers I jump straight into the shower to get cleaned up.

It takes some effort to scrub the dried blood and dirt away, it probably would have been a smarter idea to have cleaned up before I went to bed but since I was drugged I wasn't exactly thinking rationally. Once I'm finally clean I quickly leave the shower to change into a fresh set of clothing, leaving my MTP behind for a set of my guard uniform. Before leaving my room to meet the Prime Minister I give my boots and armour a quick polish to get them more presentable.

With my armour, webbing and holster equipped I reload my pistol magazines and make my way to meet Bernhard. I imagine he probably wants some sort of debrief from yesterdays assault, he should be satisfied that we apprehended Silverwing and were able to take out a major base of operations for the Children. Hopefully their activity should now die down, we should hopefully have been able to gain additional intelligence of other Children instillations within the area.

Reaching his office the Sergeant opens the door for me allowing me entry, once I'm inside he closes the door to allow the conversation within to remain private. Inside I find Bernhard and both Princess Celestia and Luna, coming to a stop on front of them all I rest my hand on my scabbard, "You wished to see me, sir?"

"That I did, Captain. First, I wanted to thank you for your efforts in leading the assault of the Children's base of operation, the attack was a success and has significantly crippled their operations. Not to mention we also have their leader, Silverwing in custody and a number of their high ranking members are either captured or were killed in the fighting. You have done great things for us, Griffonia will never forget your service."

Cocking a brow I step forward to his desk, "Griffonia?"

Bernhard nods as he rest back in his seat, "Well we are hoping to return to 'Griffonia' instead of the 'Griffin Empire.' It will illustrate our change from the expansionist period of our history, returning to the ways of old where Griffins aided on another instead of attempting to spread the ideology of the empire."

"Well it certainly sounds like an improvement to me."

"Wasn't your nation an empire?"" Berhard inquires as moves around a number of documents on his desk.

I nod as I relax my stance, "Yeah but the British Empire is now gone, two world wars put a lot of strain on it along with other issues. The 'end of the empire' only happened seventeen years ago, the idea of empires is an outdated notion now on Earth."

"All things must come to an end, it is the only way to start anew and improve what you already have." Picking up a number of documents he steps up to both Princesses and presents them to Luna who takes the letters in her magic. "Your Captain has been a tremendous aid in ensuring stability within the nation, his actions have shown how we can aid one another in times of uncertainty. These documents are a number of proposals for potential alliances and military treaties to allow further cooperation."

The two sisters glance to one another as they quickly look at the top form. Celestia bows her head to Berhard, "We shall have to discuss your proposals in private, we shall inform you of our decision at a later date."

"But of course, I wouldn't have expected anything else. It's only a few proposals to aid one another as a sign of friendship and support. You came to our aid, it's only fair that we return the favour when required." Moving to the window Bernhard stops as he looks outside, "We have one other issue which I wished to have your opinion on, Captain."

Moving around his desk I join him at the window, "And what is that?"

"Silverwing. Now that he's in custody we will have to find the best way to... deal with him. There are a number of options available to us. Are you aware of any of our laws or the justice system?"

"I'm not, no."

Bernhard rubs his beaks as he turns to face me, "In situations of treason and terrorism the accused can face execution, it's been a while since this has occurred but it is allowed within our laws. Either that or we can simply imprison him for life, I'm curious to hear your opinion on the matter."

"My opinion? No offense but I'm just a soldier. I've done my job, how you deal with him now is up to you."

"Believe it or not but you've gained a fair amount of fame and influence here, both from the war and your actions against the Children. Some would expect me to ask the individual who hunted him down and apprehended him on how we should deal with him. What you say isn't set in stone, Captain, I'm simply after your opinion."

Pausing I glance to Luna and Celestia who remain quiet as they watch. "Well... personally I think execution isn't exactly an effective punishment."

This seems to intrigue Berhard as he looks to me with interest, "How so?"

"Say for example I committed mass murder and treason, if I knew I was going to get executed then I know there would only be a limited time that I'm in prison until you kill me. In my opinion it's the easy way out, once you kill him then that's it. Lock him away in prison with terrible conditions and he will suffer and be forced to live out a long time in solitude. I don't know how your prisons operate but I reckon giving him an uncomfortable life until he dies of old age is a better punishment then just killing him. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to put a bullet square between his eyes but I reckon prison could be worse if it's done right. That's just my opinion, sir."

Bernhard seems satisfied with my answer as he slowly nods his head, "You raise a good point. The decision will be left to the courts once he stands trial, should they ask for your opinion I will be sure to share it. For now though I shall let you all get some lunch before the Princesses are due to leave." Turning to Celestia and Luna he bows his head, "I hope you have a safe journey back."

Celestia and Luna return the gesture. Raising her head again Celestia smiles to Bernhard, "Thank you for being an accommodating host, we shall be in touch shortly."

As myself and the Princesses leave the room we move out to the courtyard. Resting my hands in my pockets I let out a sigh, "Well that went well."

"That is did," Luna agrees. "It seems that Equestria has potentially gained an ally."

Celestia takes the documents from Luna's magical grip as she looks over them, "I'm not too certain about these military agreements."

Luna groans as she looks to Celestia, "You make it sound like something terrible will come from this."

"A military agreements can have all sorts of repercussions, other nations may see this as a move of aggression."

"Oh, you're being ridiculous. We had agreements in the past and nothing bad came from them."

I just stand there as I watch them go back and forth. Shaking her head Celestia flicks through the pages, "That was in the past, Luna. There are many issues now in adjacent territories which an agreement of this nature could escalate."

"This is just wild speculation, we can always look into the proposal and make amendments where needed."

Clearing my throat I step between them, "Luna is right, you can also make adjustments and send them back. There's no need to agree to everything that is on those papers. Why not just make a defensive pact?"

"A defensive pact?" Celestia inquires.

"Yeah, if someone invades on of the two nations then the other will provide soldiers to help defend the others borders. It's a basic concept but it works, should we ever theoretically get invaded then the Griffins will provide their military to aid us."

"But other groups could see this as a military alliance to immediately aid one another should one nation make a declaration of war."

"Then make conditions for the pact, for example should one country make a declaration of war against a different nation then the pact automatically becomes void. That will stop us getting dragged into a war should the Griffins declare war." You can tell I'm not a politician, I'm basing all of this off the Civilization games when I used to play them on my computer.

Celestia doesn't seem fully satisfied with this though as she begins to scan the documents again, "I don't know... it seems to have an element of risk to it."

Luna steps up to her sister as she quickly takes the documents, "What political moves doesn't carry risk? This could be a good thing for us, if we do as John recommends then I believe that this will benefit Equestria in the long run."

"Or drag us into another conflict should another nation sees the disbanding of the Griffin Empire as a sign of weakness." Sighing Celestia runs a hoof over her muzzle, "We shall discuss this in more detail once we're back in Canterlot, sister. For now let's prepare for the journey home." As Celestia walks ahead myself and Luna look to one another in an attempt to gauge if we know what Celestia is concerned about, not having a clue I just shrug my shoulders before we both move to follow her.

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I remained with Luna as we went to get a quick lunch before helping her to pack her bags for the journey back, it allowed me to explain to Luna some military alliances from back home such as the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War and even NATO. I also warned her how it could potentially result in large scale conflict, this was clearly evident following military treaties such as the Triple Entente which resulted in the First World War. If done correctly military treaties can be a great defensive measure, if done wrong they can result in large alliances potentially going to war with one another.

By noon the rest of the Rangers accompanied me to escort the Princesses back to the train station where they embarked to return to Canterlot, I would see them again when we leave the Griffin Empire to spend two weeks of R & R at the Equestria Games. We agreed that we'd leave for the Crystal Empire on the Second of March, Luna said she'd pass a message to the Lieutenant back at Ponyville to send some of the Rangers back at the barracks to meet us at the Crystal Empire to transport our kit back for storage.

I also asked Luna to relay an additional message to the Lieutenant to seek out a new member for my team, along with this I also passed over all of the training plans I went over with my team while we were based here. The Lieutenant is to carry out the training with the Rangers back home, if any fail then they are to be moved to a different unit. I want to make the Rangers some of the best soldiers around, kind of like the equivalent of the Royal Marine Commandoes.

With the Princesses gone I told everyone to get their kit packed and ready to leave for MoD Fulwood, we still had a couple of weeks here and that meant there was more work to be done. From what I was told a large quantity of intelligence which was recovered at the Children's base had already been transported there to be evaluated, that means new opportunities to strike may emerge. Before we returned to Fulwood I needed to make a quick stop.

Stopping on the street I look up to the sign overhead, 'Wingston general hospital.' Stepping through the main doors I move around a number of doctors and nurses as they go about their work, the hospital is still fairly busy following the chemical attack the other day. Navigating the crowds I stop at the main reception and wait for one of the nurses to approach me, "I'm looking for a Captain Gabrielle."

Lifting a clipboard the nurse flicks through a number of forms, "Ward eight, down the corridor and up the stairs to the third floor, from there the signs will show you the way."

"Thank you," Moving down the corridor I follow the directions given to me, reaching the fourth floor I glance to the signs hanging overhead and follow the arrows. After a few minutes of wandering the third floor I find the main ward which has numerous private rooms, stepping past the rooms I glance in through the doors to try and find Gabrielle. Coming across a room with a guard sat outside I glance in to find her sat up in bed reading a book.

Knocking on the door she rests the book down as I step into the room, "How are you feeling?"

Groaning she adjusts her position, "Pretty crap... but at least I'm alive. How are you already healed? You took more of a beating then I did."

"Magic... it sounds like a load of crap to me still when I say it out loud. Princess Luna patched me up."

Gabrielle scoffs as she shakes her head, "You couldn't have brought the Princess here to heal me."

"Perks of being in the Equestrian military, magical healers for when you get hurt."

"Yet your medic isn't a Unicorn, but instead a wingless Thestral."

"True, but you don't need magic to stabilise a casualty. Your military does alright at that, not to mention every paramedic back home can do it and humans definitely don't have magic."

Leaning to her side she strains as she tries to grab a glass of water from the nearby table. Moving to it I pick it up for her and pass it over, "Thanks." Taking the glass she drains it's contents before passing it back to me, "How come you're back in the guard uniform and not your camouflage?"

Resting the glass on the table I take a seat on the end of the bed, "I don't need camo when I'm on guard duty."

"I think the uniform you wore looked pretty good with your armour, it certainly seemed to be more effective on the battlefield then your current kit."

"Well I'm the only one with the camouflaged uniform, I'll have to work on improving the uniforms to get a set of combat uniform made."

"You never stop working, do you?"

Rubbing my neck I give her a grin, "I'm away on deployment, I'm getting paid for my time out here so I'm gonna work. Come March we'll be gone and I'll have two weeks to do fuck all."

Gabrielle's expression drops slightly, "You're leaving soon?"

"Yeah, we were only due to come for a limited time to provide aid. We've done what we can, soon it will be up to you guys. Well... not you particularly since you're in hospital but you know what I mean."

Groaning she rests her back against the head board, "Thanks for reminding me that I'm stuck here. I've been here a day and I'm already climbing the walls."

Smirking I shake my head, "That's what happens when you get shot."

"I feel like you." Raising my eyebrow I glance to her, "I heard you regularly got hurt so I now know how you feel."

"You've got a long way to go yet. You still need to be blow up by artillery, get shot in the helmet, then in the leg and multiple times in the chest. There's probably a lot more I'm missing out."

"I got shot in the chest, since you always wear armour whenever you get shot I'd say I'm now winning."

Chuckling I get off the bed, "Are we having a competition now? If so then you're not winning, you may have been shot without armour but you're yet to be left behind enemy lines then get shrapnel lodged in your gut."

"Well getting shot wasn't exactly fun so I don't think I want to upgrade to shrapnel." Running her talon over her face she looks to the side momentarily before looking to me, "You'll have to tell your medic to come down and see me... I suppose I should thank her."

"No doubt you'll see her at some point, though we're heading back to the MoD base later. I should also thank you, without your intervention who knows what would have happened to me. I owe you, big time."

"Yeah, you do. That's the last time I follow you into a fight, you seem to attract trouble." Resting her head back Gabrielle stares at the ceiling, "Without you we may have been unable to disarm that bomb though, so I guess we're even."

Smirking I start to move back to the door, "We're even then. Try and get some rest, Gabrielle. No doubt we'll see each other again, take care of yourself." Exchanging a grin with one another I leave the room to let her rest. With my hands in my pockets I slowly stroll back down the halls to head for the exit. Reaching a corner the presence of four guards catches my attention down the adjacent hall, making a detour I head down to them to see what they're doing. Reaching their room they all look to me as I peak inside the room to see Silverwing asleep and chained to the bed.

One of the guards approaches me, "Can we help you, sir?"

Glancing to the guard I step through the doorway, "Think you guys can give me a couple of minutes?"

The guards look to one another and shrug, "Well we're not really supposed to leave him, but I suppose if we were relieved by a senior officer to get a coffee then we could leave him temporarily in your care."

As a grin surfaces on my face I take a couple of coins out of my back pocket and pass it to him. "You guys look exhausted, go get a coffee."

Matching my grin the guards all salute me, "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." As they all head down the hall I close the door leaving myself alone with Silverwing. Approaching his bed I lift up the medical clipboard and take a look at his level of injuries, unfortunately the bastard seems to have gotten off lightly.

Moving alongside him I smack him across the top of the head with the board causing him to jolt awake, "Wake up!"

Glaring at me he attempts to grab hold of me only for the restraints to keep him at bay. Releasing a frustrated growl his scowl soon turns to a smirk, "Checking up on me? And here I thought you didn't care for little old me."

Throwing the clipboard onto the bed I glance back to the door to make sure nobody is on the other side. Satisfied that no one will come in I punch him as hard as I can on his bandage causing him to release a pained scream followed by a coughing fit. "Just came by to see if you were comfortable, since you were I thought I'd rectify that."

Coughing he shifts his body as he looks to me, "You've suddenly got some spirit in you... took you long enough."

Grabbing his throat I apply pressure to his airway cutting off supply as I lean close to him. "You're a sick fucker, it would give me nothing but pleasure to snuff out your miserable existence from this planet." Releasing my grip he takes a few rapid breaths. "No doubt you'll either get killed like the vermin you are or you'll rot in prison for the rest of your days. Either way I wanted to give you a pleasant reminder of the man who fucked up your plans."

I punch him in the gut again causing him to curl up slightly. Once he regains his breath he starts to cackle, "Y-you really think that this is over? Lord Tirek will continue with his plans without me, those ponies will be put in their proper place."

"What has he got planned?" Silverwing doesn't respond but instead continue to give a villainous smile. Stepping up to his medication stand I follow the cube which is administering drugs to his system. Resting my hand on the tube I glance back to him, "I could easily cut of this pain medication, leave you to writhe in pain. Tell me what he's planning."

Turning his head away his smile slowly drops, "It makes no difference, you won't be able to stop him. Soon he'll become more powerful than you can imagine."

Leaning closer to him I rest my hand on my pistol, "It doesn't matter how powerful he is, a bullet to the brain will still do the job."

Laughing once again Silverwing starts to shake his head, "A bullet won't be enough to stop him, he's been planning his return for centuries. With the Elements of Harmony no longer under the ponies control they'll be unable to stop him, I highly doubt one human will be able to do what an entire species can't."

"We'll see about that." Stepping away I move back to the door but stop as I rest my hand on the handle. "You deserve to suffer for what you've done, whatever punishment you're given will be to lenient for the crimes you've committed."

"Then deal with me yourself!" Pausing I slowly turn back to face him, "Surely you want the satisfaction."

Drawing my pistol I quickly advance on him and press the end of the barrel against his temple, "There's nothing I'd love more then to blow your brains all over this room" -Bringing my pistol back I holster it once again- "But I'm not an executioner."

"You're weak, no wonder those ponies can walk all over you."

Clenching my fists I punch him across the jaw, "You'll pay for your crimes, how it happens is for someone else to decide." Heading back for the door I leave as the guards start to return from down the corridor with their cups of coffee. Once they reach my they glance inside to see blood slowly trickling from a fresh cut alongside his beak and forming on his bandage where I likely ripped his stitches.

The guard glances back to the others, "He attempted an escape, the Captain simply restrained him." The others all nod their agreement as they move back to their posts.

Moving off I start to leave the hospital to return to the others. Although the army back home wouldn't officially condone that sort of behaviour it didn't stop some soldiers from acting in such a way, you just had to know how to cover it up. With the shitty rules of engagement a member of the Taliban would often shoot one of your men just to immediately drop their rifle so you couldn't fire back, it didn't stop us from beating seven shades of shit out of him as he 'resisted arrest.'

Besides from that I couldn't justify using excessive force, shooting those who surrender is unacceptable in my eyes but you can give them a little slap in the right circumstances. That's why I had to act with Crimson, if she had just punched them instead of killing them then things would have turned out differently.

Hopefully she'll be back with us when we return to Ponyville. We still need to find a replacement for Comet.

Author's Notes:

Last call for new recruits to join the Everfree Rangers.

Slots have been filled yet some still remain.
Submit your characters in a Private Message and I'll inform you if the character is selected.

Many great characters have been suggested throughout the story and have had pivotal roles in how the story and other characters develop.
I want to keep that going, your suggestions shape the story.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter