Prologue: VLORP

“Attention all dropships, attention all dropships.” The ever-buzzing speaker in the hangar bay burst to life, startling the sole occupant of the hangar. The voice continued, bored, the announcer saying lines she had said hundreds of times before. “Jumping to light speed in five minutes. Repeat, we will be jumping to light speed in five minutes.”

Christophe Black, the man standing atop one of the four brown and green camouflage painted battlemechs sighed and shook his head in disbelief. “Think I’d get used to that one of these days. Right Midnight?” He grinned as he kicked the particle cannon arm of his Stalker to a low metallic ringing sound. “Let’s see how that arm is holding up. I told them I could squeeze two double heat sinks in there around the myomer, but does anyone believe me? Noooo. ‘Do it yourself, crazy mech jock’.” He imitated the nasal sounding idiot with a scrunched face as he knelt down atop the 40 foot tall war machine and began unbolting an access hatch.

He ran his pale hand through his military cut brown hair as he worked, squirming around to reach the synthetic muscle fibers that moved the giant arm. Tools clanked as they jostled loose on top of the somewhat phallic looking walking tank. The myomer twanged, sounding like the giant rubber bands that made up the arm actuator. Grunts, twangs and electronic beeps filled the hangar as he worked for several minutes.

Clang, clatter.

Thud, swear curse mutter.

Byoinining, beep beep.

Vlorp.

The lights flickered out and came back on as if nothing had happened.

Christophe Black, twenty year mechwarrior veteran of the Clan wars, stopped working and looked around the hangar very slowly with wide frightened eyes. He looked at the cockpit of the 85 ton Stalker battlemech with ‘Cdr. Christophe “Omega” Black’ stencilled below the triple reinforced cockpit glass. No lights, no movement, certainly not occupied. “Don’t screw with me like this Midnight, what the fuck just went ‘Vwerp’?”

He put a hand up to his ear and flipped his radio back on. “Omega to Alex, did you just hear the weirdest fucking noise?” Maybe the captain of their company Leopard dropship knew something he didn’t.

“Alex to Omega, define ‘fucking weird’.”

“Like...Vorp.” He did his best to imitate the low vibration of what he thought he’d heard.

“Sure it wasn’t like...Vworp?” The captain sounded equal parts confused and scared over the earpiece.

“Coulda been-look did you hear it or not?” Chris looked around the top of Midnight without really seeing the scattered tools.

“Yeah, I heard something Omega. We’re about to go FTL. Just...hang on and I’ll ask the jumpship.”

“Yeah, roger.” Chris shook his head. He hated having to ferry with the larger jumpships, but considering that faster than light technology had been lost in the 300 years of succession wars and the only jumpships remaining were literally priceless artifacts, his small time company couldn’t afford to buy one. His eyes flew open with sudden realization. “Wait, about to, or just did?” It had been five minutes. The captain didn't respond.

A low hum crescendoed from nothing and became loud enough to drown out the background noise of the dropship. His eyes finally focused on the access hatch and scattered tools. “Oh shit Midnight,” he said as he dropped back to his knees and grabbed for the monitoring tool inside, “what the fuck have I gotten us into now.”

A shorter but much bulkier figure ran into the hangar, loose brown mohawk bouncing across his tanned face. “Omega, did you hear that?” He asked with honest curiosity. His military boots clanged across the hangar deck.

“The Vwerp?”

“Nah man, more like a vwump. Now it’s just humming.” He stared with some confusion up at the Stalker.

“Yeah, I heard, Reaper.”

"We dropped out of jump. We're orbiting. The jumpship is gone," he called up expectantly.

"Fan-fucking-tastic." Chris paused for a moment before removing another lit box from the arm.

"You wanna get out of the hangar? Figure out why the jumpship abandoned us who the fuck knows where?" Reaper put particular emphasis on the cursing with his voice and his hands.

"I want to make sure Midnight is running if we're going to be landing." Chris moved to slide the access hatch closed.

"What?" The sound of tools clattering was his reply. "Oh. Shit, good point." His heavy boots rang across the hangar deck again as Reaper ran for the tallest machine, and then up the ladder. Chris shook his head and chuckled to himself as he dropped tools into a bag.

“Lemme the fuck in Atlas,” Reaper cursed at the metal hatch on the back of his Atlas with ‘Dan “Reaper” Wilks’ stenciled above the door. He bashed the appropriate numbers on the keypad. The door swung open with an electric whirring, Dan slid inside, then it whirred again as it closed behind him. The tiny cockpit inside the fifty foot tall battlemech had enough room for his seat, the control panel, and the minifridge. That hadn’t kept him from decorating the interior with the few medals he’d earned and getting the seat reupholstered with an empty cloak and scythe emblazened on it. He slipped easily into the chair, grabbed the harness and checklist, and began running through switches and dials with gritted teeth.

A large bald man ran in, boots ringing across the deck. He went straight to the third machine, taller than the Stalker but wider, and with arms that ended in two foot long steel claws. He called in a rich bass as he opened his hatch. "Omega, we're dropping, prep for reentry burn and hot drop."

"Got it Big Bear." ‘Rolf “Big Bear” Hansf’ read the stencil above his hatch. “You seen Ninja?”

“Neg, Omega.” The hatch to Big Bear’s Kodiak swung shut.

“Would it kill you to have a conversation?” Chris muttered as he tightened the last of the bolts. He dropped the tool into the bag draped the bag across his shoulders, and walked carefully across the top of the Stalker to the ladder. The omnipresent humming that had started after the strange noise was joined by two louder hums as lights on the inside of the Kodiak and the Atlas turned on. Chris opened the hatch on Midnight and climbed inside. He dropped the tool bag and walked the ten feet to his blue and purple chair. He tapped the radio again. "Hiro, this is Chris, you'd better get to the hangar and get suited up."

"Say again Chris," a static-filled response came back, "Can't quite hear you." The broken tenor voice was panic-filled.

"Ninja. Hangar. Now." Chris slid into his seat and reached for the checklist.

---

The overgrown and foreboding Everfree Forest swayed in the cold autumn night breeze. Ponies stood in silent anticipation as they watched their leader mumble while his horn glowed. He finished the incantation and dropped a scroll to the forest floor, which was instantly lost in the low flickering torch light. The cloaked unicorn grinned to himself. After so long. The magic in the scroll was used, and the preparation was done. It was time to set the real plan into motion. It was time to summon the Titans, trapped in the earth, to bring about the end of the arrogant sky-lords. Only an alicorn could conceive to run the planet for all beings, only an alicorn could be so pompous. This would finally show them, they were finally ready. He grinned privately as his hooves crunched across the forest floor. He nudged the hood off of his head, strode up to the now bubbling cauldron, and motioned for his aid to bring him the items for the summoning ritual.

Then he lifted his head to look around the clearing, already occupied by dozens of other cloaked figures. The six who had accompanied him took their place in the crowd. He spoke with conviction. "My brothers! My sisters! The hour that we have prepared for so long is at hoof! Tonight we bring back the Titans!"

Murmurs of excitement swept through the gathering of ponies as the wind shifted direction, making the eerie vines in the trees sway. All conversation stopped and those waiting turned to face the cauldron.

The four legged figure took his place on the stage and cleared his throat. The crowd stared in rapt attention. His horn glowed, casting an eerie blue light over the cauldron and the crowd. "One skeleton, an embodiment of death. We summon you, Atlas. Herald the end times for the Alicorns, and the coming of a new order." The words were spoken clearly over the hushed excitement of dozens of cloaked figures. A vial of an unidentifiable thick liquid was poured into the vat. A bone from some animal was added after that. A hissing and acrid smoke came from the cauldron. A ripple of murmurs went through the crowd.

---

Dan Wilks flipped the switch to turn on the reactor of his Atlas battlemech. He pulled the brain-synched helmet over his head with practiced motion. The computer spoke to him softly as his hands danced across the control panel. The computer recognized the two large lasers, the eight small lasers, the twin missile launchers and the giant tank buster autocannon. Dan grinned wickedly from the inside of his 16 meter tall war machine. His cockpit looked out of the left eye of the skull head. Whatever was happening, he was as ready as he got.

---

"One to tirelessly hunt down our foes." Another vial. An eyeball. A short cheer of excitement came from the crowd, followed by a few more voices hushing them.

---

Chris looked around the hangar from the inside of his Stalker. “Omega to Alex, any word from the jumpship? My guys say it's gone.” The humming inside the hangar got louder.

---

"One to destroy the populace with feral rage." Another vial. A bear's paw.

---

Rolf finished the checklist, stashed it away, buckled himself in, and slipped on his helmet. He waited for the helmet to match his brainwaves and started his Kodiak assault ‘mech as the humming got louder. He frowned and gripped the joystick.

A fourth figure ran into the hangar, shorter than the others, black hair flopping messily around his narrow face. He saw the rest of his lance in their mechs, and ran to his Catapult. It was the smallest of the four machines, with a triangular tank body, two boxy arms, and backwards knees that make it look like a giant flightless bird. “Come Tiger, ancestors keep us safe,” Hiro “Ninja” Suzuki muttered to himself as he climbed the ladder and opened the hatch.

---

"One to pounce from the skies and strike with the fury of Tartarus itself!" Another vial, several tiger's teeth, an item wrapped in cloth, and a pinch of a dust were added to the pot. The crowd cheered.

"We pray to you our dark lord of the earth to bring us avatars of your vengeance! Send us Atlas to rightfully rule this land again! Send us those who know only war and death! Bring chaos and suffering to destroy this kingdom!" Wild cheering erupted from the crowd, stomping their hooves in excitement. A few whinnied, unable to control themselves. The preacher’s voice rose as he whipped the crowd into a fervor. "Join me my brothers and sisters! Chant that the very earth may hear our prayers!"

The mass of cloaked figures chanted as one.

"Bring to us the titans! The giants who rule the earth! Overthrow the kingdom! Overthrow the kingdom!"

---

Twilight Sparkle, purple unicorn and student of magic to Princess Celestia, huddled under the giant white wings of her mentor in the throne room, frightened and unsure. "I know I felt it, Princess. This is not something I would joke about."

"I know you wouldn't, Twilight. I just want to be sure." The Sun Goddess alicorn Princess Celestia spoke with calm authority, but she looked and sounded grim. There were always those who would abuse dark magics, but seldom did they group in such an organized fashion. She caught Twilight’s eyes before she looked out the window into the darkness before the dawn. "I feel it too." Detractors of the kingdom were in short supply in these days of high prosperity and development, but that did not mean that they did not exist. "If some pony or some creature is casting dark summoning magic in the Everfree Forest so powerful that we can feel it here, then it is our duty to respond, for the safety of Equestria.” She stepped back and lifted her wing up, uncovering her frightened student. “Twilight, I will find the captain of the guard, you fetch your friends and the Elements."

Twilight turned to leave, then opened her eyes with a sudden thought. "Should we get Princess Luna?"

Celestia nodded in agreement. "I will, Twilight.”

Twilight simply disappeared in a flash. Celestia grinned momentarily, taking pride in her pupil, then ran across the castle, taking flight after a few moments. Dark magic was being used in great power in the Everfree Forest. To what end and by whom was uncertain. She only knew of one faction daring enough to use summoning magic so blatantly. Atlas was a thousand years overdue to try to overthrow Equestria again. But there was no proof it was a titan cult yet. The only thing that was certain was that after the attack by the Changelings this would not go unheeded, and they would not be put on the defensive again. The fate of the kingdom rested upon it.

---

"Captain, this is Omega, we got an ETA?" Chris spoke louder and slower into his helmet mic. He winced as the humming got worse. Ninja saluted to him from the inside of the Tiger across the small hangar, and he nodded in return.

"Omega, this is Alex. We're not sure where to land yet." The voice of the captain finally buzzed in their ears.

“No sign of a good landing zone?" Chris asked.

"No sign of a planet," Alex replied with apprehension obvious in his voice.

The four mercenaries looked across the hangar at each other with worry.

Chris kept talking. "What? Don't tell me we're floating in deep space."

"Alright,” Alex said calmly, “I won't tell you."

Chris slumped back in his chair. The incomprehensible distance between stars was a much, much worse place to be suddenly stranded than above a planet. "Well where are we?" He was the leader after all. Had to keep on leading.

"We're not sure. We, um. We can't find any stars." The dropship captain’s unshakable calm was starting to shake.

"Wait, any?" The impossibility of that statement threw the mercenary commander, stars were always visible.

"Any."

The humming got louder. The medal for valorous combat hanging on the side of Chris’s cockpit began to shake. He turned his head slowly to look at it and gripped his controls.

---

Twilight stopped running. Her friend and fellow unicorn Rarity did too. Her other friends, the other four elements of harmony, almost ran into them. "What? Come on!" Rainbow Dash the cyan pegasus urged.

"It happened." Twilight looked haunted. Rarity nodded in agreement, her perfect purple mane bouncing in a very unladylike manner. It seemed that she was too frightened to remember to faint dramatically this time.

"What happened?" Rainbow asked in exasperation. Her wings flapped as if trying to fly away on their own.

"It was…a summoning, or teleportation. Very powerful summoning. I don't even know how it found a target. It doesn't make any sense…" She looked down with scrunched eyes, trying to imagine the spell and it’s myriad of moving parts.

Applejack, tan country pony, stepped up. "Forget how, Twilight, let's just get there. The Pegasus air wing will beat us to the Everfree Forest at this rate!"

"Forget this, I'll meet you girls there." Rainbow turned and bolted. The shockwave of sound that she left in her wake reached them seconds later as she hit Sonic Rainboom speeds and kept going.

"Rainbow's right this time, Twilight. Understanding now isn't gonna help us any,” Applejack said with concern.

"You're right, I'm just scared, Applejack. It’s just that I have never felt this kind of…” Twilight looked down for a moment and got quiet. “Darkness."

"I know Twilight. But the princess and the Equestrian Guard will be there. We have to help."

"You're right." Twilight nodded, and looked like she would start running again. "No…I've got a better idea. Get close, Girls. This is going to take a moment…"

Twilight grinned for a moment, then got all…eye glowy.

Applejack looked at her friend. "Twilight? What are you…oh no."

Waves of purple magic spilled out of her horn, enveloping the rest of the Elements of Harmony. In a flash of light, they all disappeared.

---

Vlorp.

Author's Notes:

Welcome to my entry in the battletech/mechwarrior/mlp crossover section. It's long, there's cultists killed by lasers, and the girls are traumatized several times. Edited by my wife who claims it's a funny story nonetheless. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1: Planetfall

I blinked, stars in my eyes, as everything went pitch black. Whatever had just happened had been the main event to the first vworp. Underneath my panic about being lost in deep space and unexpected combat, I still couldn't decide how to describe the noise. Maybe it had been vlorp like I originally thought.

I could still feel the familiar spartan interior of Midnight’s cockpit, still smell the familiar stench of ten years of battle and spilled instant meals baked into the seat. The harness still cinched me down in that painful but comforting way. I pulled my helmet down over my head and mashed the control panel blindly for the power button. Years of panic had taught my hands where to find it, even in the dark.

"Please enter start code." My computer's far-too-calm female voice chided. I was too busy being annoyed at my computer to be thankful that it was there and running.

"Thank you, Midnight," I managed through clenched teeth. Stupid computers and their needing passwords. Once the helmet had synced with my brain I could see the standby lights of my cockpit. My hand danced across the keyboard and the 85 tons of steel that make up my Stalker came to life.

"Reactor: online." My seat rumbled and the cockpit hummed as my Stalker slowly spun up it's massive gyroscopes and stood to full height, using my inner ears and sense of balance to stand. The dashboard glowed to life and the various screens lit up. Everything where it should be.

The expected clinical lighting and angled steel beams of our dropship were not outside my cockpit however. My surroundings had been somehow replaced with inky black. The floating feel of being on a dropship had been replaced with the steady pull of planetary gravity. It looked like I was now on a planet, and it was night. The kind of blackness that you only get on planets without cities. Dead, middle of assfuck nowhere night. I fought against the overwhelming feeling of panic and kept working. My throttle hand mashed the control panel to start the sensors and weapon systems. My driving hand grabbed the joystick with a deathgrip. My fingers hovered over the weapon triggers. Heat vision and night vision would let me see, but my weapons would keep me alive. I pushed aside the obvious question of ‘what the fuck happened to my dropship’ for the more immediate ‘where the shit am I’.

"Sensors: online." Three other blips showed up immediately. Rolf's kodiak, Dan's atlas, and Hiro's catapult. Just where we had stood in the dropship hangar bay. At least I still had my lance.

"Weapons: online." My four PPC's booted up, followed by the twin lasers and twin missile packs. My take on the Thor’s Hammer rebuild of a stalker had seen us through several hairy battles. Whatever was about to take us was gonna hurt before they could.

"All systems: nominal." The quick checklist printout on my screen read green across the board. Which was good, because the shit, as predicted, had definitely gone down. With a flick of my wrist on the control stick, Midnight looked around.

I could barely make out the Tiger in the darkness as it stood up and looked around too. Hiro always was quick to react. My other hand mashed for the switch to kill the interior lights and turn on heat vision.

"Thermal optics: engaged."

The world slowly came into monochrome view. Still nothing. No, that wasn't right, there were heat signatures on the ground. Short ones, a herd of animals, surrounded by trees.

It was a forest clearing, just big enough for about a hundred people and a stage. Instead, there were about thirty heat signatures and something out of a halloween movie. A witches cauldron sat over a small fire in the center of everything, lit up on heat vision. The figures on the ground were turning and moving toward our mechs. I winced at what was coming next. Stupid animals usually know better than this. Only humans were dumb enough to run toward giant scary things. Animals had the sense to know danger and get the fuck away.

My fears were right. Sensing an ambush, Ninja mashed his throttle in backwards and stomped his jump jets. Four streams of plasma erupted from the back of the Tiger with enough force to throw sixty five tons of steel into the air. They scorched the ground below, instantly barbecuing one of the heat signatures. He rocketed up just above the treetops, twisted around, and came crashing down out of sight. It was his signature move. He'd pop up again in a few seconds once the jump jets recharged and disappear somewhere else. I felt bad for the animals for a moment.

"Ninja to Atari lance!" Hiro's panicked voice called out in my ears.

I thumbed for my mic switch. "Omega here Ninja, keep calm and stay hidden."

"Roger!" Predictably, the swarm of animals that had been crowding the Tiger ran away, only to come back once it was gone. They crowded around their cooked compatriot and…bounced. They were rearing up. When I bothered to look at my secondary sensors monitor, I saw sound outside. I tapped my keyboard and routed the external mic into the cockpit.

Cheering.

Fanatical cheering. We had been, I could only guess here, teleported out of our dropship onto the surface of an unknown planet. Now these four legged things were cheering after we had killed one of their own. My world had become the plot to a cheesy science fiction movie. With no immediate danger to react to, I sat in stunned silence for a moment.

"Omega, you seeing this?" Reaper finally saw fit to pipe up.

"Seeing, not believing."

"Orders?" Bear's gruff voice barked, ever the level headed one.

"Atari lance, single file, let's get out of this forest. Ninja, you have a reading on the easy way?"

"Ninja, one second." The roar of Tiger's jump jets slammed my ears as the mic adjusted the volume to compensate. He flew up a few dozen meters, then dropped back into the forest and disappeared again. "My left, magnetic north by my compass."

"Ninja, you have point. I don't like this at all. We find open ground and figure out who the hell wants us here."

A chorus of 'roger's came through the comms. Followed by a voice on the ground.

"My brothers! My sisters! The monsters from Tartarus are here!"

My eyebrows about came out of my helmet. They could talk? In english? 'Monsters' was an accurate enough description of our machines though. "Big Bear, you read books, Tartarus?"

"Greek hell, Omega."

I shook my head. Why would talking horses refer to human history? "Keep marching." Why weren’t we being shot at? This had to be some kind of elaborate prank. The Tiger flew over our heads, landed gracefully in front of Midnight, and charged through the forest. Flashes of laser could be seen as he cut trees in his way. I gunned my throttle and followed. The atlas and kodiak followed closely behind me.

Reaper spoke up, confused. “Greek?”

“Old Terra country, pre industrial,” Rolf recited. “They had different gods and mythology.”

"Follow the monsters! Our revolution begins!" Between the thundering of our footfalls, the voice on the ground continued ranting with all of the terrible passion of a pastor.

"I'm not a monster, am I Omega?" Reaper whined through his mic even as he followed me closely. Dan was taking this seriously as usual.

"You're the kindest, gentlest grim reaper west of Outreach," I shot back. I could practically hear Rolf rolling his eyes.

Cheers followed us for about five minutes as we crushed our way through the forest. Most humans couldn't run 50 kph. I'd seen a few of the clan's 'elementals' keep pace, but there's no accounting for power armor. When the noise died down, I looked around but saw the heat signatures still with us.

"Who the fuck are they?" Reaper asked, getting over his confusion just enough to be angry about it.

"Horses," Big Bear commented calmly. He was doing a better job of taking this in stride than I was, but that was why I kept him on payroll. Well, that and being deadly on the battlefield.

"I don't see the guy talking."

"I don't think there is a guy, Reaper," I said, still looking for the owner of the voice.

“Where the fuck are we?” Reaper continued.

“On a planet, Reaper.”

“Thanks Commander Obvious.”

“Some of the constellations are matching Terra,” Ninja piped up.

“This is not fuckin Terra,” Reaper said, “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Not all of them, but some of them. Don’t ask me how that works,” Ninja replied.

“So we’re kinda on Terra, but not really?” I tried to summarize, but wound up as confused as the others. “Keep walking, maybe we’ll find something here that explains things.”

---

We had cleared the forest by about five minutes when the sun, in all of it's blinding fury, rose to our left over the horizon faster than I have ever seen a sun rise. I had to kill the heat vision to be able to see again, and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust. The green grassland and gentle rolling hills lit up in golden morning sun met my eyes when my vision cleared. I briefly thought what a nice looking planet it was. Shame to bring a war to it.

"Form up, diamond," I barked. Diamond meant I took the side to snipe, Reaper up front where the Atlas's twenty some-odd tons of armor plating would do its job, Ninja nestled safely behind three assault mechs, and Bear on the other side. We were in position in five seconds. A well choreographed and practiced dance that I insist upon. It's how I justify charging the big bucks.

A booming female voice, the likes of which only come out of stacks of speakers at rock concerts, filled the air.

"Stop."

It echoed across the plain. It was a command. A compulsion. We all pulled our throttles back to zero, though I started scanning the skies, and Reaper's arms came up and started tracking aerial targets.

And oh god, were there aerial targets.

Formations, plural, of fighter wings blurred overhead at near mach speeds from the north. Two wings, then two more, then a fifth by itself, trailing yellow and black smoke. Finally a sonic boom, followed by…a rainbow smoke trail as a lone fighter buzzed us, mere wingspans above the deck. It left a rainbow in its wake. The lone fighter corkscrewed and pulled an immelmann and came back over the top of us, apparently not having lost any speed. I was still pondering the physics of that one when the source of the voice became apparent.

Another flier, blindingly bright like the sun, hovered in front of us. Perhaps a gunship. The horses at our feet began to wheel around and scatter, only to reform behind Bear.

"By order of the Princess you will state your business,” the voice proclaimed again. The form lost its glow, landed, and shook her mane. It was a pegasus. A talking, riderless pegasus who could glow like the sun. She, apparently a princess, was immediately flanked by a company of spear-horses. Lancers? I stared dumbly at the scene while my brain tried to process the paradigm shift. I had to be dreaming.

The rainbow fighter swooped down, and in a complete disregard for physics dropped from supersonic speeds to nothing, hovered in front of Reaper's head, and kicked the metal skull between the eyes. "That means you, ugly! You better listen to the Princess!" She shouted gruffly. Also a pegasus. A blue-coated, rainbow-maned, talking pegasus.

"Wow. That just happened, right?" Reaper laughed over the comms. "She actually registered damage!" Now that we weren't lumbering across the landscape with three hundred plus tons of walking steel, I could hear the mumbling of the beings at our feet.

The preacher from before spoke up again. "We are the discontent! We herald the coming of the will of Tartarus! Our titans will overthrow Equestria!" That was enough to shake me out of my confusion. Oh no no no no. You so did not just claim I was on your side, crazy talking horse.

The voice of the princess permeated our very souls as it boomed across the plain again. "Surrender and you will not be harmed."

I keyed my mic to the rest of the lance. "I don't like where this is going."

"I didn't sign a contract," Reaper replied.

"You wanna shoot a princess in cold blood?" Bear asked. It was both a philosophical query and an order request.

The forms at our feet were forming ranks. Unicorns, I could see that now. We had been teleported to fantasy land, and it didn't look like a happy place. Then again, around Mechs, most aren't happy. Several of the 'discontent' at our feet began to glow with a pale sheen, then lasers shot from their horns into the princesses honor guard. Several keeled over instantly, and the lancers charged.

"Orders Omega?" Ninja was just sitting there, and I didn't blame him for being antsy.

"Don't move, do not fire unless in danger. We're not part of this. Don't give them any reason to think we are." This was turning into a public relations nightmare.

There were lasers, teleportation spells, I thought I saw one of them turned to stone. It all seemed very terrible, if you weren't piloting several dozen tons of walking tank. We were fine.

A flash of light and then movement behind where the princess was flanked, undoubtedly by her generals, caught my eye. Several more horses, all in wildly different coat colors, stepped forward. Their magic begin at their horns, then began swirling around each other. Somewhere in the chaos, the rainbow pegasus had slipped away to join them. I wondered what was happening just before the voice of the princess filled our souls again.

"End this," the princess proclaimed.

Everyone stopped moving. At the center of the swirl of magic was a purple unicorn, eyes glowing white hot like flares. The entire field of battle turned purple with a magic aura, and the alive and dead alike were suspended several feet in the air. I heard my leg actuators creak.

Slowly, the royal guard were separated from the ones we'd started with. The guard were situated in such a way that they surrounded our original hosts, and our mechs. "Arrest them.”

The purple glow vanished. A bright flash to my right, in the center of where all of the horses were gathered, and the voice of the holy man laughed, loud and terrible. There was a flash of white, and then they were gone. The live, the dead, all of the ones not in the Princesses armor just disappeared.

Which left us surrounded by lancers.

"Is this a good thing?" Reaper asked. I shook my head. I didn't have to answer.

"Elements of Harmony." The soul-voice of the princess again. It was a signal. The swirl of magic strengthened. I could see what was going to happen next, and I wished I had seen it sooner. Whatever weird freaky powers the beings of this place had, they could teleport hundreds of tons of mech from deep space to planetside, and I had no desire to see what a point blank blast of the stuff could do.

I mashed at the keyboard on my console until I turned on the external speakers.

"Wait! Wait! Truce! Parley! Time out!" I ran through every synonym I could think of. Reaper had the presence of mind to lift up his Atlas's arms in the classic surrender position. Bear followed suit. Stalkers and Catapults don't have arms, so Ninja and I couldn't join them. The swirl continued, but we weren't blasted into oblivion. "We're people," I continued, "Not hell-beasts, we’re not with those guys, we're not from Tartarus or wherever, we don't have the slightest damn clue what's going on, and we want to talk."

"Your Highness," Big Bear added over his external comms.

"Your Highness," I amended, and did my best Stalker-bow.

"Well." The glowing giant pegasus, who was also apparently a unicorn now that I had a closer look, stepped forward and spread her massive glowing wings. "Well mannered monsters not-from-Tartarus. Welcome to Equestria." She seemed pleasantly surprised, but not the least bit calmed.

"You just surrendered us to a unicorn princess," Reaper shot.

Chapter 2: Negotiation

The computer said that the atmosphere was breathable, if a little high on nitrogen and oxygen. At worst we would feel a bit giddy. I was sure I would get over it. Gravity was a bit under Terra standard, but the weather and temperature were absolute paradise.

We agreed that the army of horses would pull back to guard at a distance, I would come out of my machine, and we would talk like civilized ponies. Dan made a crack about being the prettiest pony. Ninja would stay powered up, and the Elements of Harmony, whatever they were, would guard the Princess. I knelt my Stalker down, powered down the reactor, and grabbed my personal defense weapon. I instructed Dan and Rolf to grab their guns too. Pretty ponies or not, I had seen magic fly and injure. I wasn't taking chances.

Ok, I was taking a lot of chances. Standing out in the open with multiple creatures from legend who wielded powers that were apparently pure energy. I just had a bit of pure energy of my own on standby. After appearing on the planet due to 'dark magic' and, admittedly, being fucking terrifying, we had to show some form of goodwill. I was the olive branch. Or the sacrificial lamb. I prayed to fate that this wasn't a mistake. My years of contract negotiation told me this was the right move. Would fate be that cruel?

I knew the answer to that question; yes. I opened my cockpit hatch anyway.

Sweet country air greeted my nose for the first time in years. I had forgotten how much I missed the only benefit of no civilization. I left my helmet on the seat, left my coolant vest on just in case we needed to bug out, and tried to carry my pistol as casually as possible. Sticking my head out of the escape hatch to my Stalker, I looked around and waited to be shot at. No magic, no lasers, so far so good.

Rolf came out, standing on the Kodiak's massive shoulder, assault rifle ready and waiting. I climbed out and worked my way to the emergency ladder.

The Princess was about as tall as me. White coat, white wings about four meters across, preposterously long mane that flowed like something out of a shampoo commercial, the colors of a sunset. She looked at me with an air of amusement and fascination. The assortment of pastel-furred horse faces of the Elements of Harmony looked at me with a mix of fear and confusion, even as the rainbow swirl of power died down. I tried not to stare back, ignored the fever dream I found myself in, and put on my best winning smile. There would be time to question my sanity later, for now I needed to de-escalate the situation.

"Again, welcome to Equestria. I am Princess Celestia." The unicorn/pegasus spoke in a calm tone and nodded graciously. Now that she wasn’t bellowing out commands to our souls, and except for being a talking horse, she reminded me of pretty much every well-trained noble I’d ever met. I decided to treat her like one.

"Christophe Black, Commander and owner of Atari Mercenary Operations Unlimited. A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness." I bowed with a flourish.

"May I ask what you are doing here, Commander?"

"I do not have any goddamn idea what I am doing here, Princess." I looked her straight in the eyes with a smile. I find royalty to react best to straight out honesty. They never expect it. She, however, took it in stride.

"None at all?"

"Not the slightest. One moment we are on our ship, the next there is a horrible noise like the universe is trying to vibrate itself apart, and the next we're in the forest with all of those other guys."

"Most fascinating." Her expression was unreadable.

"I would go with worrying, myself, your Highness. We have places to be and contracts to fulfill. I have no idea how to get where we were going, or even back to our ship." I kept my tone even and my smile plastered on.

The Princess looked thoughtful. "Do you know anything about the ponies that were there when you were summoned?" For a moment, my brain rebelled at the sheer fantasy of the situation. It took a few seconds to remember that I had recorded the preachings of the cult leader.

"Well, they said some things…hang on." I dug into a pocket of my flight suit and pulled out my pocket computer. I rewound through the audio log and played the conversation I had heard outside of our mechs. Usually at this point in the dream the ground erupts with an octopus and the singing hot dog starts up, but the world of talking horses persisted. A small part of me began to wonder if this was real.

The Princess, to her credit, took the advanced technology in stride on the outside. I saw murmurings from the Elements of Harmony though I wasn't sure if it was due to my amazing black box, the four aliens on their planet, the deactivated battlemechs, or the lunatic ravings of cultists.

As we listened, another unicorn/pegasus dived in from the sky and flared to a graceful landing beside the Princess. This one was a blend of midnight blue and purple, as opposed to the white and peach of the first. Her hair was also trapped in a shampoo commercial. A quick glance told me that this seemed to be a princess thing. I paused the recording. The white princess spoke up. "Commander Black, this is my sister, Princess Luna."

"Pleased to meet you, Your Majesty," I said with another bow and flourish.

"The magic has been obscured,” the blue princess spoke to her sister with a cold voice and a cold glare. “The ponies responsible have gotten away. I assume these are the product of the summoning spell?" She nodded toward me and my lance.

Princess Celestia nodded and smiled. "That is correct. This is Commander Christophe Black. He runs a small mercenary unit."

"No affiliation to the ones who made us appear here, Your Majesty," I pointed out.

Princess Luna raised an eyebrow as she looked critically at our lance of battlemechs. "We have doubts as to your sense of humor, dear sister. There is nothing small about this unit. However that is beside the point." Where the white princess seemed rather down to earth, this new Princess seemed rather…old fashioned. Princess Celestia smiled at her in a sort of patronizing way, and I did my best to ignore the whole wordless exchange. Princess Luna turned to address me directly. "We are no stranger to subterfuge, Commander Black. We would be less than willing to trust one in charge of so powerful a force so quickly." I was surprised this hadn’t been addressed sooner.

"With all due respect, Your Majesty, if we could simply be sent back to where we came from, we would appreciate that. We have a contract to fulfill." I shrugged. "I don't know if that is within your power…"

Princess Luna turned her emotionless gaze to her sister and was silent for a moment. "Such a thing might be. It would have to be researched. Perhaps a project for Twilight Sparkle."

I had to force myself to not laugh at that name. Thankfully Princess Celestia turned the conversation back to negotiating.

"Indeed, Sister. However, Commander Black, in the meantime, I would like to propose a new contract for you, for the defense of our kingdom. Would this be acceptable?”

I admit, I wasn’t expecting to be hired. I wasn’t expecting this fantasy to last this long. If this was going to take a few weeks though, we should get paid. I let a bit of my surprise show.

“Yes, your Highness, I would be open to a contract if the terms are fair.”

Princess Celestia nodded in satisfaction, then looked at the six multicolored ponies who had controlled the rainbow-death-swirl. "Twilight Sparkle, Elements of Harmony, please approach." The princess smiled genuinely. "I have someone I wish you to meet.”

Instantly there was a pink blur in my face. "HI!"

"Movement!" Rolf's bass vibrated my eardrum, and I heard his rifle click.

The pink blur grabbed my hand and shook it. With a pink hoof. I tried to focus on the buzzing in my ear from Rolf. "At ease Atari,” I called with as much panic as I dared.

"No silly, I'm Pinky Pie! Wait-you can't have known my name, so you can't have known it wrong! I'm Pinky Pie!" The cotton candy pink pony nearly vibrated my hand off in excitement, but a smile that genuine was rare to come by.

"Pinky!" The purple unicorn admonished the pink blur and stepped forward to address the white unicorn/pegasus/sun goddess. Pinky Pie let go and took a step back. Once the purple one was satisfied, she sighed and looked up at the white princess. Princess Celestia, I reminded myself. "Yes Princess?"

"Twilight Sparkle, this is Commander Black. Commander, Twilight Sparkle is my personal student into the studies of magic in this land. She will be acting as your contact for this mission."

"A pleasure to meet you, Twilight Sparkle." I forced myself past the absurdity of greeting a pastel talking pony and tried to keep my business man facade up. If I ignored their shapes, this was a normal enough meeting. Ignore the cotton candy horse grinning like the cheshire cat. Ignore the glare of the rainbow maned pegasus who could break the laws of physics. Ignore the pony wearing a cowboy hat. Ignore the white show unicorn with the purple mane of a thousand pounds of hairspray. Ignore the yellow and pink pegasus cowering behind her. My suspension of disbelief was getting a workout.

"And you, Commander Black." Ignore the purple talking unicorn with the dyed pink stripe in her hair. Mane. Ignore how she was half your height. Focus on how young she sounded. Focus on how she glanced back at the princesses when she thought I wasn’t paying attention. I noted that for as much trust as Princess Celestia had just put on her, Twilight Sparkle seemed horribly unsure of the situation.

We nodded politely at each other and looked back at the Princesses. Princess Celestia spoke up. "Let us hold discussions in a few minutes, and then we will negotiate my offer for the contract tomorrow. Twilight will act to communicate between us. Please feel free to ask her any questions you may have. In the meantime, allow me to explain our situation.” I nodded, Princess Celestia smiled, and continued. “It is my intention to use your unit in defense of our capital against those who brought you here. The last time this faction rose against the kingdom, there was a great conflict. However this was very long ago. A seasoned military presence on our side will be most welcome." Princess Celestia spoke with a peaceful authority. How she was taking our presence so calmly I couldn’t figure out. So far she seemed to be accepting that we weren’t enemies, and that was all I needed immediately.

"As long as you do not feel that I am pressuring the kingdom into this offer,” I insisted after a pause. I might have been gawking.

The princess ignored any faux pas I had committed. "Far from it, Commander. You will be most welcome in this operation. Our kingdom was attacked by creatures called Changelings three months ago, and we found ourselves rather less equipped than we would have liked." She spoke and acted like an experienced queen. As long as she wasn’t playing with us, I could work with this. I might even enjoy it. Experienced clients make jobs easy.

"Then I look forward to negotiations." I smiled politely. The princess smiled back.

"Very good. Twilight Sparkle, please introduce the Commander to the rest of the Elements. I will be sending along funds and supplies on the next train from Canterlot. The Commander will need temporary housing for himself and his machines. Can you do that?"

"Of course, Princess." Twillight Sparkle was only too happy to agree. Anything for Princess Celestia, it seemed.

"Boy howdy, those are bigger 'n a prize pumpkin." The tan pony in the standard issue cowboy hat walked up, nudging her hat up to stare at the formation of 'mechs. "The shorter ones would fit in our barn, dunno about the other two. If we had the land and the wood I'd say we could have a couple barns ta hold 'em put up, lickety split."

Princess Celestia smiled. "I would be happy to arrange all of that, Applejack. I will send some of the guard along to assist as well."

The orange pony tipped her hat. "Mighty kind of you Princess."

"Not at all Applejack, we are imposing on you."

"And miss welcoming guests of the crown ta Equestria? Why the Apples wouldn't miss it!" She turned to me and grabbed my hand. "Name's Applejack, partner."

"Christophe Black, Commander of Atari." I shook her hoof and tried not to think too hard about the absurdity of the action itself. Or about how absurdly strong she was. And how much she was crushing my hand.

"Pleasure ta meet ya Commander. We settin four more places fer supper?" She turned and looked at the 'mechs again.

"Well, there are four of us." I shaded my eyes and turned as well. Might as well include them in the fever dream.

"Well they should come on down and meet the gang!"

"Yeah, I think it's time. Hold on a moment please." I turned away and made a show about covering my ear. Not necessary, but it got the point across to the farm pony. "Alright, stand down Atari. We're officially being invited to talk."

"Well if they're gonna be all welcoming about it…" Reaper let the implications hang. I interrupted any wiseassery that might have followed.

"Power down and come meet the locals. Lightly armed. This is a contract negotiation, not a confrontation." With talking magic ponies. They still weren’t being replaced by arguing pickles.

“Yeah yeah.” Dan’s usual insubordination.

"Roger Omega." Hiro’s usual formality.

"On the way." Rolf’s usual cold response.

---

The three other funny looking humans were met with all sorts of strange stares and murmurs. Rolf ignored it, Dan swam in it, and Hiro just looked intimidated. I spent the time watching the pony army, realizing how human they acted. These weren’t dumb farmyard animals, they were capable of standing at attention while sneaking amazed and scared looks at the battlemechs when their commander wasn’t looking. I had no idea where the hell we’d wound up, but it looked like a real planet, with real magic and real talking ponies.

We were briefly and politely introduced to the five other ponies. Rainbow Dash, the blue and rainbow pegasus, still glaring at us. Applejack, the friendly farmer. Rarity, the white with purple maned unicorn, who spoke and acted like she were some kind of high society mover and shaker. Pinky Pie, who had gone from grinning like an idiot to staring at us with thoughtfulness. Fluttershy, the yellow pegasus, hiding behind her pink mane and Rarity. My lance of clowns behaved themselves long enough for the introductions to go down, and the ponies walked away at the insistence of Twilight Sparkle. I couldn’t tell if she didn’t want them bothering us or if she was afraid of us. Maybe both. Judging by how Dan was swinging wildly between grinning like a brash asshole and giggling madly though, I was glad for the space.

In an impressively short timespan, a pavilion tent was set up for the Princess, and the army had struck camp. Several of the more curious lancers kept poking around our mechs. They would dare each other forward, chicken out, and then run back. Normally I would tell the recruits to stay the fuck off the hardware, but I was too busy marveling at the strange reality of the situation and feeling the summer wind on my face and smelling the fresh country air. I think Hiro was caught off guard by the strangeness of it all too, because we both jumped when Dan poked me in the shoulder and spoke up.

"Alright Commander, how do we want to do this?"

"Ok, uh…" My lack of professionalism was interrupted by a new blue unicorn pony with a clipboard.

"Preparations will be ready in five minutes, Commander. Please forgive the delay,” he said professionally.

I blinked. "Sure, no problem. We're flexible." The blue pony nodded and slipped away as quickly and silently as he had appeared. I looked around for other stealth-stewards.

"Commander?" Dan drew out the word, trying to get my attention back.

"Right. Plans. We um. Don't shoot the pretty ponies."

"Right." Dan giggled.

"We give them an example of what a mech can do, and propose a contract, no different than any other bid at that point."

"Except for the ponies," Dan quipped. Rolf snorted. His rifle didn't budge though.

"Ok, I'll ask for some kind of representation of what this supposed kingdom represents. The ones who summoned us don't seem like much of a threat, so I assume that this kingdom is basically paying us protection money. Not how I like to earn my paychecks, but I understand where she is coming from."

"Right, so parade formations, don't waste ammo, make some pretty explosions?"

"Yep. The locals don’t seem to have anything like this firepower, so we just don't scare them too badly and we wait until they research the…uh…way back."

Dan shook his head. "Your call Commander. This had better pay."

"Oh I'll make sure of that."

---

The pavillion tent contained exactly five ponies. The two unicorn pegasi princesses. Both were significantly larger than the other ponies, I noticed. No king or queen mentioned. Princess Luna, the midnight blue one, kept yawning.

The other three were normal sized ponies. The blue stealth-steward unicorn was some kind of aide, carrying a clipboard, with a scroll painted on his side. The purple one I'd been introduced to, Twilight somethingorother. Sparkle. A star painted on her side. She sat to the side of the white princess.

The last was also white coated, a unicorn in ornate bronze armor. He glared at us as we entered. I nodded, he nodded back, and then he and Rolf stared at each other. I think his horn started glowing. The safety clicked off on Rolf's rifle. The white princess began speaking before either could escalate.

"Good morning, Gentlecolts." Dan snorted once. "I hope this meeting will be short. We are here to arrange a formal agreement and contract negotiation. I am Princess Celestia. My sister, Princess Luna, and I rule the land of Equestria." Dan snorted again. He covered it with a cough. If the Princess noticed or read into it she didn't act. "This is our steward, Pristine Scroll. He will be taking notes." I nodded to the blue unicorn who smiled politely. "Our Captain of the Guard, Shining Armor." I think the white unicorn stood up straighter. Otherwise he didn't move. "And you have met Twilight Sparkle." I nodded to the purple unicorn, and she nodded back. "She is the one who noticed the ceremony being performed which summoned you. It is her work which has proven the existence of the uprising against Equestria."

"May I speak, Your Majesty?" The princess seemed done with her introductions, so I figured it was time to play the confused bystanders. The princess nodded. "We come from a different place. I have never seen…creatures like you before. While the stars here match a planet we know, this is obviously not that planet. My first priority is returning to our ship from where we were summoned, and in that endeavour I am completely at the mercy of the crown.” Princess Celestia nodded as Princess Luna eyed us critically. “I do not know, nor do I have any affiliation with, the individuals who were found at the feet of our mechs." I shrugged. "I am Commander Christophe Black. This is Rolf Hansf, Daniel Wilks, and Hiro Suzuki." I motioned to my men in turn. "We are Atari Mercenary Operations Unlimited. I apologize for the intrusion into your lands."

Princess Celestia nodded and smiled. "That is polite of you all. You are welcome in our kingdom."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

"I understand that as a mercenary unit you are soldiers for hire?" She was taking this the route of ‘lets make this all official’. I could work with that.

"That is correct Your Majesty. We have ten years of experience together as a mercenary unit."

"How many engagements?"

"Twelve large scale engagements, with several skirmishes and guard positions not worth mentioning."

The black princess Luna nodded, and Celestia acted subtly impressed. "That is a significant number for a fighting unit."

"Armored cavalry managed safely has a much higher survival rate, though we tend to have much higher expenses."

"What is a typical fighting force that you have faced?" Princess Celestia was dominating the discussions. Either Princess Luna was too tired, or she was second in command.

"We typically are contracted to face units similar to ours with around 100 infantry. We are also used to being integrated into forces three to four times our size with supporting infantry. That being said, we specialize in small engagements and flanking maneuvers against machines like ours. I can be prepared to give you and your military leaders a small demonstration of our abilities tomorrow."

The princess nodded and looked contemplative. "Captain Armor, do you have any questions for the foreigners?"

The white unicorn turned and had on his best Royal Guard glare. It really spoke to the quality of the royal guard. It takes years of practice and dedication to perfect the amount of piercing condescension and disdain for disorder that goes into that glare. Shining Armor instantly had my admiration for his professional demeanor. His combat prowess would have to be demonstrated later.

Shining Armor looked up at me. "I do not trust you."

"That is fair."

"Give me one reason that I should think you are not with the cultists."

"When we arrived, my scout accidentally killed one." Hiro winced.

"His corpse was recovered," Princess Luna commented. "What manner of sorcery do your machines wield?"

"None, your Majesty. The scout machine can…uh…fly like a firework rocket." The princess nodded.

"This could be a part of a plot to infiltrate our lines,” Shining Armor continued.

I nodded. "True, Captain. I would say though that using an alien force to infiltrate for subterfuge would seem a poor decision in terms of subtlety. I willingly provided the audio recording of what the cultists said once we arrived. It could be reverse psycology, granted, but it would be easy enough to dedicate an investigation to. An overt plot like this seems as though it would unravel too quickly."

“Yet you stand to be at the gates of our kingdom as the primary line of defense. How do I know you won’t turn?”

“I suppose you have no proof but my promise on my honor as a businessman. As far as our motivations, our only hope of returning to our planet is to cooperate long enough for this spell research to take place. While we could undeniably cause significant damage to this kingdom, our machines would begin to fall apart due to lack of maintenance inside of a year. Our best course of action is to cooperate, if the crown is truly able to return us to where we belong.”

The Captain of the Guard grimaced, shot another glare at Rolf, and nodded. “Without proof of their abilities, I have no further questions your Majesty.”

The white princess nodded and smiled. “Then it would seem further discussion will have to wait for the demonstration you promised. Shall we reconvene tomorrow morning?”

No questions from the purple unicorn? Interesting. I nodded and smiled. “That is most gracious of you, Your Majesty. I look forward to the morning.”

She smiled. “Very well then. Twilight Sparkle, I am officially appointing you as Ambassador of Equestria to Commander Black and his unit. Please escort them to Ponyville until our meeting tomorrow.” A field promotion to ambassador. Even more interesting.

The purple unicorn bowed. “Of course Princess. You can count on me!”

“I know I can, Twilight Sparkle, and I will. If there are no further questions, Commander?” I shook my head. “Very good. You are dismissed. The Ambassador will lead your unit to the closest town here, called Ponyville. Applejack will be hosting your unit at her farm.”

“Thank you very much, Your Majesty.” I bowed, waved for the guys to follow, and exited the tent.

The blue-and-rainbow pegasus must have been eavesdropping, because she flew up and feigned innocence. The tan pony trotted our way, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. The purple unicorn exited the tent a moment later. “Applejack, we will be escorting the Commander and his unit back to your farm for the rest for the day,” she told the tan pony.

“Alrighty then. Lemme know when y’all are ready to follow!” She looked at me and smiled. I nodded.

“Understood Ma’am. Mount up Atari.”

Chapter 3: Ponyville

Ninja lead us in formation over rolling grassland for a while, and then down a wide dirt road. The blue pegasus kept zooming ahead and doubling back while looking annoyed. Apparently anything less than supersonic was too slow for her. We were stuck at the top speed of Reaper's atlas, all 49 KpH of it. The talking ponies were simultaneously easy to work with and impossibly weird. The princesses just took in stride that we turned against our summoners in five minutes. I didn’t know where we were, I didn’t know how to get back, and now a group of pastel ponies was taking me to their town. Suffice to say that I was on edge. I spent a good half an hour waiting for the other shoe to drop, then settled into a bored half consciousness.

---

By the time we had reached civilization the sun was properly up. A picturesque village with farms had come up over the horizon. The group had given up on leading us from the ground, and the blue pegasus took over since she could fly up to my cockpit and glare at me periodically. She eventually led us by a sprawling orchard toward a large barn. With no obvious place to park war machines, the Tiger headed for a field of weeds. The large mechs sank into the soft dirt, but that just meant we weren't running full speed.

"Mechs on sleep mode, leave the reactor on," I radioed to my troops as I shut my mech's computer off.

"Yeah don't want to have to cold boot this shit," Reaper commented.

"Dismount Atari. Personal defense only."

The team gave a chorus of rogers and the constant hum of whirring gyroscopes slowly stopped.

I pulled my helmet off, took off my cooling vest, and grabbed a light jacket. The hatch opened smoothly and I slid down my ladder and drew my pistol as I hit the ground. Good thing, as the blue pegasus was busy with the local resistance in the form of an overly friendly farm dog. I sighed and holstered my weapon.

"You sure that's safe sir?" Dan quipped.

"I think the locals have the situation in hand." A red draft horse strode slowly out of the barn, and the blue pegasus blocked him and said something. This left the dog unguarded. I prepared for the worst.

A flash of light interrupted the brutal tongue onslaught as the purple unicorn teleported herself to the barn as the other five moved there the old fashioned way.

"Oh good, the elements of sparklemotion are here." Dan faked relief for a good three seconds before bursting into giggles. This did interrupt the dog though, who ran up to the orange pony. She adjusted her hat and led the group over to us.

We looked pretty out of place on an old country farm. Our heavy military boots didn't care about the soft dirt. Hiro had also grabbed his tan leather unit jacket on the way out of his mech and looked almost normal, but Rolf cut his usual intimidating figure as a large, pale, bald, muscled man. He was dressed in a tank top and assault rifle, inadvertently accentuating his image. Dan just had a pistol, but had taken the time to spike up his brown mohawk and put on a new shirt. Thankfully he was wearing pants this time. I wondered when he had started stocking hair gel in his mech. Hiro just tried to make the unruly black mop on his head behave with fingers as he jogged from the Tiger.

"Welcome t' Sweet Apple Acres!" Applejack said with a nudge of her hat. “I thank ya kindly fer usin the dirt patch to put yer machines."

I nudged Hiro when he said nothing. "Uh, sure," he stammered.

"Almost lunchtime, hope you folks like apple butter an' apple pie! C'mon an' meet the family!" She motioned for us to follow with her head, and I went after her.

"Apple pie, Atari. That's an order," I grinned at Dan.

Dan rolled his eyes. "God damnit. First you surrender us to a unicorn princess, now we’re being force fed homemade apple pie. You pick the worst missions Commander." Tradition mandated that he delivered that line with a straight face. I could see the excitement on Rolf’s face though.

Amongst the residents of the farm were one farm dog Winona (bark), her brother the red draft Big Mac (eeeyup) and the disturbingly green Granny (whassat) who didn't seem to notice that we were aliens. If Big Mac cared, he said nothing. He seemed to glance at his sister and shrug. I would learn later what would cause such a nonchalant reaction to new creatures being led around his house. At the time I was tempted by the prospect of real apple pie.

We were led into a classic farm house. Rolf unshouldered his rifle and looked around. "Gun rack?"

Applejack stared in confusion at the assault rifle. "What's a gun rack?"

The four of us looked at each other with confusion.

The purple unicorn, Ambassador Twilight Sparkle, looked between us with accusatory glances. "What's a gun?" She asked more slowly. Rolf nodded to me.

She was on to us. I could swear she could tell what a gun was for. I smiled, but knew I would have to be more careful around the Ambassador in the future. "A weapon, ambassador. Is there a place we could safely store our weapons while we eat?"

"Well," Applejack said slowly, "we got a closet over here. Not much use for weapons in these parts." She walked over to a closet and opened the door. Rolf followed her, and I motioned the other two to follow. Rolf removed the magazine and cleared his rifle before putting both on the shelf. Dan, Hiro and I followed suit with our pistols. I noticed the distinctly horrified look that the white and yellow ponies were giving us, but both quickly looked away as we turned around.

"I thank you and your family very much for your hospitality, miss Applejack," I said as we walked back into the main room.

"Like I said, the Apple family won't miss hosting guests of Princess Celestia. Let's all get settled for lunch and get to know each other!" I smiled and nodded, and motioned for the team to find a place.

The four of us battle hardened mercenaries stared blankly at the six pastel talking ponies. In return, the six stared back with apprehension. I took a deep breath and began improvising. After all, the ambassador was a personal student of the princess. Ponies or not, I could handle royalty.

"Perhaps I should start," I ventured. The ambassador nodded and looked...scared? "I run a mercenary cavalry unit called Atari."

"That means 'to strike' in Neighponese," the ambassador commented with noticeable nervousness.

I nodded. "That's right, or at least it has the same translation in the language I know." How the hell did she know Japanese, on top of English? Twilight Sparkle seemed to come to a similar conclusion.

"It is odd that we would have such similar languages," she pointed out.

I nodded again. "Our worlds must share something in common."

I heard the blue pegasus nudge-kick the ambassador, who shook her head and looked embarrassed for the moment of distraction. "I'm sorry. These are my friends. Applejack, of course, this is her family farm. Of course." She coughed while Applejack nodded and smiled. "This is Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinky Pie, and Fluttershy." Dan was now coughing to disguise laughter, so I kicked him in the shin under the table. "They represent the elements of honesty, loyalty, generosity, laughter, and kindness. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I represent the element of magic."

"It is a pleasure to meet you all. If I may ask, what are the elements of harmony exactly?"

"The elements of harmony are a set of linked magical artifacts that are tied to the magic of friendship." Dan snorted, or sneezed. This earned a quick glance from the ambassador. But nothing more. "When wielded by those who embody the respective aspect of friendship they can produce a protective and detaining effect."

"What the egghead means is that they turn monsters to stone!" The blue pegasus, Rainbow Dash butted in.

"The effect is reversible," the ambassador added quickly.

The four of us looked blankly at each other.

Rolf's deep bass cut the silence. "Like a cockatrice?"

The ambassador shook her head. "The effect is similar, but the magic can take many forms of stasis. Generally it can only be reversed via the elements."

"Generally?" I asked, hoping for an explanation.

"It can also have a banishment effect, which is what we were preparing to uh...do to you." The ambassador smiled sheepishly.

"Well thank you for not."

"There are cockatrices here?" Rolf continued. To me, he sounded confused. I'm told that Rolf's confused tone sounds a lot like his murderin’ tone. The six friendly talking ponies certainly reacted accordingly to the latter.

"Y-yes. In the forest," Twilight clarified.

"Hydras?" Rolf stared at Twilight.

"That's correct."

"Minotaurs?"

"Also yes."

"Sea monsters?"

Twilight Sparkle raised an eyebrow at that. "You mean Steven Magnate?"

"I'd hardly call him a monster," the white unicorn, Rarity, chimed in, "his manners are perfectly civilized."

"Hey Applejack, where'd you get the sweet statues?" A young boy's voice called in excitement from the doorway.

The ambassador's eyes went wide. "Spike!"

The four of us turned to see a small purple dragon waddle into the room on his back legs. "Hey girls, what's- woah, aliens!" His eyes went wide with excitement.

Rolf raised a single eyebrow. "Dragons?"

"Common species," said the ambassador as she rose to greet the tiny dragon. Her sureness wavered as she spoke. "This is Spike, my assistant. Spike, these are guests of Princess Celestia."

I glanced at Rolf questioningly. He shrugged. I shrugged back and turned to face the two foot tall purple dragon, who had taken the opportunity to jump up on to the table.

"Christophe Black, commander of Atari."

"Spike, number one assistant to Twilight Sparkle."

Dan stood up, walking toward the door. "I'll be in my cockpit until the drugs wear off." I tried to think of something rational to say, but just ended up fist bumping the two foot tall dragon.

"I'll get lunch going," Applejack said as she moved toward the kitchen.

"Like, are you real aliens? This is so cool Twilight. The Crusaders are going to flip."

Rarity and Applejack immediately looked scared. Applejack ducked into the kitchen muttering something while Rarity cleared her throat to speak. "Commander, how difficult is it to run one of your machines if you are, say, untrained?"

I raised an eyebrow. "You need the passwords."

"So would you say that they are reasonably childproof?"

"Yes, you need months of training."

Rarity nodded and relaxed, apparently satisfied. Hiro, Rolf and I looked at each other and shared wordless confusion.

Lunch continued with halting and generally awkward conversation, though the food was vegetarian home cooked goodness. I talked about myself a bit, nerding out about my perfection of the damage versus heat versus range capabilities of the Atlas and the Stalker. Dan came back inside after getting some fresh air. Rolf managed to hit it off with Big Mac. They seemed to stare at each other, exchanging single word sentences, then smiled at each other and were content. The ponies definitely were an odd collection of personalities. Rainbow Dash was every brash aero tech pilot I'd ever met. She was training to join the royal guard’s air demo wing, called the Wonderbolts, and had already won a flying competition. Fluttershy was aptly named, though Hiro was doing a fine job of attempting to out-shy her. Rarity's high society sensibilities didn't make much sense in this sleepy country town, but she reminded me of several monarchs I'd met.

Twilight Sparkle gave us the quick version of Equestrian history. Equestria was the territory we found ourselves in, the name of the kingdom more specifically. It was ruled by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, who controlled the daily path of the sun and the moon respectively. They were creatures called ‘alicorns’ which were a rare and powerful hybrid of the three base species of pony, the earth ponies, the pegasi, and the unicorns. There were other creatures living in the world and even in the kingdom, but this was primarily a pony kingdom. The three pony tribes had united to form this kingdom long ago, and peace had broken out pretty much since then.

There were some recent problems, namely the brief return of Discord the god of chaos and the attack of a species called ‘changelings’ some months ago. That attack coincided with the wedding of a third alicorn and the captain of the guard, of all things, so Shining Armor was still uneasy with strangers in his lands. I couldn’t blame him for that. The entire group talked of their exploits around the kingdom, stopping rampaging magical monsters of one sort or another, but remained fairly tight lipped about the changeling attack.

For all of her fairly impressive combat experience, Ambassador Twilight Sparkle struck me as a nerd. Spike seemed young, but surprisingly competent. He was referred to as a baby dragon a couple times, and I started to wonder what an adult dragon looked like. Applejack was an excellent hostess, with a sincerity that wasn't found too often in the inner sphere anymore. The real enigma was Pinky Pie. She introduced herself to all of us with vigorous handshakes, and began quizzing us on our preferences for color, cake, ice cream, and music. Between questions she varied between eating entire pies and taking notes. This was a woman with plans. Pony. Whatever.

---

By the time we had finished lunch, construction crews were arriving with materials for our new barn-hangars. Applejack began barking orders for who to go where and where things needed to go. Eventually we were asked to move our machines out of the way. Apparently the empty patch was going to be the location of a temporary hangar. The four of us moved back to blocking the road.

Reaper was, of course, the first to speak up. "Hey Omega, any reason we're standing here instead of assisting as heavy construction equipment?"

"We were asked to stay out of the way. How is your hand manipulation these days?"

"Better than twenty ponies with ropes."

"Feel like showing off?"

"Do you have to ask?" I really didn't. I hit the button to turn on the external speaker.

"Ambassador Sparkle, may we talk?"

The purple unicorn stopped observing the construction project, said something to Applejack and walked over to Midnight.

"Can I help you Commander?" She shouted up, then looked at Midnight curiously. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes, I can hear you very well." She looked surprised, but shrugged it off. "We can assist you in construction if you would like. Our machines are very good at lifting heavy things, like barn walls."

"Let me ask Applejack."

The two ponies had a short conversation. Applejack looked at the four battle mechs with what I would call appropriate concern.

The ground clearing operation was nearly complete, at least as far as I could tell. The frames for the sides of one barn were nearly complete, and work was progressing on the roof. Applejack waved at a few ponies who were beginning to drag ropes out, the walked over to our formation. "Y'all wanna help?"

"Yes, miss Applejack."

"Can y'all lift the frames into place without breaking em?"

"Reaper, Bear, you're on wall duty."

"Roger"

"Ok"

"The two tall machines will follow your direction, Miss Applejack. That is Daniel and Rolf."

"This way please.” She nodded them forward, then shouted ahead. “Clear the area, we got some help."

Reaper and Big Bear made short work of hoisting the wall frames into place, and shorter work of lifting the rafters into position. An entire team of ponies diverted to help the construction crew with the second barn. Reaper resorted to showing off by using the Atlas's large frame like a forklift, while Big Bear was content to use the hands of the Kodiak to twist and hold the wood pieces into position.

"Man, one mech would put this civilization ahead of everyone else on this planet," Reaper mused.

"Yeah, they only have a sun god to protect them," Ninja retorted.

"So she has a big flashlight and knows when the sun rises. Lots of primitive cultures worshipped the sun."

"Doesn't...doesn't the blatant use of magic strike you as powerful?” Ninja sounded wary of Reaper’s quick dismissal.

"Dude, whatever. Smoke and mirrors." Reaper went silent as he held the next set of joists in place. Ponies swarmed over it with hammers and nails and moved quickly on to the one Big Bear was holding.

"Looks pretty real to me," growled Big Bear.

"Yeah and lasers and radar would be magic to them. It's all relative."

The barns went up in record time. There were ponies on scaffolds painting soon after. Once the Atlas and Kodiak had moved away from the work area again, I was pretty sure they had started a choreographed song and dance number. It was better than some receptions we'd had, so I wasn't complaining.

---

With actual hangars to work in, we set about looking over our machines for the first time since being ripped through the fabric of space and time. The Atari company mechanic Janice was unavailable, leaving the grubby pilots to check the vital systems that kept the nuclear fusion reactors and multi ton gyroscopes from exploding. Without access to our dropship we were unable to load ammunition as well. Reaper's atlas and Big Bear's kodiak both had about twenty to thirty shots for their cannons and missile launchers. Plenty for a battle or two, but not nearly enough for the weeks we had just been employed for. Midnight's backup rocket packs were in a similar situation, but the four particle accelerators didn't need to reload. The lasers on the Tiger were under warranty for the next three years. If we fought carefully and conserved ammo, we could hold out for the length of this engagement. Assuming, that is, we didn’t run into much our own size.

After a couple of hours of crawling into uncomfortable access hatches and asking the finicky computer questions, we were all pretty certain that our machines were working. All that was left was the weapons test firing.

By this point in the afternoon most of the six ponies had returned to their lives. Rainbow Dash kept buzzing overhead, but Applejack assured me that this was part of her job. Closer inspection revealed that she was moving and destroying clouds.

"What is her job, exactly?"

"The weather team manages the rain and snow, makes sure we get our scheduled rainfall and enough sun, keeps big storms from the Everfree Forest from wreckin the town," the farmer replied easily.

I watched Rainbow Dash work for a moment until I processed what had been said. "They make the weather."

"Yup."

I had so many questions about this world. I let the complicated ones slide and settled for asking her the simple ones. The 'weather team' was preparing for a rain storm the next day, I learned, and were rarely off schedule since Rainbow Dash had become the day shift captain. This was a daily occurrence.

Fluttershy had returned to her home and, I gathered, veterinary clinic. Rarity was a fashion designer and seamstress, running a successful and nationally recognized shop out of this farming town. Pinky Pie was a caterer and event coordinator. Applejack ran the family farm and orchard. The least impressive résumé of the bunch was the ambassador, a small town librarian. However she obviously carried enough sway with the princess-slash-sun goddess for field promotions to ambassador, so something else was obviously going on there. The a-type personality introvert was not giving off any clues as to why, though.

"Miss Applejack," I asked as I walked out of barn-hangar B, "may I ask why the Ambassador is so respected by the Princess?"

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Y'all know she's the element of magic, right?"

"I think that was mentioned, but I'm not exactly certain what that means."

"She's probably the most powerful unicorn in Equestria. The princess was her teacher for something like ten years." I flashed back to the greeting we had seen.

"As in her only student?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Just the last four years or so." Just the only student of a god for four years. That explained their relationship and the field promotion, but not her personality.

"So she studied under the sun goddess for...what, ten years, and now she runs a library?"

"Technically I think she's still a graduate student."

"What's she studying?"

"New theoretical magic."

"Like how theoretical?"

“She’s supposed t’ be studyin the magic of friendship.” She shrugged. "I think she used a time travel spell once."

"You think."

"Pretty sure."

Time travel. Teleportation. The purple unicorn currently hiding from my lance mates in the entry of Barn-Hangar A could control the fabric of space and time. Applejack had just indirectly claimed her to be more powerful than the unicorn that had summoned us here in the first place. I struggled to express my mixture of terror and bewilderment. "She seems so..."

"Quiet?" Applejack ventured. I nodded. "She's a bookworm, that's for sure. Don't let her fool ya though, she's stood toe to toe with hydras, spirits, dragons and goddesses. That little filly won't back down once she sets her mind to something."

"Does the princess ask her to be a diplomat often?"

"It's happened a time or two, yeah."

The savior of the land was trying to act casual and not let Dan or Rolf know that she was spying on them while they worked. Poorly.

"I suppose I'll have to see her in action." The purple dragon child walked up to her, they had a quick whispered conversation, and he waltzed into the hangar with a "Hey, cool!" The ambassador panicked and flattened herself to the outside wall. Applejack winced.

"She don't always handle panic well."

I chuckled. "I'll keep that in mind."

My radio buzzed in my ear. "Omega, permission to let the dragon see the cockpit?" Rolf asked.

"Granted."

"Huh?" Applejack looked at me funny for the answer to an unasked question.

"Oh Spike wanted to see one of our machines." Applejack looked horrified. "Oh there's no danger, he can't start it.

Applejack nodded warily. "If y'all say so."

"One of those costs an entire life's salary. I'm sure. I don't take chances like that."

She seemed a bit more at ease at that. "How'd y'all afford four of em?"

"We took part in a campaign to protect a capital city from a war. We succeeded."

She nodded. "Don't much like the soldier's life."

"It's not for everyone, but it suits us."

"Fair enough." She nodded and looked at the two barns with satisfaction. "So, can I do anything for y'all?"

"Actually, the next step to testing our machines is to test our weapons out. We will need a clear area for weapons testing. Calibration really."

---

"Calibration," Twilight repeated. Applejack had returned with the ambassador, which was warranted, and Rainbow Dash, which made my internal diplomat cringe.

"That's what it's called." I pretended to be engrossed in my pocket computer rather than try to stare down the blue pegasus.

"Sounds like an excuse to start a war." The grating voice of the weather pony was a voice I was beginning to develop a pavlovian twitch for.

"With all due respect, miss Dash, the war is already started," I replied with polite incredulity.

"There isn’t a war yet!" I tried and failed to hide my amazement for her ignorance.

"Calm down Rainbow Dash,” the Ambassador broke in, “Princess Celestia has given them the authority to act as an on call branch of the Royal Forces. If they say they need to do this, it is our responsibility to make sure that they do it properly." The last part was said with a belittling glance in our direction. "Can you explain to me, Commander Black, what this calibration involves?"

I sighed. At least I could attempt to appeal to her scientific curiosity. "Given that the mass of a planet or other orbital body can vary from one to another, the density of air and force of gravity can change. The onboard computer can compensate for these changes, but only if it has a chance to read what they are, test the forces, and make changes based on tests." I prayed that was sciency enough.

"So in order to be able to fight a war, you need to test fire your weapons."

"That is correct."

"Do you need to shoot anypony?" Rainbow Dash did not seem to ever quit.

"Easy, Sugarcube." Applejack moved to her side.

"No, we do not need to shoot anyone. Shooting at a spot on the ground is all that is necessary. It would be helpful if you could make sure that nothing comes near that spot. An empty field with nothing to damage will be ideal."

"Near that spot?" Twilight picked up on the ambiguity of my statement. I was pretty sure I'd gotten her at least partially curious.

"The computer makes assumptions based on what it can tell without firing. It will be wrong. It will miss."

"How much?"

"I don't know, a few meters? Don't…glare at me like that. Please." I interrupted my explanation. This contract was beginning to get difficult. Twilight was giving her best disapproving glare, but it was bordering on becoming an angry glare. "Probably about five body lengths, better give it twenty to be sure."

"How far away?"

“About as far from here to the big house,” I said pointing to the Apple Family house.

Applejack put herself between Twilight Sparkle and I. “Th’ empty field there will be fine, Commander.”

I nodded. "Thank you, Applejack. Hiro, could you walk the Tiger out to 250 meters and give us a nav point?"

"Roger Commander."

"Come on back after you've got it. Target will be nav alpha, fire from nav beta."

“Just try not to start any fires, if y’all can please,” Applejack piped up.

That was a good point. “Certainly. Hiro, try to find a place without much brush.” Hiro nodded. Rainbow Dash zoomed off toward where Applejack had pointed with physics defying acceleration. I shook my head. "Mount up, Atari."

Rolf, Hiro and Dan climbed up into their respective machines. I stayed on the ground for a moment to have another staring contest with the Princess's prized purple protege. She seemed to be looking for something in my head. "May I ask what happened in the invasion?"

"No, you may not." I nodded. I guessed whatever was bothering her about this whole thing had something to do with the Changeling Invasion from two months before. Twilight had now refused to speak of it twice. I didn't want to go behind her back on the subject, but I was beginning to think that knowing what happened was more important than trying to make nice with her. Their perfect kingdom seemed to have its share of enemies.

A rainbow blur interrupted us. "Twilight, I found a spot. Big empty patch, just rocks and grass."

"Will that suffice, Commander?" All emotion was gone from her voice. I'd heard this tone from several dozen diplomatic liaisons in my time, but I was surprised that this formerly inquisitive, friendly…horse had slipped into it. I, in turn, slipped back into 'mercenary contact' mode.

"That will be fine."

"Rainbow Dash, lead them to the target area." Rainbow saluted and zoomed off.

"Ninja, follow Rainbow Dash and mark nav Alpha."

"Roger Commander." Hiro’s voice buzzed in my ear, and his engine hummed to life. Twilight winced as the footfalls of the 65 ton machine bounded across the landscape after the rainbow blur.

The Tiger walked up to the spot, set up a radar navigation marker, and radioed back to the team. The lumbering form of the Atlas hummed to life, took a few steps back, and marked a second point.

"Target navs are up, Commander," Reaper buzzed in my ear.

"Ninja, come back to nav beta. Twilight Sparkle, please have the elements of harmony move away."

Twilight nodded, glowed for a brief moment, and disappeared. I saw her reappear in the distance next to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, then she was back. Rainbow Dash was dragging Fluttershy away again.

"We are ready, Commander," Twilight said without looking at me.

"Thank you Ambassador."

Tough crowd. She was going to take some time to warm up. The Tiger slowed to a stop behind the Atlas a moment later, where Reaper stood on the target point.

"We're ready Commander."

"Roger, commence targeting calibration in sequence."

"Firing."

There was a pause, then a sapphire light flashed out from the Atlas's arm. The air screamed in response to being superheated. The other arm flashed out the same. Twilight winced at the sound. Applejack's eyes grew wide. The dry grass at the target spontaneously combusted from the heat. Each arm flashed out again, then once more. I could tell that the computer was zeroing in on the spot.

"Commander, the computer is whining about the other weapons."

"Give it the small lasers. Forget the autocannon, and the Streaks can track."

"Roger."

Ruby lances flashed out from the Atlas's arms, torso, and single glowing red eye. An expensive modification, jamming a small laser into the head, but it certainly had the intimidation factor imagined by the original designer. None could reach the target, but I could tell by the way they spread that the computer was happy.

"All good here Commander. Sharing target data with the lance."

"Good. Next unit. Rolf, you're up."

Wordlessly, the Atlas, hummed to life and walked around to the back of the line. The hulking form of the Kodiak took a few steps forward, adjusted his position and began testing.

"Commander, what is happening now?" Mercenary Liaison Sparkle was requesting more information, the longer we talked the less personable she was becoming.

"I need each machine to-"

"Twilight? There's a fire." Applejack interrupted. I sighed. Stupid planets with their foliage.

"Can't you teleport some water on it?" I came up with that off the top of my head. Twilight was about to yell at me, and realized that wasn't impossible. She closed her eyes for a moment. Between the sapphire flashes from the Kodiak's chest, a burst of water appeared over the target, and doused the flames.

"Commander?" Rolf's bass rumbled my ear.

"Keep testing, Atari," I called back.

"Roger."

The ruby lances flashed out from the Kodiak's arms, twice, and Rolf walked off of the spot. The Tiger walked onto the target and fired its medium lasers.

"Why do they make so much dern noise?"

"The same reason that lightning is loud. There is a lot of energy, and it heats the air. It just does it differently so it sounds different."

Twilight nodded, again without making eye contact with me. "You've managed to harness the heat of lightning, I assume without the electrical discharge."

"That's correct."

"What transfers the heat?"

"Light. Like if you focus the sun with a lens."

"You'd never get a beam with that kind of cohesion with a lens."

"No, It's…slightly different. I can't explain it. But it's light."

"Mmmm-hm." I couldn't tell if that was disbelief or dismissive.

I sighed, my hesitance hidden by the searing of the Tiger's small laser arrays. "Twilight Sparkle, I will be going last. I suggest that you find a safe place for the Elements of Harmony to wait. My weapons will be much more…explosive.”

"I understand, Commander." She disappeared, and I sighed as the Tiger walked away.

"What's got y'all so scared of Twilight?" My stress returned immediately as I mentally cursed myself out for forgetting Applejack.

"I…worry that I have not yet gained Twilight Sparkle's trust."

"She's a tough nut ta crack, Commander Black, but you will. Yer just…a bit intimidating, that's all."

"You mean our machines are intimidating."

"Yep."

"I worry about how she's going to react to my machine," I said with a grimace as I turned to walk to Midnight.

"What's scarier than harnessin' the power of the sun?" I chuckled.

"Just take cover." Applejack's eyes got wider, and she nodded.

Twilight reappeared after I had gotten to the top of Midnight and was opening the entry hatch. She looked around, found me, and teleported up behind me.

"The target area is clear, Commander."

"T-thank you, Twilight Sparkle. Please take cover."

"How much cover?"

"I don't want anyone hit by flying rocks."

Twilight looked at me with that glare again. "How fast will these rocks be traveling?"

"Very?" Twilight looked contemplative, then nodded and disappeared. I could hear her yelling a warning to the other two. I sighed as I climbed in and shut the hatch.

The computer was quick enough to integrate the target data from the other three, and two bursts from each medium laser was enough to get them back to nominal accuracy. I flipped on the external speakers.

"Changing weapons, fire in the hole." I turned off the external speaker.

The first PPC went wide. Not very wide, but wide enough that I was glad the pegasus wasn’t monitoring the area anymore. Rocks shot in every direction. A meter wide crater was left in the landscape. Something about this planet's magnetic field was funky. I fired again, and the second shot went off to the side again. The third shot was high. The fourth shot was right on target. I held off to let the heat go down.

I fired again, and the shot went off to the other side. The computer started scrolling error messages across my screen, and another screen just kept flashing "Calculating…" I would have rubbed my face if my head wasn't covered. I banged my head against the headrest instead.

"What the hell is up with the PPC's?" Reaper's voice on the comms.

"Not sure, I don’t know how a particle cannon is getting knocked off course."

"Weird, the air is perfect. Like, uniform density perfect. The lasers had to uncorrect."

"This planet, man," I agreed.

The computer screen stopped 'calculating' and prompted for another test fire. This shot was wide again. More calculating. The suspense was killing me, and I kept glancing out of my tiny window at where Twilight Sparkle huddled with the available Elements of Harmony with a magic purple bubble over the top of them. I was prompted for a shot again, and this time it was at least near the target. Two more shots were similar. At least the computer was making headway. I fired in constant succession, and each shot was closer than the last. I finally stopped when the computer warned me about the heat level. I was down to within a decimeter, and that seemed to be as good as I was going to get on this planet. I wasn’t going to be able to snipe anything at half a click though. The natives were getting restless anyway, and the target "point" had become a crater that was large enough I wasn't able to shoot AT the target point anymore. Time to call it a day.

"Back to your hangars, Atari. Reaper you have lead."

"Roger commander."

I flipped on the external speaker. "The test is over, Twilight Sparkle. We will be parking our mechs now."

"Understood Commander. We will meet you back in the house."

Twilight disappeared in a purple flash, the other two trotted away, and I wheeled around to join the formation of ‘mechs.

---

Supper was a respectfully quiet affair. Applebloom, Applejack's young sister, had come home from school. This resulted in a bouncing grade schooler attempting to ask about the giant footprints, the aliens, their war machines, and the titans all at once. This was all quickly silenced, which just put off being cornered by the curious child until after dinner. I quietly explained that I was a soldier employed by the princess, and that I would show her my war machine if Applejack said it was ok.

Applebloom was cruelly forced to wash dishes and do her homework before Applejack would look over my direction. Rolf silently helped with the dishes, but none of us were going to be accused of helping a kid cheat on homework. Finally the wide eyed pleas of "can I please go see the titans now?" wasn't met with any other questioning from Applejack or Granny. Applejack sighed warily.

"All right, but you gotta do exactly what mister Black says, you got it?" Applebloom nodded in a blur and probably would have promised her own kidney if it meant Applejack said yes. Applejack sighed and looked over at me on the couch, where I sat halfheartedly looking over the atmosphere analysis. "Sorry t' be a bother, but would y'all mind showin' my sister around?"

I stood up and smiled, quite ready to stop beating my head against computer readouts. "Not at all. I already promised to, after all." I looked down at Applebloom. "C'mon, wanna go for a spin?" I waved for her to follow as I made for the door. After having the reward teased in front of her for so long, she looked like she would explode from the prospect. She settled for squeaking in excitement and running to follow me. We got outside before Applejack could finish yelling about running in the house.

Applebloom's mind was far from the farmhouse anyway. "This is gonna be so cool! I never got ma cutie mark because I was destined to be a titan pilot an’ save Equestria! The girls are gonna be so jealous! Cutie Mark Crusader Titan Pilots!" She finished with a cheer. I ignored how much that sounded like a cheesy movie plot.

"Whats a cutie mark?" I asked instead as I led the way to Barn-Hangar B.

"Aintcha seen the marks on the ponies around here Mister Black?" I nodded. "Those are cutie marks! Its their special talent, and it's what they're destined to be great at!" Her enthusiasm faded noticeably as she continued. "Only you don't get one until you start doin' it. Me an’ my friends ain't found ours yet." My mind flashed to the symbols painted on the ambassador and her friends, and began running through the possible meanings. Rainbow Dash's rainbow lightning bolt was self explanatory, as was the apple farmer’s apple mark. I wasn't sure what the six pointed star on Twilight Sparkle was about, or how it related to being the most powerful unicorn in the kingdom.

I nodded to Applebloom, supremely well trained in the art of looking like I was listening. In the middle of her usual rapid fire verbal assault was useful intel though. "That's interesting. We don't get cutie marks." Dan was gonna have a field day with that term.
Applebloom looked horrified. "How do y'all know what you're destined to do?"

"We don't," I replied as I opened the door. That statement left Applebloom so confounded that the verbal assault stopped. The sun was setting but enough evening light came through the door to see by. The stalker and the catapult stood silently and ominously in the dimly lit barn, drooped down without the power on. I launched into an explanation before she could recover her verbal momentum.

"This is a Stalker assault battlemech,” I said as I walked over to Midnight. “To get into the cockpit, where you sit, you need to climb up this ladder-" and she was off "and the door needs me to punch in the pass code before it will open," I finished to empty air. When I looked up, Applebloom looked down at me sheepishly. “And if you press any buttons that I don’t say are ok, you could kill everyone in the farm house.”

That made her pause. “Really?” she asked, wide eyed.

“This is a war machine, Applebloom. Can I trust you?” Not that I was dumb enough to arm the weapons, but the Stalker could still walk through a wood frame building without any trouble.

Applebloom climbed down the ladder. “Maybe this wasn't such a great idea.”

I shook my head. “It's all perfectly safe if you do what I tell you. C'mon, follow me,” I said encouragingly as I started up the ladder.

Once I got us both inside, Applebloom perked up a bit. There’s enough room in a stalker to be behind the seat, but I brought her up on to my lap once I was settled in. She was lighter than I expected. The computer speaking about scared her back out of the cockpit, but she laughed once I explained what was going on. I showed her how all of the different screens showed different information, and the massive control panel that tweaked them. Her youthful enthusiasm did lead her to pressing a bunch of buttons on the control panel, but she did listen when I told her to stop. I drove Midnight around the outskirts of the orchard as the sun set, letting her steer once we were away from anything breakable. She wasn’t bad at it really, but any time I mentioned the weapon systems she sat back and looked at all of the screens, getting real quiet.

We turned back for Barn-Hangar B once the sun had gone down. “Mister Black?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you been in lotsa wars?”

“Yeah, I’d say so.” I glanced at my clan invasion medal and my honorary unit patch.

“Is it...I dunno...something you’d wanna be good at? Something you’d want your special talent to be?”

I grimaced. I didn't want her to think she should run off and enlist. “I am good at my job, but this is a violent life. You spend your time protecting people who need it and killing the guys who want them dead.” A gross oversimplification, but Applebloom seemed to be taken back by just that much. I didn't mention the preemptive strikes or the search and destroy missions.

Applebloom looked back at her side, sighed softly and looked forward again. “Looks like I’m not meant to be a titan pilot either.”

“Probably for the best.” Not like I was gonna leave one behind when we left. She would be the only mechwarrior on a planet with no mechs.

“Yeah. This is pretty awesome and all, but it's scary.”

“Well, that's kinda the point.” I shrugged when she looked up at me. “We’re supposed to be scary. If we walk in and we’re scary enough, sometimes there’s no fight.” She nodded and went back to watching the secondary monitors scroll with helpful information.

Once I maneuvered Midnight back into my new hangar and shut everything off, Applebloom seemed eager to be back on solid ground. We climbed back down in silence.

“Mister Black, why are you here?” She looked at me with an unexpectedly insightful glare. I considered how much information to give out.

“Princess Celestia wants us to guard Ponyville for a while.”

“‘Cause somethin’ scary is comin, right?” When I didn't answer that right away she continued. “‘Cause you wouldn't be here unless there was somethin’ else scary.” She didn't want to leave the hangar.

I sighed. “Yeah. I can't talk about it, because it's military business.”

She nodded. “Sometimes my sister tells me that too,” she said quietly. From the look in her eyes she knew what came next. Some kind of fight, national threat, a god of chaos.

I smiled. "Yeah, but we aren't supposed to be here.”

“How so?”

I looked around conspiratorially. “We were supposed to be the bad guys. Instead we’re helping.”

“Ohhhh.” She perked up a bit. “Usually my sister an Twilight Sparkle an all their friends gotta do it alone.”

I nodded. “Not this time.”

I wasn't really prepared for her to hug my leg. “Thanks Mister Black.”

“You're welcome, Bloom.”

She smiled at me and we walked out of the barn. My head was already going back to planning. “Mister Black? If y'all don't get cutie marks, howdya know you were gonna be a titan pilot?”

I have never met a kid who was so obsessed with her own destiny. “My uncle sent me to school for it.” She would keep prying the rest of the ugly story out of me, wouldn't she?

“Did you know you wanted to go?”

“I didn't really have a choice, but I ended up liking it.”

“So you just...did something you liked?”

“Pretty much. We don't get our destiny painted on our sides. We just have to run with what works.”

“Oh.” She shook her head in what I guessed to be incredulity, and I thought that was the end of that question. “Yer uncle, not yer parents?” Ah crap she was going to dig into that. I focused on the sound of our footfalls on the grass rather than the memories.

“My parents died when I was young, Bloom. My uncle raised me.”

Applebloom nodded sadly. She didn't correct me on her name, so I assumed the nickname was ok. She also seemed to take the news in stride. Then I realized I hadn't seen her parents, but I had seen her grandmother.

“You know what that's like,” I said quietly as we reached the farmhouse door. She nodded and stopped, looking up at me with big sad eyes.

“Did you like your uncle?”

“Not really. Are your sister and grandmother nice?”

She nodded quickly. “I'm glad Granny Smith didn't send me away to some school. I’d hate that.”

“I got lucky, I actually liked it. Plus I got away from my uncle.”

“Maybe it is yer special talent.” She glanced warily back at Barn-Hangar B. “Ah think I’m glad it’s not mine though.”

“Don’t worry about it too much. Just enjoy…” don’t say being a kid. “Life.”

“Alright. Thanks for the ride, Mister Black!”

“You’re welcome, Bloom.”

Applejack tried and failed to hide her relief at Applebloom walking safely back into the farmhouse. “How was it?”

Applebloom shrugged. “It was pretty neat, but it’s not my special talent. That’s ok.”

“Did you listen to Mister Black?” I took it from her tone that the answer to that question was usually ‘no’.

“She was a perfect recruit,” I cut in before Applebloom’s lying skills were put to the test. I walked back to the couch and tried to put my childhood out of my head with more mission planning. Applebloom smiled in victory as she went upstairs, while Applejack tried to figure out what had just caused the universe to turn upside down.

---

We were offered space in the house to sleep, but we all looked at each other and shook our heads. Barn-hangar B was quiet with just Hiro and myself. The farm dog took it upon herself to inspect both hangars, but apparently found everything up to code. We pulled sleeping bags out in the loft but the sheer quiet of the pre-industrial society and lack of other units kept me awake.

"Chris?"

Apparently it was keeping Hiro up too. "Sup?"

"Do you believe all of this?"

"Do you mean are we dreaming and all died in a terrible hyperdrive accident?" I laughed, feeling sarcastic.

"Yeah." Hiro was serious. I shrugged.

"It's possible. I like it though. I'll go along for the ride for now. Either the princess sends us back and we're on our way to the Carver system, or the movie ends."

"That's not quite as comforting as I was hoping for," Hiro said with a quiet laugh.

"I mean, I'm not a theoretical physicist, I don't know about alternate universes. Maybe we're in one. For the moment though, we're not in over our head, we're getting paid, I'll make sure we make a profit here. I'm good."

"They do seem to be on the level. The cultists freaked me out." Hiro was silent for a moment. "Do you trust the princess?"

"I think she's got something up her sleeve, but I think she's ok. She strikes me as actually intelligent. I don’t think she’s showing all her cards, but no intelligent ruler does.”

"Guess we'll see in the morning. Got anything planned for our demonstration?"

"Yeah, I'm working on it. Still have to figure out how we're gonna show weapon power."

"Well good luck Commander, night!" It's always 'commander' when the work has to be done. We both chuckled and tried to sleep.

Chapter 4: Contract

I woke up with my sidearm drawn, taking cover behind a hay bale blocking line of sight to the door. Panic flooded through me, heart beating hard in my ears as I strained to hear footsteps. Hiro was beside me. My eyes darted around the hangar. The sun was rising, quickly lighting the open doorway. Loft was clear. Ladder was clear.

"Hello, breakfast! Rise an shine!" The country drawl of Applejack called from below. Relief and embarrassment washed over me. I mentally berated myself for trying to defend myself from the pony who had fed us pie the previous day. I took a few deep breaths to try to take the edge off of the adrenaline and relaxed.

"Just the farm girl, Commander," Hiro whispered from my left. I holstered my gun and heard the safety on his side arm click.

"Too much time with House Liao," I muttered, remembering missions I had been on where this was an unfortunately reasonable reaction. Hiro snorted in self depreciating agreement. "One minute," I called down and the two of us slipped clothes on. I slipped my radio on before climbing down the ladder from the loft. "Rise and shine Atari, breakfast." Two groggy 'roger's were my clue that we were the first to be alerted.

"Something something strapped into a walking nuke reactor at six AM?" Hiro quipped as we stepped into the morning sun rising over the vast apple orchards. I’d told my men about some of the psychopaths I’d worked for before I hired them.

I snickered. "Up at the crack of dawn for farmers breakfast doesn't sound quite as badass, does it?"

"You pick the worst missions Commander," Hiro joked. I grimaced. That joke was going to get a lot of mileage on this mission.

“Yeah yeah.”

---

We were still here. All four of us. All four of our battlemechs. I’d slept lightly, but I didn’t really feel bad once the adrenaline wore off from waking up and panicking. The unexplained circumstances of our arrival aside, this was a seemingly solid mission prospect, and the locals were willing to work with us. Of course the locals were one meter tall talking pastel ponies. The presence of Big Mac conducting chores around the barn before breakfast only served to drive home the fact that we were, impossibly, still here in fantasy talking horse land.

Regardless, life goes on. Hiro looked at me with fear in his eyes as we walked over to the other hangar. I nodded silently and he sighed nodded back. After he’d followed me into the hell of the clan wars, he’d follow me anywhere. Neither of us really had an idea of where the fuck we were now, but that didn’t change the fact that he believed I’d get him out of this too. It was a strange iteration of our life, but it followed the pattern. SNAFU: situation normal, all fucked up.

Rolf and Dan greeted me calmly, and the four of us walked to the family house.

“I can’t help but notice that the drugs haven’t worn off yet,” Dan pointed out. I nodded.

“Not much to do but concede that it’s real,” Rolf concluded.

“That’s what I’m doing,” I said with what I hoped was an air of strong leadership and not bewilderment at the impossible. “Just treat them like humans and we’ll get through this. Dan,” I added, threatening him.

“Yeah, that’s gonna happen,” he said walking straight ahead.

---

Breakfast was amazing, though I was gathering that these creatures were, unsurprisingly, vegetarian. Not a big deal when the substitute was fresh apple juice, hash browns and pancakes with what appeared to be genuine maple syrup. Dan practically orgasmed at the table, and even Rolf was smiling. 'Guests of the Apple family' was certainly turning out to be worth the trip alone.

I spent the morning in a haze, trying to design an exercise with mounted cavalry that could demonstrate what we did. I settled on using Hiro's skills as a heavy scout to run patrol and find targets, and use the thee three machines to provide fire support until a new target was selected. What I was going to target without any kind of disposable target was another story. Teaching the Equestria royal guard to work in formation with battlemechs was another. Sinking myself into the familiar drudgery of battle planning actually helped me to take my mind off of the fact that I was delivering these plans to Princess Celestia and Ambassador Twilight Sparkle. The quicker I could treat them like dangerous royalty and not like talking horses, the better our odds of living would be.

The morning was a blur of redrawn plans, meetings with dignitaries and senior members of the royal guard. Princess Celestia handled the actual introductions, as opposed to her steward or the ambassador. I thought it one more oddity for this princess, and kept it in the back of my mind. Mostly we stood around at parade rest in our unit jackets while smiling non-threateningly. The introduction to the colonel of the Equestrian army was the most memorable.

"Colonel Tempered Steel, this is Commander Christophe Black."

"Strange creatures, I take it you aren't from around here?"

"No sir."

"The commander and his unit were summoned by a Titan cult." The princess paused just long enough for the looks of horror. "They attempted to summon titans. Fortunately for us, they summoned a mercenary unit who is willing to work for us instead."

The colonel composed himself quickly and turned back to me with the force and dignity that I expected of a colonel. "How do I know that you won't turn on us?"

I shrugged. "Pay us fairly and don't make us fire on non-combatants sir. I honor my contracts otherwise."

"And what do you consider a fair payment?"

"Well, a typical contract payment for a single mission is…” I stopped. I couldn’t exactly give them a quote in C-Bills. Hadn’t thought that one through. “Hm. I don't know what a typical salary is here."

"If I may," the princess interjected, thankfully, "how much more than a typical soldier do you charge?"

"Well, please keep in mind that this is just for reference, but we typically charge about three to four times an officer's yearly salary for a single search and destroy mission. An extended contract with patrols, defense, and combined arms will typically fetch ten to twenty times more. That of course covers the entire units expenses salaries, repairs, support crews, interplanetary travel, ammunition, and other such miscellaneous costs for a year long tour." The colonel's face was turning green. The stewards face was turning red. The princesses face remained placid and smiling. I couldn’t figure out why she was so eager to stay on my good side, when she could easily have us turned to stone. Or killed.

"You are talking about the salary for an entire platoon, sir," the colonel spat.

"And we will bring twice that much firepower and defense for that price, sir. If that is too egregious for your society, please, let's negotiate. I do not wish for my unit to be seen as a threat."

"Perhaps now would be a good time for a demonstration of your units capabilities, Commander." The princess moved between the colonel and myself, smiling at both of us in turn. I nodded.

"If I may conduct a briefing with your troops to teach them how to safely work with battlemechs? It should take about an hour to set up. The only thing I need is a set of fake targets."

---

"Soldiers, tnhut!" Twenty five of Equestria’s finest snapped to attention. The captain of the unit, Silver Spear, turned to me and nodded. "All yours Commander. Your targets will be in position in fifteen minutes."

I nodded and saluted. "Thank you sir." I turned to address the troops. "Reaper, you're up. Move out to point alpha."

"Roger Omega,” Reaper replied over the radio.

"Good morning soldiers. I am Commander Black. And this," I paused as the ground shaking footfalls of the Atlas distracted the troops, "is a Defiance Industries AS7-D Atlas assault class Battlemech. About face!" The troops turned as one and stared at the approaching steel Titan. Reaper was firing the eye-laser periodically just for show. "The pilot in command is my right hand man Dan Wilks. This exercise will give you all a crash course in safely maneuvering around a Battlemech, and will teach you its strengths and weaknesses. I and my unit will be your shield and anti siege forces if Equestria is attacked by titans. I suggest you pay attention. At ease, soldiers." The troops relaxed, but not much. "Reaper, close to point bravo and stop." The Atlas turned on its toe, tearing up the ground as it did, and veered away from the terrified ponies. As the Atlas slowed, it stepped on a ten foot sapling and snapped it. "This has been lesson number one: the Atlas weighs one hundred tons, and it will kill you if it steps on you. You fine ponies can all run faster than it, so just don't stand under it." I walked around to the new front of the formation. "Are there any questions so far?"

One brave pony cleared his throat. "Sir, Aurora Glow. What weaknesses does something that size have?"

"An excellent question, we'll start there. Reaper, please turn around." The Atlas turned to face away from the group. "I invite any Pegasuses to inspect the back of the head. Anyone else with sharp vision, notice the small door on the back." Four winged ponies took off and hovered by the head for a moment. Dan opened the access hatch, still wearing his neurohelmet, and waved. "That is pilot Dan Wilks, also known as Reaper, also known as the squishy weak fleshbag in the center. Anything happens to him, and the Atlas stops makin a mess with your enemies." That got a couple of dark chuckles, but mostly silence. Tough crowd. "You want to keep the Atlas on your side, you keep any enemy away from that hatch. Clear?"

"Yes Commander," said Aurora.

"Clear, soldiers?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. We will be relying on you all out there. You watch our backs, we'll all get out off this on one piece. Back in formation, soldiers!" The Pegasuses came back, and I waited until there was plenty of room between us and the Atlas. "Alright Reaper, floor it."

The Atlas began lumbering forward, engine whining at the strain. Soon it achieved its lumbering gait. "Weakness two, this is the top speed of an Atlas. I think most of you can walk faster than this." That got more laughter.

"We will try to be in position, but if we need to change, it will take us a while. Stay behind us, or get clear. Eyes on me. Reaper, move out to kappa, targeting range will be ready shortly."

"Roger, will inform." The atlas turned away and began walking toward the targeting field.

"Weakness three: the beating heart of a Battlemech is its engine, much like a train engine. It's large, it's under tremendous pressure. If it is incapacitated by some manner of hell beast, it will explode. Unlike a train engine, it will explode with the full fury of the sun. I swear to you that this is not an exaggeration. If the Atlas falls, you must run. Do not try to save the pilot. Do not take chances. Get clear as fast as you possibly can. There are no exceptions to this. Do I make myself. Perfectly. Clear."

"Yes sir."

"I said am I clear!" I yelled.

"Sir yes sir!" They chanted in unison. Amazing how universal that concept is.

"Alright then. Atten-tion! Forward. March." I led the unit forward toward where the colonel had been kind enough to set up a target range for us.

---

The ponies marched with me toward the field I had been told about. Hiro joined us and walked alongside us for a good kilometer. I could see some of the troops getting uncomfortable, but others started to realize just what had been recruited to their side.

"Soldiers, this is a Yori ‘Mech Works CPLT-L3 Catapult heavy class battlemech. It is smaller and weaker than the Atlas, but it is much, much faster, and has one trick up its sleeve. Company, halt. Cover your ears." I did so, and most of the ponies followed suit. "Ninja, show off."

"Roger Omega."

The tiger roared into the air on four jets of plasma, scorching the grass below. The poor ponies who hadn't protected themselves recoiled from the wall of sound, but one quick thinking unicorn threw up some kind of protective bubble that muted most of the noise. The tiger twisted in midair firing lasers and fire from every orifice, and landed with a clang and a thud that shook the ground. The tiger stood up, walked over to the troops and stopped.

"This is our heavy scout. Hiro will be the first unit on the scene. Just stay out of his landing zone. He's already barbecued one cultist who got too close, and I don't want that to happen to any of yours."

"Question Commander." A different pony.

"Sure."

"What are the beams of light?"

"Those are called lasers, and they will cut you in half. We will demonstrate in a moment. Ninja, move out to kappa."

"Roger."

"Forward. March."

We arrived at the target range where several ponies pulling carts were arriving. The teams began unloading hay bales and worn out looking farm equipment. I briefed the unit of ponies on what I wanted them to do and then handed them back to their commander. Then I briefed my unit and climbed into Midnight.

---

"Ninja, left flank. Bear, right flank." I proceeded to lay down covering fire over the troops as Reaper followed suit. We surrounded the troops as they advanced slowly, the Tiger hitting half of the hay bale 'targets' and leaving the other half for the army. The Kodiak's arm mounted small laser arrays raking across hay bale targets and leaving most of them on fire. The Equestrian Army special forces were doing a great job of ignoring the thrum of the ppc's firing and the heat from the lasers. We advanced slowly until we reached the 'enemy lines' which were sufficiently cratered at this point from my ppc fire. Captain Silver Spear signaled me to hold as the army arranged themselves for the assault. "Atari, hold up. Final push."

"Roger."

"Kay."

"Left or right?" Reaper asked. I flipped on the speaker.

"Captain, my unit will support the left flank."

"Understood Omega," Silver Spear shouted up. Two ponies approached him and saluted. They had a short exchange and he spoke to the trumpeter. The signal to charge was sounded, and the unit charged.

"Atari, give 'em hell. Charge."

The Kodiak's huge engine screamed as it hit full power and the massive assault mech charged forward. It kicked a hay bale out of the way in the process, sending it flying as it disintegrated. The Tiger roared into the air landed on another, as Midnight and the Atlas charged to the left. The two of us in back couldn't keep up with the charging ponies, but our weapons kept firing from overhead. The army moved quickly and efficiently, lancers charging and breaking off to charge the next target as the unicorns came behind them with glowing horns unleashing all manner of terrible magic on the hay.

---

We regrouped on the other side of the field, leaving a burning, smoky mess behind us. Several other ponies came in with water as the sky clouded over and began raining. I was distracted by the approach of the army captain anyway, and climbed out of my cockpit after the rest of my unit had reformed around me.

"That is one terrifying display of power, Commander Black."

"You run an efficient and well trained unit, Captain Spear. Many armies I have worked with in the past can't handle being surrounded by battlemech fire."

"Well these are my best ponies." He looked up at midnight and whistled. "What manner of magic do your weapons fire?"

"The tiniest rock possible as fast as a sunbeam."

He chuckled. "We have the goddesses of the sun and moon on our side. We have steel titans keeping us safe on the battlefield. I won't say I'm looking forward to this fight, but I am liking our chances a lot more now."

I saluted. "I look forward to working with you, sir."

The captain returned the salute. "That is a good way to put it. I look forward to working with you as well. Anything you need to add for my ponies?"

"Just pass along how impressed I am."

He smiled. "Understood. I'll pass along my recommendation to the princesses as well. I will see you in Canterlot, Commander Black."

"See you there Captain Spear."

I took a moment to admire the swath of destruction before climbing back into my mech. "Atari, good work, we have the recommendation of the army. Head back to base camp, parade formation."

"Roger Omega."

"Joining."

"Kay."

We reformed into a pretty marching line and accompanied the army back to the tents with their flowing pennants.

"Nice spur of the moment introduction there Omega," Reaper said with some sincerity.

"Thanks Reaper."

"Solid army," Big Bear growled.

"Yeah, better than FWL troops," Ninja added.

I grinned in my cockpit. "Now to overcharge them without them realizing it and hopefully the Lyrans don't penalize us too much for being late."

"Good luck Commander," Reaper said. He was rarely serious, but the subject of getting paid always sobered him up.

---

The princess sat inside the large tent with banners flying. The colonel led me inside and the steward showed me to a seat. "Would you care for any tea?" The princess asked with a perfect royalty smile. I smiled and accepted, and the steward placed a cup in front of me. I prepared my standard royalty sales pitch. "Let us get down to business. I have seen the way your unit operates, how you handle your unit, and how you work with our soldiers. Colonel, what do you think?"

The colonel pursed his lips for a moment. "I must admit, I am having trouble trusting your unit since you were summoned by the Titan cult. However, Captain Silver Spear speaks highly of your direction and demeanor. We have all seen some of what you bring to the field in terms of...ah, capability. My real concern at this point is our ability to pay you, since I assume our currency means nothing in your society." I nodded.

"My company accepts goods and contract allowances as well as money. The hospitality of the Crown is not lost on me."

The colonel seemed somewhat relieved. "We are prepared to provide transportation, food and housing for your unit. Have the barns served as safe storage for your machines?"

"Yes sir. "

"Glad to hear it. As for the rest of the compensation, we have basic metals and gemstones that you might use to barter." I tapped my glasses to life and pulled up the latest exchange rates on Outreach.

"That could work well."

The colonel nodded to the steward, who cleared his throat. "Our current supply of diamonds is low, so we would not be able to fulfill the entire contract that way, perhaps a mix of diamonds, rubies and sapphires?"

"I would also accept gold bars," I offered, half joking.

The steward raised an eyebrow. "Gold?"

"I am sorry, do you not have gold here?"

"We have gold. Does your society have a particular use for gold?"

I nodded, unsure of where this was going. "Copper, gold and platinum are used heavily in the construction of many machines in our society. They are quite valuable by weight."

The steward blinked, then looked at his notes again. "I suppose we could have the royal alchemist start working on that, but...oh no matter."

"I am sorry, the alchemist?"

"Well yes, who creates the gold in your society?"

We both stared at each other blankly for a few seconds.

"You can create gold,” I finally settled on clarifying. How was this society stuck in the steam era?

"It is not a trivial spell, Commander, but it is a fairly standard practice to transmute one object into another," the Princess spoke up. I nodded dumbly.

The steward took the opportunity to get back to business. "Approximately how much gold would you require Commander?"

Some quick work with a calculator and discussions about the science of alchemical transmutation later, it worked out that about ten million C-Bills worth of gold would cost them somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 grand. With our projected mission being a single siege defense, I couldn't justify charging them much more since they were already providing us housing and food. The colonel seemed pleased, the steward was already making plans, and the princess...

Princess Celestia sat in her travel throne wearing the most unreadable royal smile. I thanked her directly, and she thanked me for being reasonable under stressful circumstances. The Colonel told me that he looked forward to working with me. The Equestrian Royal Guard special forces, led by Silver Spear, would spend the day traveling back to Canterlot and begin debriefing the rest of the Royal Guard.

I left the tent in a haze. We were on a cakewalk of a mission, paid exorbitantly well, somehow without taking our employer to the cleaners...

And that princess kept bothering me. All of my lines worked. All of my concerns were met. I was getting everything I asked for and my opinions were valued. And I couldn't shake the feeling that I was the one being played. Every time I slipped up, she jumped in. Every time I left myself hanging she covered for me. She was more than happy to make sure we stayed here. The realization about stabbed me in the gut. She knew something was coming, and it was something she needed an assault lance to stop.

---

"Commander."

Rolf greeted me outside the tent. I had a signed contract in hand which he eyed, but I rolled it up. "Meeting," I commented nonchalantly. He nodded and turned on his toes. I turned my radio on. "Meeting, hangar."

"Roger."

"Roger."

Few words in Atari carry more weight than the word 'meeting', to the point that even Dan doesn't joke about it. I climbed into Midnight and led a loose formation back to Sweet Apple Acres. No one spoke until we all got back to the same hangar.

---

"Well?" Dan asked the moment his head crested the loft.

"Ten mil in gold."

Dan paused as he got to the top. "You're fucking kidding."

"No."

"Why the hell would they give us ten million in gold?"

"Apparently the stuff is common here, it's worth like a hundredth of what it's worth on Outreach."

"Ok, that makes more sense," Dan said as he sat down next to Hiro.

"They said they'd get the court alchemist on making the stuff."

"What."

"Alchemy, as in transmutation?" Rolf rumbled. I nodded.

"Supposedly it's not too hard." The team kinda looked at each other funny for a moment. "So I'm a bit wary of this whole thing, because it sounds too easy."

Dan shook his head, jaw hanging open for a moment. "If we're actually in fuckin fantasy land, how far does this shit go? I mean, dragons? That's pretty full fantasy right there. Whadda they need us for?"

"Tartarus," Rolf grunted.

The vague sense of dread I had solidified when he spoke. "Right, Greek hell. What's there?"

Rolf cleared his throat and spoke in smooth bass. "Tartarus is guarded at the gates by Kerberos, or Cerberus, a three headed dog. I asked. He's gotten out before.” Rolf looked around between us with extra stoic glare. “Ambassador Twilight Sparkle and friends put him away. This shit's real here."

"The fuck, man," Dan said as he leaned against the wall. Hiro gave a low whistle. I vaguely recalled the greek myth of the guardian of tartarus. My brain whirled while I tried to account for legends in our defense plans.

"Like, do lasers even hurt demon dogs?" Dan asked, talking with his hands. "Are there ghosts here too?"

I shook my head. "According to the princess, we are only here for the Titans. I’m starting to get the impression that these titans are going to be an actual threat, and she needs us for more than just military experience. She seems pretty committed to keeping us here and on good terms with the kingdom, but she’s not telling anyone much about what these titans are capable of.”

“Unless something even worse gets out of Tartarus,” Hiro pointed out.

“It would have to be multiple somethings, otherwise the Ambassador would take care of it.”

“Like the avatar of chaos," Rolf said.

I nodded, collecting myself. "Yeah, the friendship beam is pretty good at containing single targets. I guess they're most tactically concerned with keeping multiple titans busy while it's fired, and they've never used it more than once in rapid succession. They don't know how quickly it recharges, or how many times the Ambassador can do it. Also if they bring siege equipment, because lasers versus battering rams," I added with a grin.

Dan giggled manically.

"So the army knows how to deal with magic combat and demons?" Rolf asked.

"Magic yes, the royal guard will handle the magic combat. From what I gather, the Ambassador leads their special ops team, called the Elements of Harmony. They usually handle demons and the like, but we’re probably gonna be the muscle if things get overwhelming."

"The friendship beam, right," Dan laughed.

"Yeah, well, they took down the spirit of chaos who turned the world plaid. Look very plaid around here to you?" That kept Dan quiet. "I've been assured that the Ambassador is reliable when the shit hits the fan." I looked Dan in the eyes. "That's why the sun goddess assigned her to keep the aliens and their metal titans in line."

My emphasis made Dan think twice. "You think she could take us down?"

"As I was told, she once turned her parents into plants. The princess had to change them back. That was when she was a kid."

The four of us looked at the hay covered loft for a moment.

"So how do we get out of here?" Hiro asked.

I lifted my hands in supplication. "This Titan cult really has the crown worried. The Ambassador and the princesses will have the time to devote to researching a spell to put us back once the fate of the kingdom doesn't hang in the balance. Either we get paid in the meantime or we sit on our asses."

"Well I'm game," Dan said after a moment, and stood back up, "I'm assuming there's a hazard bonus."

"All the gold bars you can carry," I informed him from the contract.

"Sweet!" I could see the wheels spinning in his head.

"Not with your atlas," I clarified.

"Fuck you."

"Oh no, you have to use your human arms to do work," Hiro added quietly.

"Burn," Rolf grinned and held a hand out to Hiro, who high fived it with a grin.

I rolled my eyes. "Everyone else good?"

Rolf just nodded. Hiro nodded as well. "On you, commander."

"Alright, let's go fight an epic fantasy war for some talking horses."

"You pick the worst missions Omega," Dan said as he grabbed the ladder.

Chapter 5: Ambassador

I stashed the contract in the lockbox in Midnight's cockpit after scanning it into my computer. I had to fight down the usual pre-mission panic, but the familiarity of that feeling made me laugh in spite of myself. I found myself surrounded by unicorns and worried about hydras and dragons, but at least while worrying about planning things correctly I could convince myself that this was a normal mission.

Part of me wanted to take Midnight out, refine the PPC firing algorithm, march into the forest, and stop this cult before it got started. Without intel though I would never find them in the huge forest. Even then, they might have some sort of magic to kill me outright. I slumped into my chair and focused on the familiarity of my cockpit to calm myself before climbing out into the world again. This was not a time to play hero. I had to figure out how to work with the locals to get through this contract. Good pay, contact seemed on the level, just had to train their army and special forces, and we’d get out of this with literal piles of gold to show for it.

Ambassador Twilight Sparkle was waiting for me at the entrance to the hangar. Rainbow Dash had landed to join Applejack behind the ambassador. Exactly who I wanted to deal with right this very moment. I looked around, and added ‘alone’ to that statement as my team had made themselves scarce. I hid my disapproval by smiling professionally at our handlers. "Good afternoon Ambassador."

The Ambassador was clearly worried. Applejack was managing to hide outright apprehension behind a facade of country hospitality. I had seen Rainbow Dash on my radar during our training exercise, so I knew she had seen us in action, and she was just openly perturbed. The Ambassador replied cordially. "Good afternoon Commander. Princess Celestia tells me that you have reached an agreement."

"Yes, I find the contract very favorable, and the Princess tells me that it is very fair to the kingdom as well. You can transmute gold?" I couldn't prevent my curiosity from hijacking the conversation and my professional demeanor.

The ambassador nodded. "I don't understand why it is so valuable in your society."

I grimaced. "We use it quite a bit in our machinery. It has some useful properties." I tried not to spill the beans about electronics right off the bat. However this seemed to satisfy the Ambassador's immediate fears because she nodded and seemed to relax.

"Well I am glad you were able to come to a mutually beneficial agreement. In celebration of this event, I would like to give you and your unit a tour of Ponyville."

"Are we planning to stay here?"

The Ambassador nodded. "This is the closest town to the Everfree Forest, and so has the highest likelihood of being attacked."

I could see her dodging the subject, so I didn't press. She had a terrible poker face, and really did not handle panic well. "Please let me know when military intelligence suggests otherwise, ambassador."

"Certainly." Meaning 'that was easier than I expected'. I didn't know if she thought I was gullible or just unobservant. Either way, made it easier on me.

"Allow me to gather my men and then you can show us around."

“My friends and I will meet you at the entrance to the farm,” Twilight Sparkle replied. I nodded and went back inside Barn-Hangar B. "Atari, field trip. We're getting the tour. Dress appropriately, and I do mean wear clothes."

My radio buzzed a chorus of unenthusiastic rogers. I went up to my cockpit to put on a less formal looking jacket.

---

All six ponies that made up the Elements of Harmony were waiting for us, all with friendly smiles. They led us on the dirt road into town, each pointing out things of interest as they saw them. It was a town of a couple hundred. Terribly quaint. Large enough for some specialty shops. A bakery, a confectioner, a florist, a shop that sold sofas and pens for some reason. A bowling alley, some restaurants. The library of course. Some outlying farms that had regular stalls in the public market. The mayor herself greeted us at the town hall, making sure to welcome guests of the crown. I confess I wasn’t paying terribly good attention. I was getting a sinking feeling thinking about how this place and it’s residents would look as they ran screaming from the army with their town on fire.

Everyone we met seemed to take us as an interesting novelty, but not life changing. The entire experience left me waiting for the other shoe to drop. The expected panic over aliens or invading monsters or invading monster aliens never came.

"Ambassador, may I ask why everyone is so, ah, nonchalant about our presence?" My curiosity finally got the best of me in the middle of our tour.

"What do you mean?"

"I just expected aliens in war machines to draw more...how do I put this..."

"Darling, no offense, but you are hardly the strangest creatures to walk into this town," Rarity commented. "Between the invasions from the Everfree and the magical experiments gone awry, we would almost be more surprised if nothing happened here.” She laughed politely, then turned to Twilight Sparkle apologetically. “No offense, dear," she added.

"Um."

"Twilight, it's cool, this place was boring before you showed up. Now it's almost cool enough for me!"

"Thanks Rainbow," the Ambassador mumbled, humbled.

“So that’s why your brother didn’t seem too put off by us?” I asked Applejack. I hoped to prevent any more 'helpful comments'.

“Yup, y’all weren’t eatin’ the apples, no worse than any other day in Ponyville.”

"How often do you six have cause to use the Elements of Harmony?" Dan asked, speaking up after almost an hour in silence.

Twilight shrugged. "Not that often, once every few months or so."

"Fluttershy can tame most of the creatures we come across, including dragons!" Rainbow said with a look at the shy yellow pegasus.

"You tame dragons?" Hiro asked. She shrunk away.

"Um, I wouldn't really call it taming. He just didn't understand the situation," she said almost at a whisper. I looked at the ambassador with what must have been incredulity.

"Fluttershy can speak to most creatures. It's part of her talent," she clarified. I looked back at the yellow one, who hid behind her hair.

So the one who was afraid of her own shadow was a negotiator and linguist. Rainbow Dash was their scout, Applejack their brawler, though it sounded like Rainbow Dash didn't mind mixing it up. The Ambassador was the most talented mage the land had ever seen, so she ran support and artillery. Rarity wasn’t much of a fighter, but she did seem to have a lot of high society contacts and probably a bit of money, if her stories of forays into the fashion world were any indication. That really left the pink normal pony who was currently…

Pinky Pie was bouncing along on her tail like it was a spring. I knew for a fact that they were creatures of flesh and blood, and only the unicorns were magically talented. However the others seemed to take this in stride, as did the residents we passed. She knew everyone's name, and they knew her. No one passed her without a smile. I turned and asked the Ambassador quietly.

"How is she doing that?"

Twilight sparkle seemed to recoil in physical pain at the question, but she responded quietly. "We don't ask questions about Pinky Pie."

"Ah, I apologize."

"Oh no, there just isn't an answer." As we both turned to look at her, she stopped herself in midair, mid bounce, in complete disrespect to all known laws of physics, and went back to standing.

"Sorry Twilight."

"Don't worry about it Pinky Pie." The pink one resumed bouncing along, on her feet this time. Twilight sighed and shook her head, but she was smiling.

"She is also mildly pre-cognizant. I wouldn't call her ability reliable, but it is disturbingly accurate." I nodded, then looked at the ambassador questioningly. "Are you not trying to figure out what makes her an asset to our team Commander?" I nodded. Somewhere in this young ambassador's head was a sharp mind. I made a note to be careful around her. "She represents the element of laughter of the magic of friendship. She is very silly, but she brings smiles to our faces when we need them most. And she really does throw the best parties on this continent."

"Ah, morale officer." Twilight looked confused for the moment. "It is a standard military billet, keeping morale up is a necessary part of a functioning military unit. They also usually run food."

"Pinky Pie is also one of the best bakers on the continent."

"Then I completely understand her role."

Twilight leaned toward me and whispered. "Just don't say the word P-A-R-T-Y."

"Why?" I whispered back. Pinky Pie was somehow instantly between us.

"BECAUSE I GOTTA!" She giggled. "Sorry, I can't help myself! You aliens are gonna have the best welcome to the planet party ever!"

Morale officer indeed.

---

“What’s down that road?” I asked as we completed the loop of the town.

“That leads to the schoolhouse,” Twilight Sparkle said factually as we walked.

“Comin, Dan?” Applejack asked. I turned to see Dan standing at the crossroads looking around.

“Yeah, sorry.” He jogged a few steps to catch up. “So do you have a police force, or a royal guard detachment?”

Twilight shook her head. “Ponyville isn’t large enough to warrant a guard detachment. It’s close enough to Canterlot that if something big happens they can get here in a few hours.”

Dan nodded. “No police? Law enforcement?”

Applejack shook her head. “We pretty much get along here in Ponyville. Been that way since my family founded it.”

“You never have problems from the outside? Wasn’t that forest full of dangerous creatures?”

“Not that we can’t handle. We’re pretty capable of takin’ care of our own,” she said with hometown pride. Dan seemed like he was building to something, which was generally a bad idea, but he often had good points regardless. I let him keep talking.

“Alright. So who defends the schoolhouse in an emergency?” Ah. That was both important and probably going to be taken poorly.

Applejack’s eyes flew open. “The whole town’d show up if somethin’ went wrong.”

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash cut in defensively. “I’d be there in ten seconds flat.”

“Is there an evacuation plan for when the army attacks?” Dan pressed.

“I thought you were the army,” Rainbow Dash said, glaring suspiciously at Dan.

“The dozen ponies we were with were too sure of themselves and their ability to take over the country with just us. There’s gonna be more.”

“There isn’t a war, unless you know of one.” The two edged closer to each other. Our tour group had stopped walking now.

“Rainbow, calm down,” Ambassador Twilight Sparkle said as she walked between the two. “We don’t have need for standing protection of Ponyville, it’s a nice place. A quiet place, certainly not one that needs war machines protecting it. We discuss our problems and solve them through diplomacy and friendship.” She looked at Dan oddly, then at me. I couldn’t tell if that was resentment or anger seeping into her voice.

I stepped forward. “My wingman meant no disrespect Ambassador. We are just trying to understand how best to keep everyone in this city safe.” He was as tactful as a brick, but he had a valid point.

“Please, ambassador, think of the children,” Dan somehow managed to say that with a straight face. I gritted my teeth, he usually broke out the snark about a minute before he lost his temper.

The Ambassador and her friends seemed to move closer together. “We will. Should there be an attack, the citizens of Ponyville will protect the children.” As ragtag as they were, the ambassador was their unanimously agreed leader.

Dan went to maximum snark. “By stopping an army with your bare h-”

I cut Dan off with a command and a glare as Rainbow Dash flared her wings and shouted something over the top of Rarity gasping while looking horrified and fainting. Pinky Pie broke in to stop Rainbow Dash and Applejack from yelling while Twilight Sparkle looked like she was getting a headache. Rolf reached in to lead Dan away with a massive arm around his shoulders.

I stepped toward our ambassador as the ponies calmed each other. “Thank you for the tour, Ambassador, we will be heading back to our hangars now.”

“If you need me, I will be conducting research in the library for the rest of the day Commander,” Twilight mentioned calmly. I smiled, she smiled, and our two groups parted ways.

I didn't like how the ambassador and the rest of the Elements had reacted to our weapons, or to our battlemech demonstration. There was always the risk that our display of technological superiority would be taken as a threat. It appeared that it was. We hadn't even been able to test the loud explosive weapons. My PR nightmare was slowly becoming a reality. To exacerbate the situation, Dan was being his usual charming self while somehow being right. I wasn't sure how much longer we would be able to sit in the sleepy town without starting an incident of our own.

---

To his credit, Dan made it all the way inside the hangar and out of earshot of the six ponies assigned to keeping us in line before he kicked a support beam with enough force to shake the barn. "I'm done. I'm fuckin done with these fuckin pacifist fags who think that hugs are gonna solve everything!" I simply folded my arms and waited for his outburst to burn out. "They don't want death machines, fine, don't fuckin hire me! These condescending pricks are going to suck my dick when this is over."

"All the gold bars you can carry," I reminded him quietly.

He allowed himself a quick glance at me. "Better make me the fuckin king too. Shitlords!"

I waited a few moments to be sure he was cooling off, and he seemed to be. He punched a different beam before resigning himself to pacing quickly across the hay covered ground. "Are they really worse to work with than Capellans?"

Dan turned and glared at the ground. "No," he replied after a moment, "no at least they believe their naive bullshit. I'll teach them what a mech is for and they're gonna worship the ground I fuckin walk on." He turned and stormed off to the Atlas, I presumed to check systems. He wasn't antagonizing the locals, so that was just going to have to be good enough for now. Dan's ability to focus was what made him one of the best mercenaries in the inner sphere. Allowing him the space to let off steam was just a factor of working with a laser focused personality.

He did have a point though, the idea that the cultists could be scared off seemed to be the prevailing one, at least in this town. I was fairly certain that Princess Celestia had hired me to protect the kingdom, but the ambassador and her friends seemed to think that we were superfluous. I wondered if she thought our loyalty had simply been bought. She sure didn't seem to believe that the conflict was going to be solved by direct combat. I sighed as I realized that letting these questions go unanswered for much longer was only going to cause real problems. It was time to have that discussion with the ambassador.

The walk to the Ponyville library was idyllic. The citizens of the town were just as friendly and welcoming to me as when I was being led around by the local hero. The birds sang, the flowers smelled wonderful, and not a single dictator bent on proving his loyalty to a master was ordering tax collection or public executions. No invading armies declaring right to the land by birth or might. I wondered if humans had ever lived like this.

"Oh hey Commander," Spike said as I walked in. He dropped his comic book, sprung to his feet in some representation of military attention, and saluted. I saluted back.

"At ease."

“Oh. Hello.” Rainbow Dash looked up from a comic book briefly. She glared at me, then seemed to decide that her comic was more important. Pinky Pie, reading over her shoulder, waved as excitedly as ever. I smiled and waved back.

"Twilight is in the basement. Didn't she just take you on a tour?" Spike started walking to a door and waved for me to follow.

"Yeah, but now I have some questions. I'm gonna make her earn her ambassador pay," I said with a grin.

Spike smiled, then turned around and looked at the floor confused. "Does she get paid? She always has money for food..." He shrugged and opened the door and called into the darkness. "Twilight?"

Our response was a startled squeal and a metallic clang followed by the sound of freely arcing electricity. That stopped after a moment and I suddenly felt dumb about hiding my batteries from the locals.

"Spike, what’s wrong?"

"The Commander is here."

"Hello Ambassador!"

"Well, put on safety goggles." The sound of tools on a workbench followed, and I got the impression that I was not going to get much more attention than that. I turned to smile at the dragon.

"Thanks Spike."

"No problem Commander." He smiled, seemed to take this reaction from her in stride, and went back into the main room.

I picked up a pair of safety goggles from the convenient table by the door and headed down the dark creaking stairs. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Ambassador’s personal life, but it wasn’t this.

The room more closely resembled a mad scientist's laboratory than a workshop. The only natural light came from a single half window near the ceiling that must have been buried in the base of the tree trunk. Bubbling cauldrons and beakers covered tables. I thought I saw a primitive brain scanning device buried in the corner underneath a set of plans and a half finished kite or flying machine, I wasn't sure which. The ambassador was a closet mad scientist. An academic. I felt more confident about the upcoming conversation already. I could work with this.

The current experiment seemed to involve a Jacob's ladder and some sets of wires that led out through the window. I ducked under the leads and moved behind the ambassador at the table.

"I'm attempting to measure latent magic potential in the air," she mumbled to the room without looking up. "Several books talk of supposed ley lines where magic is stronger, so in order to test that theory I'm testing a device to measure static magic charges."

I observed her work for a moment, which involved taking copious amounts of measurements and documenting the results. "If you would like help, I could take notes rather than you using your magic to hold a pen. Isn't that messing with your data?"

"Yes, but I won't risk Spike getting hurt." She sounded like me when I was focused.

"Understandable, ambassador. I would be willing to help," I clarified.

She turned to me with a thousand yard stare, then startled. "Oh! Oh yes. I could use the help."

"Certainly."

I held wires and moved things for a few moments while she worked, then took the pen and clipboard when they started glowing.

"Right. Position A: no response. Maximum safe output."

"Got it."

She continued for a few minutes, moving wires around, making her horn glow, trying different lengths of wire, bends, twists and the like. I felt somewhat annoyed that she didn't seem the slightest bit interested in talking to me, but the strategist in me was happy to watch her work unrestrained so that I could learn who this supposed ambassador actually was.

The entire experiment seemed to be an exercise in frustration. Half an hour later everything was buzzing and humming just as it had been when I entered. Finally the ambassador sighed and dropped the wires. "This doesn't make any sense. This should be possible." She looked up and finally looked at me with a start. "Oh! You're still here."

"And here are your notes," I said as I put the notepad on the workbench.

She looked away sheepishly. "I'm sorry, usually it's just me down here and I get absorbed in my work."

"Quite alright, I do the same thing."

"Right, you mentioned that you enjoy changing configurations of your machines..." She trailed off as my presence reminded her of the seriousness of the outside world. I nodded and took the pause as my opening.

"Ambassador, I would like to apologize for any ruffled feathers this afternoon. My men are not the most well spoken, but please be assured that they follow my orders."

Twilight Sparkle nodded slowly, though she seemed hesitant to respond. "If I may ask, Commander Black, when would you order your unit to attack? When would you order them to attack in Ponyville?"

"When not doing so would endanger the kingdom, ambassador." At least she was willing to talk about the real problem.

She turned away and began shutting down her experiment. "What if there was another way?"

"Then I would expect you would take it before ordering my unit to engage." I was starting to see the 'ambassador' act for what it was. Time to earn my consultant pay.

"Me? Ah, of...of course." As the ambassador took off her lab coat and headed up the stairs I removed my safety goggles and followed.

"Certainly, I would not recommend such an action, 'mechs are not historically kind to small towns. I would recommend evacuation first if it had to happen."

"I suppose one does not reach the rank of commander without understanding the implications of such an action." She looked up at me as if to offer respect for my experience.

I didn't point out that 'commander' was really a self granted rank and that it served mostly to differentiate me from my men to those who didn't know our unit. I also didn't point out that I had met several high ranking officers who wouldn't hesitate to fire on a small town if it meant accomplishing their objective. I tried to banish the memory of bloody bodies littering the streets as the remaining former protesters ran screaming from my head.

"Civilian casualties don't get you rehired, ambassador."

"This really is just all about the bits to you." She turned around and glared openly at me.

As the memory faded I realized what I’d said. I’d offered that piece of wisdom as I stepped back into the main room. Rainbow Dash and Pinky Pie watched us wide eyed. I mouthed a silent ‘goddamnit’. This was not going in either the direction I meant it to or the direction I expected. 'Is that your problem with us?' I thought.

"I apologize, my sense of humor is rather dark. These machines can be dangerous, which is something that is always on my mind when working with infantry or working in urban environments. Certainly there comes a time when the only solution is to attack in those circumstances, but it is something that should be avoided."

Twilight looked like she was trying to decide to pick a fight or not. I guessed she chose not to. "Your machines...how does a society come up with that as a solution to conflict resolution?"

I nodded. "Advanced technology allows for one pilot to be as effective as a hundred infantry, while being far more protected. Mostly pilots of machines as ours are nobility or royalty, but I have run a successful enough business to purchase four such machines for my unit."

"Which gives you and your soldiers the same protection in combat as royalty."

"That's correct."

"And only by careful management of finances can you afford to keep that level of safety."

"Which leads us back to my obsession with getting paid."

"I see now." The solved mystery seemed temporarily more important than her initial concerns. That was an interesting tidbit for later.

"Are there any other types of machines that provide similar protection? Something more practical in design?"

"Several , actually. There are aerotechs which are a kind of flying machine. Those rely on speed for protection, but are much better at response time. Tanks are similar and usually more efficient. Those use wheels or tracks rather than legs. There are also four legged machines like ours, but those can be rare. Those use the same power source as our machines."

"As opposed to what?"

"Fuel powered engines similar to your train engines. When you run out of fuel in the fuel container, the engine stops, which takes a matter of hours or days. They are much cheaper, and in some ways less dangerous, but have much more limited running time and a greater need for supply lines. Ours only need servicing every few years, which allow for extended missions without supply lines."

"So how does an engine like yours work, exactly?"

"It's a little beyond me, honestly," I offered. "The technology has been kinda lost in our time. Suffice to say that there were…wars. The scientists were killed, and the factories and blueprints were destroyed."

"So nobody knows how?" She seemed shocked and appalled by this, and I guessed it was due to the loss of the knowledge.

"Oh, they find clues every once in awhile. They build them now. It's just not common knowledge. I personally don't know how."

Twilight looked devastated. "Not even a little?"

I sighed.

"You know about electricity?" She nodded her head uncertainly. I pondered. "Lightning?"

"Of course I know about lightning."

"On the inside of this is basically a lightning generator."

Twilight looked annoyed, and picked her greater curiosity. "Ok, so it runs on lightning…somehow. But what makes the lightning?"

"Nuclear fusion?" I grinned pathetically, then sighed when I was met with only a head shake.

"Ok…um…it's like…"

"Is it like making clouds?" Dash asked, putting down the comic book. "Clouds make lightning."

"No, different process, but same outcome."

"Is it like making cake?" Pinky Pie piped up excitedly.

"Sure, it's exactly like making cake," I deadpanned.

"LIGHTNING CAKE!" The pink one leapt three times her height in the air and squealed.

"Pinky…" Twilight was holding her head. A thought occurred to me.

"Actually...let's stick with the cake metaphor for a moment."

"What." Twilight looked like her headache was getting worse. Pinky Pie was suddenly sitting at a desk and taking notes. I had no idea where the desk came from.

"No, follow me for a minute here. It runs on putting things together with a…chemical reaction...to make new things."

"Like a cake," Twilight deadpanned.

"Exactly. See you have your flour and your eggs and your sugar, right? And you put them together, there is a chemical reaction, and you get a cake right? But not everything goes into the cake."

"Like the eggshells!" Pinky Pie was following along perfectly.

"Right, exactly. And the frosting."

"You can't forget to lick the frosting!"

"Not all of that goes on the cake," I agreed.

Twilight's eyebrow twitched. "How...does that make lightning?" She was trying so hard not to explode.

"Lightning cake," Pinky Pie corrected Twilight, and scribbled more notes. Twilight's eyebrow twitched again.

"The engine makes the…lightning cake, see, and everything that doesn't go into the cake gets turned into lightning. Thrown away. Burned."

"But what is the cake for?" Twilight knew that there had to be a point here, I could see it in her eyes. If there wasn't, it was going to kill her.

"The cake doesn't matter. It's a byproduct of the reaction."

"Can I eat it?"

"No, Pinky Pie."

"Then why make a cake!?" Twilight was shouting now.

"Because the amount of lightning you get from the other bits you throw away is enough to make one of these babies run for months."

"…Huh?" I don't think she was expecting that. I sighed and walked up to a chalkboard.

"I'm probably committing some kind of ethics violation by doing this, but…you know math, right?" I began writing an equation on the board.

E=mc^2

"You have too many variables," Twilight corrected me instantly.

"One constant. Here." I continued to write as I explained.

E : output energy

"Lightning, we'll call it."

m: input mass

"The bits we throw away when we're done with the cake."

c: speed of light

"Squared, of course.”

"The speed of light?"

"it's not instant."

"Yes it is."

"Not really. It's…hang on." I pulled out an interface to the computer in my sun glasses, pulled up the reference, and began writing out the number.

c: speed of light: 299,792,458 m/s

"Meters in a second," I clarified.

"How big is a meter?"

"Oh, right. About half as long as I am tall." I gestured to my waist.

"In a second."

I snapped my fingers in time to the clock display in my sun glasses. "That's right." The gears in Twilight's head started spinning. The annoyance was slowly draining from her face and the thousand yard stare was coming back.

Pinky Pie poked her after her eyes slowly grew to the size of saucers. "Twilight? Is the cake good?"

"That is a lot of lightning," Twilight whispered.

---

Twilight's first foray into nuclear physics left her sitting on the floor of her library staring at her chalkboard. I eventually slipped out and leaned against the doorway, playing with my pocket computer. Pinky Pie ran by me, blabbering about zap apples and cake. She grabbed Rainbow Dash by a hoof, said something about a factory, and kept running. Rainbow bounced behind her down the path, and out of sight.

Twilight Sparkle shakily walked out of the library about five minutes later and sat down beside me. "I think I understand magic," she whispered.

"Oh?" Not the conclusion I was expecting.

"Just a theory. But that explains the power output." She looked at me, a thousand yard stare in her eyes. "I've spent so long trying to unravel the effects of magic that I've barely researched the causes. There are multiple different kinds of magic, but what makes the actual effect…I didn't realize…"

"Your planet is…several thousand years behind where my civilization perfected this stuff. Don't feel too bad. It was like a hundred years after steam engines that we learned the basics."

"You …I don't even know where to start…" She rubbed her face with a hoof. Her eyes were focused on me again and my jaw clenched. "You could provide enough heat to keep all of ponyville warm for a thousand years with one of those machines and the tiniest bit of fuel."

"Yes."

"You walk around, in war, in explosions, riding on top of…a potential energy output that is best measured in stars."

"Pretty much."

"What kind of machine needs that much power?"

"I've shown you as best as I can without an actual war."

"Why would your society come up with machines that focus that kind of energy just to destroy?" Twilight seemed to be getting nearer to the heart of her confusion.

"Power, land, money, the usual vices. My people are simple, and they don't always get along."

"Why?" She looked and sounded legitimately angry.

"Because they don't always look for peaceful solutions."

Twilight paused, and stopped looking so perplexed. "You kill for money."

I passionately disagreed with that summary, but kept my cool. "No, that's a hitman. I fight wars for money. I perform military functions."

"You kill and get paid for it." The malice dripped off of her words.

I reminded myself that this unicorn could remove me from existence if she felt like it, but I was still angry at her. "Do you actually want me to defend myself?"

"Yes!"

"Fine. I defend other people for money. Does the captain of the guard get paid?" My rage was making my words petty.

"Shining Armor does get paid, yes." She annunciated the name. I sidestepped whatever faux pas I'd just committed and kept going.

"Would he ever have to kill to protect the Princess?"

"M-maybe-but he's loyal to the princess! We care about her!"

"We?" I blinked as the logical implication clicked. "You've killed to protect the Princess." I realized what she meant before I realized how bad that accusation was.

Me and my big mouth.

"Cadence!" She screamed at me, and her eyes began glowing like they had when we first met. Her feet were an inch off of the ground, and she stayed there. Another way she could apparently bend space-time to her will, great. I had one chance to get out of this without someone who could apparently ignore gravity and dynamically convert matter to energy in any of a hundred focused ways focusing it on my head. I took a wild guess.

"She would have died." I waited a moment, wincing reflexively. I wasn't dead, so I kept talking. "I'm not saying that this is a good thing, but it is a product of society, not of any one person. If you try to be the better man by not fighting, you just wind up dead."

Twilight stopped floating, although the eye glow was still there. "I don't understand why she would do that." I didn’t understand how she could ignore gravity.

"Sometimes people don't get what they want out of asking nicely. Sometimes they try to-” I stopped being distracted by the infinitely powerful unicorn wizard in front of me and got back to making my point. “Look, I don't know what happened to you, I only know what I've seen. And where I come from, if you don't fight, you get killed."

"You sure fight to protect a lot of people." She would have looked embarrassed if her eyes hadn’t been glowing.

"I just have more loyalties than you do. I live in a bigger universe. You have a simpler society."

"Did you just call me stupid?"

"I don't call anyone who can understand nuclear physics a hundred years ahead of her own time stupid."

Twilight stared into my eyes as hers lost the glow. I thanked my years of experience in negotiating with royalty for being able to keep calm. "What do you do this for? Why would you ever chose this life?"

I shrugged. "I'm good at it. I understand tactics. I have a level head in tense situations. I enjoy logistics." I stood up and began pacing, and Twilight didn’t interrupt. "I come from a place where the kingdoms who have war machines like ours are very few. Only royalty can pilot them. To think that a common man like me would ever get his hands on one, much less a full scale assault machine like my Stalker is almost unthinkable. If I was not an independent contractor, I would never be able to do what I do." Twilight didn't respond immediately. "Honestly, I would have been killed long ago in some nameless battle, and never met my friends." I tossed that last bit in there since she seemed so focused on her friends.

"You take pleasure in your work." Her tone was unreadable.

"I take pride in my work. I am efficient and effective."

"But you enjoy killing."

"Why do you think I ki-Have you heard of an ejector seat?" A thought occurred to me mid-sentence. She thought everyone I shot at died.

Twilight paused. "What?"

"I won't lie and say that people don't die. I won't lie that it's not dangerous. But these things are rigged…they know when they are in danger. If one of them thinks it is exploding, the pilot is shot out of the cockpit on a rocket so he doesn't get killed in the explosion."

"Getting shot into the air, out through glass, without wings is safer."

"Hey, there is a lot of money spent on getting those working correctly. Hundreds of years of research, thousands maybe. And we have parachutes." She seemed to be confused about this last part, but ignored it.

"So you are willing to…pilot those because you will escape before it explodes."

"Most of the time, yes."

"So how many ponies have you killed?"

I succeeded in not correcting her. "Seventeen. Eight unconfirmed."

"You kept count."

"Again you seem to be laboring under the delusion that I don't care." I admit that I snapped that last part. "I live in a society where there are power hungry mass murderers that would order an army to kill everyone in a city just to prove a point! Hell, I've seen one do it just to decrease his costs! There are hundreds of revolutions going on on dozens of different planets right now! Millions of people trying to get a ruler even half as nice as Princess Celestia! They have no guns, much less walking tanks, they can't defend themselves! Most of them disappear overnight!" I spun on my toes and glared at her. "I'm the only guy they can call!" She was silent long enough for me to compose myself again. "Look, I'm not always the good guy, I admit that. But there's a saying as old as human history, 'War is Hell'. The worst fights became long, drawn out affairs that lasted years with no progress or agreement on either side. Years of people dying for no gain at all. Entire generations lost. I don't fight stalemates, I win battles decisively. I end things. Make no mistake, war is a terrible thing. But I end wars."

Twilight stared at me, her mind whirling almost as hard as it had when she was looking at the mass to energy conversion equation. "Why do they have wars?" She was very quiet suddenly.

"You know that whole 'harmony' thing you research? We're not so good at that."

"It's not just a research topic."

"Trust me, if we could point a magic beam at some of the people and yell 'Harmony!' we would have. All I can do is defend the people I care about."

"As a merciless marauding mercenary murderer," she shot causally, the alliteration rolling easily off of her tongue.

"A man's gotta eat," I replied callously. My patience was gone.

Twilight glared at me and walked away. I didn't much feel like arguing that mercenary was a valid career option anymore, but she hadn't turned me into a cactus. I counted it as a win.

Chapter 6: Recon

My walk back to the farm was quiet. I’d pretty much screwed up relations with the Ambassador. She was too naive. This whole society was too perfect to understand the concept of a mercenary unit. Probably a good thing in general, but not right now. I mulled over our conversation, trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong, how I should have phrased things or introduced concepts. I didn’t have any answers for myself. I kept silent for the rest of the afternoon as I tried to work out how to salvage this contract.

I stood to make my way back to the hangar after dinner. Applejack called from the kitchen. "Hey Mr. Black, mind if I join ya?"

"Not at all. I was just heading out to the hangar."

"Alrighty, just a moment."

I stepped outside and leaned against the farmhouse in the afternoon sun. True to her word, Applejack came out of the front door a minute later. "Thank ya kindly."

"Not necessary. What's on your mind?"

"I m worried about how Twilight is handling this whole situation. I know y'all are used to handling different problems in a different way, but I really think we need to sit down and talk about our points of view before this difference of opinion turns into a real problem."

"I appreciate that. When did you have in mind?"

"Well I invited Twilight over this evening. Hope you don't mind. After we all started goin’ at it this morning, I figured we needed to solve this."

I grimaced. "I had a similar thought. I went over to her place this afternoon. We...didn't part on the best of terms."

"We'll see if she shows up then."

"Yeah. Let me get my jacket."

"Alright."

The two of us walked over to Barn-Hangar B as Twilight approached it from the road. As I got closer, Twilight froze. Then I heard the sounds coming from the hangar and realized that she was staring into the open doors and not at my approach.

Hiro was inside. Hiro had played the Japanese flute professionally before he became a mechwarrior. Now he brought it on missions to keep himself calm. As Applejack and I walked up, the echoing song wafted through the evening breeze to our ears. Applejack stopped frozen beside Twilight. The vibrant acoustics of the hangar and the otherwise silent countryside made for a breathtaking song, and the odd Japanese scale and sorrowful music he played when stressed brought tears to Twilight's eyes. I leaned against the outside of the hangar door and waited. This was one of my favorites, and Hiro tended to stop when he knew he had an audience.

When the song finished, Twilight looked over at me, sniffed and rubbed a foreleg across her eyes. "What was that?"

"That was Hiro. He's a musician, ambassador. At least he was a professional musician before his family demanded he take up his brother's position as a mechwarrior."

"'S beautiful," Applejack added quietly.

"Too bad you can't hear the other instrument he plays. Too big to fit in a cockpit."

"Commander?" Hiro called from the hangar.

"Ambassador is here, Hiro."

"Roger." The flute music was replaced with the sound of boots on a metal ladder.

Twilight looked disappointed. "He didn't have to stop."

"No, but he doesn't like to perform without being ready. He just does that to relax."

Twilight glanced at Applejack and shook her head as Hiro approached us. "I'm sorry. I came to apologize for our argument this afternoon Commander." Hiro walked out of the hangar and nodded politely, and she smiled and nodded. "I am not familiar with the world you are all from."

"We are likewise not familiar with the customs and history of your country, ambassador."

"Please...just call me Twilight. I'm not the greatest ambassador," she chuckled with no small amount of self depreciation.

"I dunno about that. We haven't lit Ponyville on fire," I offered.

"Or started a riot," Hiro added.

"That puts y'all ahead of us," Applejack said with a grin. Twilight grimaced, and Applejack nudged her. "You're doin' just fine Sugarcube."

"It's true, a-Twilight. And please, call me Chris."

"I've been meaning to ask, what does Christophe mean?"

"Herald of...the savior," I responded after a moment of internal translation. "The gods of our worlds are more subtle, so many people wind up being named after their prophets. Daniel is also a historical name."

"Ah, so you hope to represent their qualities."

"Something like that."

Applejack spoke up. "Is 'people' what y'all call the aliens where you're from?"

I nodded. "We call our species 'human'. I'm probably going to mess up and call you people more than once."

"That's quite alright Commander. I mean Chris." We smiled at each other for the first time. I silently thanked Hiro's flute skills for the icebreaker.

"So, Applejack has brought up a good point. I may have given the impression that I intend to call the shots while I'm here. As our mission contact, Ambassador Twilight Sparkle, you have the final authority to tell us to go or hold off. If the ideas I propose or if my requests are too violent for this kingdom, tell me. Don't let me pressure you into us rampaging across Equestria against these cultists. Make me convince you that is the right idea, or tell me no." I closed my eyes as I finished my speech. Twilight said nothing for a moment. "Make sense?" I asked.

She nodded. "It does. At the same time, I don't have experience with entire armies, unless you count the changelings, and then we did resort to brute magical force." She shrugged. "The point is that I want you to tell me, even though I might not like the answer."

"That's what I'm paid for, Twilight."

Hiro was relaxed, the ambassador looked calm for the first time since our arrival, Applejack looked content. "So," I asked, "what do you pe-ponies do for fun around here?"

Hiro elbowed me and pointed to the dirt road that led to the Apple family farm. A white unicorn with...goggles and headphones was pulling a cart with two gigantic speaker stacks on it. She was met by Pinky Pie who led her into the actual barn. Twilight noticed our distraction and looked at Applejack.

"Yeah, I told Pinkie she could host in the barn."

"Alright. I think I'll go take a nap then."

"Good idea Sugarcube. Tonight might go long."

I raised an eyebrow. "How long?"

"Tomorrow long."

"I suppose we could stand to have a night off."

---

What a night it was. Dozens of ponies from the town showed up. Pinky Pie welcomed all of us personally. She ran excitedly up to me after the introductions were complete. "Commander Black," she said with a stiff salute on two legs, "permission to unveil my latest creation!"

I saluted back. "Permission granted?"

She zipped over to the table of food and yanked a sheet off of a round thing. "BEHOLD!" The cloth covered a fancy glass cake cover, which in turned housed a rainbow frosted cake which was glowing slightly in the dimly lit barn. "Zap apple cake! Made with lightning! REAL LIGHTNING!" I thought Twilight had looked like a mad scientist that afternoon. Now she looked scared, and it was Pinky Pie that had the manic grin, the darting eyes and the barely suppressed laughter that made her body shake every few seconds. Rainbow Dash looked uncertain. Applejack suddenly realized something and dashed into a cellar. Some of the partygoers present backed away, some approached with mesmerized smiles.

Pinky Pie began giggling madly as she yanked the glass cover off and held a kitchen knife aloft. Glass insulation gone, the cake shocked the nearest object it could find, the knife. "IT'S ALIVE!" Pinky Pie screamed, hair and tail standing on end. Then she cut the cake and began doling pieces out to waiting plates. I looked at Twilight who had gone from fear to resigned annoyance. "Is that safe to eat?"

She looked at me with a half smile. "She's one of the best bakers on this continent. It's probably safe. Probably."

The cake was a hit. It was also delicious and slightly tangy and carbonated. I assumed that was the lightning. The air went from emotionally electric to actually electric. The buffet table was opened and it was full of all kinds of cake and snacks. Then Pinky Pie cued the music. Folk played on a gramophone seemed like a disappointing start, but it transitioned quickly and fluidly into pumping techno.

I don't know where Pinky Pie got the black lighting. I don't know where the DJ learned dubstep in that pre-industrial society. The cake was award winning. The snacks were almost painfully sweet, but I rode a sugar rush for about three hours. At some point Applejack pulled two barrels of cider out of a cellar, and suddenly Rainbow Dash and Dan were the best of drinking buddies.

I bailed out at about two in the morning. House music that would have rivaled the best clubs on Outreach blared out of the door behind me into the night. The other three were having a good time, the Elements of Harmony were having a good time...well Applejack and Rainbow Dash were, and the smile of pure satisfaction never left Pinky Pie's face. Fluttershy excused herself nearly as soon as the sound check was done. Twilight was up until midnight, dancing and grinning like an idiot, when she passed out in a loft above the speaker stacks. Amateur. She'd get better in time. Rarity hung out until the polite attendance time was up and then excused herself on the pretense of a large commission that wouldn't sew itself. I left the party, went back to my mech, and climbed into the loft of Barn-Hangar B and passed out with one hand on my sidearm and a grin on my face.

---

Shortly before noon I walked in to Barn-Hangar A and began loudly climbing the ladder. "Rise and shine Atari," I called.

"Mornin Chris," Rolf said with a wave. He was reclining against the wall while reading. I looked around. "Dan's not here. Probably at the party where I left him."

"Alright, well gear up for the survey."

"Roger."

I walked over to the barn to see Applejack and Big Mac heading out to the fields. Pinky Pie was in the barn cleaning.

"Morning Pinky."

"Morning Chris! I think your guy is in the loft." She looked around quickly. "I think he stayed up too late," she whispered. I nodded. This was going to be fun.

When I got up to the loft I almost lost it. Dan was passed out. So was Rainbow Dash. He had pulled a wing on top of himself. Dash had commandeered his leg as a pillow, lying on her back while snoring loudly. I took several pictures from different angles, and quietly climbed down the ladder.

Once at the bottom I kicked the ladder. "The hell are you Dan?!" I yelled. In hindsight, I wished I'd set up a camera to film this. I listened carefully as I made a show of wandering around the barn.

"Wh-"

"Ah!"

"Ssh."

"Shtup"

"Shutup!"

"Ssh!"

There there were a few seconds of complete silence, followed by the sound of boots on wood and hay getting tossed around. "Holy shit it's late," Dan said as he climbed down the ladder shakily. "That pony throws a hell of a party."

"Yeah and we're gonna run a patrol around the town before lunch. You've got twenty minutes."

"Roger commander." He took off running.

Should I put the picture in his cockpit? Maybe in his bag? Oh, in his next contract renewal. Let him forget the whole thing. He could claim it was fake all he wanted, I'd heard the two of them panic about being found. Maybe draw a heart around it, but that might be going a bit far.

Pinky was beside me watching him run off. "So that's where they got to." I glanced down in my best acting.

"Who?"

"Oh, your wingman."

"Mm." I turned to smile at the hostess. "Thank you for the excellent welcome, Miss Pie. I look forward to your celebration bash when this is all over."

She looked at me with the cold angry glare of an investigator. "You wouldn't be planning on ruining a friendship, would you?" As I watched, her tail bounced up and down while her right eye twitched.

"No. Course not. Maybe some teasing next year."

Instantly her demeanor switched back to the overwhelmingly happy extrovert that I had been introduced to. "Ok! Glad you liked the party!" She bounced deeper into the barn and continued cleaning. I walked out to get my mech ready. A blue blur zipped out of the barn a minute later, and I resumed my uncontrollable snickering.

Atari Lance was in formation on time. "Alright Atari, eyes open, nice and slow. We're analyzing the land for natural defense and attack points. Speak up if you see something."

"I saw the fearless Reaper giggling with a pretty blue pony last night," Ninja said.

"I can't help if chicks dig me. She wanted to know about being in the military."

"Something you know all about," I added.

"Combat, asshat. She's trying to join the air guard demo wing. Wanted to know about combat."

"Oh, ok." That actually made more sense, because otherwise I couldn't see why Dan would put up with one of the natives.

"How about the farm?" Reaper annunciated, obviously trying to change the subject.

"Lots of trees, good cover, but too open in the other side. I'd hate to destroy the Apple family's crops, but good guerrilla warfare territory. Fall back that way if you're overwhelmed, Ninja."

"Roger," Ninja called.

"Farms, farms, open fields, sunshine," Reaper was sounding annoyed.

"Yeah, not much to work with," I said as I desperately tried to come up with some way to use the features of this town to a defensive advantage

"Not on this side of town," Ninja agreed.

I looked at the hint of a foothill that was the rolling plans of the farm. "Might see if we can convince Twilight to dig a trench out here."

"Since when is it 'Twilight' and not 'ambassador'?" Reaper teased.

"Since last night when she admitted her lack of experience."

"And you promised to teach her. Damn you're more perverted than I thought Omega."

Sending him the pictures from that morning was sounding like a better idea. "C'mon Reaper, one of my failings at a time. What am I missing out here?"

"I'm lookin', I'm lookin'." There really wasn't much to work with.

The idle chatter of my unit masked their annoyance. The gentle rolling plains that Ponyville was founded on were dotted with groves of trees and the occasional river. There was a thick grove on the north side of town that was relatively safe to engage in, provided we could drive the attackers there.

"Maybe if we could pray for fog-wait yeah!” Hiro exclaimed. “Rainbow Dash was telling me about weather creation. I bet they could drop some fog on this place. Drop the visibility, make an opening north. Or just obscure the whole place and snipe them with thermal."

Now that was something. "Yeah, I'll talk to them about that. Good thought."

"Thanks."

The grove of trees on the north was thick and dark, but not as much as the Everfree Forest. It would make another good point to drive an assaulting force to if we could help it.

Ninja suddenly broke off and hit the jump jets.

"Ninja?"

"No danger Omega." He hovered for a couple of seconds before dropping back and landing softly of roaring thrusters. "Schoolhouse on the edge of the grove," Ninja commented sadly.

"Shiiiiit."

"I fuckin told them. God dammit have they never defended this city?" Reaper swore.

"From what I understand, no. Ok, add evacuation procedures for the school to the top of the list." I was starting to hope that this town was not a high value target and that dumping us here was really just the diversion I guessed it was. Hope was not going to keep children alive though.

Ninja rejoined the formation and we continued around the town. A river was the western border of the town, which if I remembered the apple orchard correctly, was what fed the farms for this town. It was decently large but not fast enough to prevent swimming across. "Who wants to play in the river?"

"Ooh me, pick me!" Reaper called. The atlas whined and charged into the river. "Syncing telemetry. Looks smooth." The rest of us moved into the river. The water came up to my cockpit. We were disturbing the riverbed so badly that the river was going to be brown for a while, but no long term harm done.

"This will slow them down for a bit anyway," Ninja said.

"Yeah but the river flows south. It'll push them toward the farm."

"Maybe we can catch them and push them north," Ninja said with optimism.

"And get their nice river all bloody."

"Ugh, I hate fighting elementals," Reaper grumbled.

"Yeah. Well first priority is keeping them out of the town. Don't hold back."

"Roger Omega."

The river wound down the side of the town, eventually making its way south. Some of the farms to the south were in danger, but the Apple family farm was the one closest to the border of the Everfree forest.

The entire route took an hour, and I planned to run the other way after lunch. Possibly set up daily patrols. I needed to run it all by Twilight first though.

---

Once we were back and parked, Rolf and Dan set about pouring over topographical maps of the place that the computers had made. I headed to the library.

I could tell that the formerly friendly tone of the town was different. We had given the town a good two kilometer barrier. Still, everyone who looked at me did so in fear, then smiled at me uneasily as I looked at them. I waved politely and smiled but I knew that the damage had been done. I'd seen it before. A populace that had never seen battlemechs before suddenly realizing what was marching around their town. The party and warm welcome were nice, but nobody knew then what the big metal things were for. Now they had felt the earth shake from the footfalls of over three hundred tons of walking tank. They had seen the metal titans march past their children. The honeymoon was over.

The door to the library was open, so I walked through. Twilight sat at her writing desk but wasn't writing anything.

"Twilight?"

"Is it necessary to parade your war machines around our town?" She didn’t turn around.

"I apologize, I saw how frightened we made the pe-ponies of this town. It was necessary to show my unit the area to identify possible areas of attack. I planned to check the area again this afternoon by myself."

"I see." Her tone of voice disagreed.

"How quickly can the weather team blanket the town in fog?"

"What?" She turned around to look at me.

"Weather is an ancient delayer of wars. It might not stop the army from marching but we could possibly divert them away from the town."

"I don't know, I will have to ask the weather team. I don't know if they have the clouds ready to do something like that." That at least distracted her from hating me temporarily. Still she was slipping back into Mercenary Liaison Sparkle voice.

"Is there an evacuation plan for the school? The children may be in danger if the attack comes to Ponyville."

"I doubt there is, but I could make one." Her tone changed from administrator to confused researcher. "Is the school really in danger?"

I nodded. "If they chose to invade Ponyville from the north the school is in the direct path of attack."

"But the Everfree forest is to the east."

"Which is why we would be defending the east entrance to the city and the bridge over the river, and why the army might choose to go around. The school to the north and the farms to the south become the secondary attack vectors. The farms would be bad, but not tragic like the school."

Twilight looked at me horrified.

Spike walked down the stairs and waved.

"Hey Commander!"

"Sup Spike?"

Twilight stumbled over words as we fist bumped. "This isn't a game!" She finally exclaimed.

That caught me off guard. "Okay?" Was all I could think to respond.

"Your machines are incredibly dangerous, and you're just walking around our town like they're wagon carts!"

"Because they won't spontaneously explode."

"Your weapons could level the town in minutes."

"Which I was surveying the land-"

"Adding talk of evacuation plans to this will cause a panic!"

I took a deep breath before responding. I was sure that she was done and I wasn't going to scream over her. "I can keep this town from seeing conflict if I survey the land first. I do not intend to parade around after today, as I am fully aware of how terrifying a lance of mechs is.” So much for daily patrols. “I have seen the faces of the ponies I've scared." Twilight seemed to calm down at that reassurance.

"I'm sorry Commander, I guess I'm just not used to this. We usually get attacked suddenly and deal with the problem, not all of this preparation. And that's what bothers me, I love preparation!"

"She does love to make lists," Spike added helpfully.

I nodded. "I am sorry that evacuation procedures sound scary but your country is preparing for war, Ambassador."

"Cloud cover and evacuation procedures are just so...dark."

"It is, but that’s my job. I assure you that I take this very seriously. Let me handle the dark stuff."

She nodded. "It just feels like there should be another way."

We talked of plans for a while. Spike fed us lunch as we looked over maps. She promised to have procedures written up for the town by the next day. I promised to have a plan of defense ready for her review at the same time. By the end of the afternoon I was back to ‘Chris’ and she was ‘just Twilight’.

I arrived back in the hangar with a bad taste in my mouth. It felt like I was trying to organize a war for a bunch of children. The sheer lack of preparation or understanding was staggering. It was time to escalate the situation.

---

The team was waiting for me at Barn-Hangar A. They looked around each other with worried glances, and I wondered what they had gotten up to while I’d been preoccupied. Reaper spoke first. "This is turning into the most awkward thing I've experienced with ponies."

"Have you had many experiences with ponies, Dan?" Hiro quipped.

"None that I can tell your mother about at night."

"Reaper's right, I don't like where this is going." I interrupted the joking.

"They're scared," Rolf pointed out.

Dan rolled his eyes. "Of course they're scared, I'm walking around in a hundred ton piece of steel with a skeleton head!"

I shrugged. "We're supposed to intimidate the enemy, not the contract, Dan."

"I only have one setting, Chris."

"I know, I know." I sighed and sat on a hay bale. "I don't like trying to convince a non-militaristic society that they need military hardware."

"Usually we're selling to people who know they want to buy," Hiro agreed.

"Exactly. These people don't-"

"Ponies."

"-yes Dan, these ponies don't fight."

"Their ultimate super-weapon is a peace-beam," Dan said with a barely concealed giggle.

"Your point, Dan?"

"No point, it's just funny."

I sighed. "We can't all be death incarnate, Dan."

"Maybe we should ask the Princess," Hiro said after a moment.

I nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing actually.”

"It's like, what, a few hundred Km to the…what was the capital city, Canterlot?" Dan was trying not to giggle again.

"Yeah, on that mountain there.” I pointed north to the skyline. “I could take the Tiger and be there this evening."

"Is it safe to go alone?" Rolf asked.

I shrugged. "It would take two days with anyone else. Besides, what's gonna attack us here that can take the Tiger?"

"Teleportation magic?" Dan reminded.

"If I don't come back tomorrow, assume I'm back on Outreach."

Chapter 7: Canterlot

I clambered into the Tiger, and set off a respectful distance from the town of Ponyville in the direction of the giant mountain. No sense in scaring the locals any more than we had already. There was a set of train tracks that ran north in the right direction, so I followed those for a few hours.

The Tiger's loping stride is something you have to learn to ride. Midnight just kinda lumbers, so you get used to swaying back and forth. The Tiger actually runs. There wasn't much actual piloting involved aside from minor course correction, but the occasional ravine proved to make things at least a little interesting. The five hour run served to give me a direct lesson in the sheer emptiness of the land. It really was a planet in pre-industrial society. I spent a while pondering how magic may have kept them from the innovations that we got out of technology.

Suffice to say that the guard was worried when a metal titan showed up at the train station.

Within two minutes, Shining Armor was glaring up at me, to say nothing of the dozen unicorns with glowing horns, or the lancers.

I flipped on the speaker and remained calm. "Captain, I'd like to meet with Princess Celestia. It concerns our liaison."

"What's happened to Twilight?" His horn started glowing, and whatever he was pondering doing to me couldn't have been pleasant.

"Nothing! We have a difference of opinion, and I worry what it will do to our preparedness."

He backed down at this, said something to himself, then motioned for another soldier and said something to him.

"Move your…machine over there," he said, motioning to an empty train yard, "and follow me. The Princess is holding court for the next hour."

“Thank you Captain.”

"Couldn't you have sent a letter?"

"I prefer face to face communication. It eliminates confusion." Not that it was working very well.

---

My presence in the castle as a human didn't seem to cause much panic. The caretakers must have been warned about my presence. I strode confidently through the carved marble hallways, keeping the military march-step that Shining Armor walked in.

The doors to the main hall opened at Shining Armor's magic pulse. The diplomats gathered at the foot of the throne did subtle double-takes as I entered, but were far too polite to say anything. We marched up to the throne.

"Princess Celestia, Commander Christophe Black," Shining Armor announced. I bowed.

The princess nodded and smiled as all princesses do. "Thank you Captain, you may return to your post." Shining Armor bowed, glanced at me and left. "Is this urgent, Commander?"

"Not within the next few minutes, no change in the situation in Ponyville. That is why I want to speak with you, your Majesty."

The princess smiled. "Please enjoy the refreshments then, I will be with you after I have concluded my business here."

"Thank you, your Majesty." I bowed politely and heel-spun to find a table to wait at.

It wasn't until I was refilling my glass with what seemed to be lemonade that I realized the pitcher and teacups had handles. I'd seen Pinky Pie do…things, but I was assured she was an odd character. There seemed to be no reason that there would be handles on cups when the hooves of the natives didn't seem to be able to use them. I was pondering what prior civilization might have utilized them when the Princess approached.

"Again, good afternoon to you Commander. I apologize for making you wait."

"Think nothing of it, Your Majesty, I thank you for taking the time out of your day."

"Tell me, what is so off that you feel you must see me personally?" While she stared deeply into my soul with a loving smile, the pitcher raised itself from the table, filled a cup, and set itself down again. The cup raised itself to the princess's mouth. The sheer ease with which she manipulated objects with her mind made me pause.

"It is concerning our liaison, Twilight Sparkle. I fear she does not trust us in this situation." The princess nodded, but said nothing. "More than that, though, I fear she does not appreciate the distinction between military readiness and war." At this, the Princess smiled.

"You must understand, Commander, I have trained Twilight Sparkle personally. It takes a particular personality to become a bearer of the Elements of Harmony. War is, thankfully, not part of who she is. Few alive here truly know that horror."

"That is a blessing of unimaginable wealth, your Majesty."

"Indeed, Commander." She took another drink with her magic floaty powers. "That being said, she has seen battle, and she has seen darkness. She is no stranger to fighting for what she believes in."

It was my turn to nod. "I do not doubt that, your Majesty, I have spoken to her at some length on the subject. What worries me is that she is not receptive to the planning and preparation that goes into proper defense."

"She would not be. To be quite honest, Commander, I do not know why those that summoned you here have yet to strike. We hired you because we saw a clear and immediate danger to this kingdom. That it has not yet come to pass means that those involved have now made other plans." The princess rose from her seat. "Please follow me, Commander. I was going to write to Twilight Sparkle to send your unit here by the end of the week. Since you are here already, allow me to show you what we know." She turned to me with a look of either amusement or threat. "I would appreciate it if you would try to keep the panic in Ponyville to a minimum, though."

"O-of course. Nothing spoils plans like a panic." She laughed once, softly, and started walking. I followed after a moment.

"I had a general like you once, Commander. Loyal, good hearted. Very strict about his units and very orderly. At times he did not fit the kingdom, but when the kingdom needed him, he was there."

"I would probably be an insult to his order and readiness, your Majesty," I chuckled, "You give me too much credit."

"Indeed? Perhaps the ability to be more personal with your soldiers is a factor of the size of your unit."

"I don't envy the work it takes to organize a regiment of ground troops, your Majesty."

"As I said, he had a big heart. There are plenty of military commanders who do their job excellently with yelling and punishment. There are plenty in the military who understand only fighting. Few do well in a peaceful society. It takes a certain kind of trust between those in the military and those in the civilian society to work with each other."

I was beginning to see where this was going. "I try my best to explain things to those who act as intermediaries, but as one of my men pointed out, we are usually already a desired commodity. There hasn't been a case yet where I had to convince someone that they wanted to hire me."

"This place that you are from does sound violent."

"Very, Your Majesty. How long has it been since this land has seen a major conflict?"

"Longer than Twilight Sparkle has been alive."

Yeah, that answered some questions. "That confirms my suspicions."

"I will say though, I do not wish to convince Twilight Sparkle that war is an inevitability, in any case."

And now the Princess was doing it. I’d seen the cult personally, and they were willing to go toe to toe with the royal guard. "Nor should you, your Majesty. I only want to be effective if the time does come. If you feel that the time is not coming, perhaps our contract should be reevaluated."

"So eager to end your service, Commander?"

I smiled politely. "Eager to not be seen as blackmailing someone who controls the sun, your Majesty."

The princess laughed. "Here we are. I have been gathering intelligence since shortly before you arrived on the ones who brought you here. It is time that we share that knowledge with you." She opened a door in the hallway and stepped inside. Once the surprised cries of "Princess!" had died down, I followed.

"At ease. Colonel, Captain, Commander Black has expressed interest in better understanding the movements of this uprising." I smiled as i looked at the occupants of the room. Colonel Tempered Steel and Captain Silver Spear, these were horses I could work with. I came to my best military stance facing the Colonel, and saluted.

"Commander," the Colonel said with a short salute, "good to see you again." He extended a hoof, and I shook it. Awkwardly. “I trust your preparations are going well?"

“As well as can be expected. Ponyville is one difficult place to mount a defense. Usually we are a bit overqualified for an infantry force, but we have no defenses against magic."

"Few truly do, Commander. Here, our map of what we know." I nodded and followed.

The map showed an area that seemed much larger than the bit I had traversed to get to Canterlot. He pointed out to me where we had been summoned to and where we had been found. There was the area known as the Everfree Forest that was technically within the kingdom, but completely uncontrolled. There were a few known landmarks within it, but for the most part it was a green blackout zone.

"We know that this cult is basing its operations within the Everfree Forest, but we don't know where their headquarters are. There is a bit of panic at the moment because they seem to be getting access to powerful magic and old spells that should only be available in the Canterlot Magic Library. I do know that in the particular case of your summoning, we found where they prepared everything but not where they went afterwards."

"So where can they be?"

He smiled appreciatively. "These areas," he said and motioned to several areas outlined on the map. "I have been scouting for the past few days by the air wing, but there has been no movement. Unless this uprising is much deeper into the society than we are aware, they cannot be hiding out in a city. As it stands, we are going to need to figure out where their army is going to be coming from and meet them head on."

"What makes you think there will be an army, Colonel?"

"We know their supplies, for the most part. They have been amassing weapons and magic for some time now, but only after the summoning did the information mean anything to us. We were caught off guard. I can't imagine how bad it would have been if they had summoned actual titans. That you came instead is a magical accident in our favor."

"Glad to be a mistake in your favor."

He chuckled. "So there are two reasons. One, we know they intend to put together a regiment. They have the ponies, and they have the equipment. Two, the last known uprising of this force was thousands of years ago, but the legends are clear. These ponies worship the Titans, great giants of incredible brute strength. They do not hide when they can attack with force. Neither their regiment nor their titans will be very subtle."

I nodded. Army intel agreed that the war was on the way. I felt like less of a jackass for insisting that fact to the Ambassador and her friends. "I have seen an uprising or two in my time, Colonel. I am worried that they will be using all of this to arrange a guerilla force. They appear to be both outmanned and outgunned." His confusion caused me to stop. "What I-ah-mean is…they have far less soldiers to put onto a field of battle than the royal army, and their equipment is at best equal, far less if they do not have my unit on their side."

"Trust me Commander, we have studied warfare, and I am aware of such a possibility. That is all the more reason to have my scouts on the field." I nodded. "Where you come into this picture is here," he said and motioned to an area of the map outside of Canterlot. "These are the only ground entrances to Canterlot. The Titans were an earth pony faction, and the majority of the cultists that we have found are earth ponies. We will have our air wing patrolling regardless, but if they assault with any force, we will need you here."

"Do you anticipate anything larger than Princess Celestia attacking?"

"If they have the ritual to summon actual titans, yes. It is possible that they will bring in monsters from the Everfree Forest. There is the possibility that they will try to simply breach the gates into Tartarus, but that gate is the best guarded location aside from the royal throne room."

"Wait, Tartarus is real?"

Captain Silver Spear gave me an odd look. "Of course it is real. Where do you think the monsters came from? The titans?"

"I…such a place does not exist where I am from."

"Yet you have such machines of war. You come from a truly strange place, Commander."

I didn’t want to get into that. Luckily the Colonel continued.

"The gate to Tartarus is in this area. If it comes down to it, it is a day's travel from Canterlot. We will most likely not need it, but it is possible that we will request that you go there."

"Noted. Is the land from here to there directly traversable? Can I walk there if I really wanted to?"

"Ah, yes, except for a single canyon. There is a path around, for machines such as yours, or a bridge, for ponies like myself."

"How long is this path around?"

"Another half day's travel."

I shook my head. That was much too far away for decent response time. One impossible magical atrocity at a time. "I'll burn that bridge when I get there."

"I'm sorry?"

I smiled apologetically. "I will deal with that if it comes to it. I will attempt to leave the bridge alone." He nodded, but watched me cautiously. "Alright. I can have my unit here by tomorrow evening at the latest. It will be a bit of travel for me though," I commented with a yawn.

"Don't push yourself yet, Commander. We can put you on the express to Ponyville tomorrow morning. We need you fresh."

I smiled. "What I wouldn't give to have all of my employers be as easy to work with."

"Take care of your troops and they will take care of you," he commented. “Can you put your machine on a train?”

"Oh yes, we move these machines around by train all the time."

"Could we load all of them?"

We discussed the logistics of battlemech transport for a while, and arranged for flat cars to be attached to the express. I took pictures of their intel map, and promised my insights on it the next day.

The princess treated me to the royal chefs’ cooking and a posh guest room for the night. I fell asleep staring at the map.

---

I slept restlessly that night. My animal brain didn't like being separated from the rest of Atari and Midnight. I fell asleep trying to run over battlefield scenarios, and my sleep was full of dreams of battles gone wrong.

Just before the third defeat to Capellan subterfuge, a bubble enveloped my lance and completely deflected an artillery barrage. Just as I was wondering how such a thing was possible, the black winged form of Princess Luna appeared before my cockpit.

"That is enough of war for one night, I think," she commented. She pulsed, don't ask me to describe it in any more detail than that, and everything was gone but her and myself. There was a moment in limbo, then I was in a quiet lounge in what appeared to be the castle. The Princess of the Moon lounged on a couch before me, and a small table between us held a platter of food and drinks. I leaned forward in the chair I suddenly found myself in and took a cracker.

"Thank you, your Majesty."

"I have been meaning to speak to you personally, Commander."

"Well as nice as that would be, since this is a dream it won't matter. I intend to enjoy this lovely cheese platter."

The Princess smiled at me. A dark, powerful smile. "I am the Alicorn of the Moon, the Night, and all it encompasses, Commander Black. I assure you that I am as here as you are."

I gave her a look, decided that this was better than losing another battle to Capellans, and nodded. "Of course, your Majesty."

"I will prove as much when you awake. For the moment though, do rest. Let us talk." There was a momentary vision of battle, but it passed. "It would seem that your life and your world contains much strife."

"An understatement, your Majesty."

The princess nodded almost dismissively. “Twilight Sparkle has taught us much of Friendship in the past year. We would appreciate you calling us Princess Luna, it seems more personal.”

"Princess Luna, then." Whatever the dream goddess-princess wanted.

"Celestia has told me of your experiences, and Twilight Sparkle has regaled us both with concerns about your…ah, 'potential energy output'.” She seemed endlessly amused by this. “I wonder how one who lives with such power and darkness does not succumb to it." My mind wandered momentarily to memories of uprisings past. My memories played out in front of us like a video. Luna watched appreciatively. "You see yourself a hero."

"I can't stand seeing big guys put little guys down." In the vision I piloted a salvaged Stalker through war-torn streets to a makeshift prison camp. The Stalker made short work of a tank and a scout mech. I marched forward. A volley of missiles and lasers blew a chunk out of an atlas, who keeled over almost instantly. Several other defenders turn to run, and were chased off by more laser fire. "I was hired by rebels. They wanted representative government. They found a single Stalker to put me in to rescue some of their men at the end of the campaign. It went well."

"So I see." She watched appreciatively as I stood guard literally over two trucks that pulled up behind me. Men with cutting torches jumped out and began working on the prison barracks. A blip on my radar appeared, and I swung around and unleashed more missile fire on an enemy stalker. In two volleys I blew the side off of that one too, and it hid in the buildings. "Such prejudice."

"It was in his best interest to say which side he was on. I knew he was an enemy. He wanted to murder fifty men with no chance of fighting back. So I shot him."

"I meant for me." I blinked.

"What?"

"You look upon our peaceful civilization and see weakness."

"Bullshit. I see happiness." In the dream, I didn’t think of how disrespectful that was. Princess Luna seemed to take it in stride.

"You see a populace unprepared for the true horrors of war. You see us and wonder how a goddess can fathom what it means to be fragile and temporary. You show us this," she motioned to the image of the stalker now standing over a hundred men screaming in joy and embracing each other in the middle of a barren desert as the rescue trucks unloaded. Her voice lost some of the official princessy-ness. "You think I do not understand love and terror and pain, what it means to exist temporarily. Allow me to show you. I have intruded upon your personal thoughts. Allow me to show you some of mine in return."

The vision of our little victory in the desert swirled, and the Princess and myself found ourselves in a place that looked surprisingly like ponyville. Except it was on fire, at night, under the largest full moon I have ever seen. The sky was clouded with winged ponies, dressed entirely in black. A much larger Princess Luna dove from the sky, gleaming black armor with silver filigree shining in the moonlight. The air was filled with screams of terror. Then it was gone again. When the princess spoke again, after the terrible laughter had echoed away, she was much quieter.

"I understand better than most remember. I wanted to be certain that you were not…one of those men who put the little guys down, as you said."

I suddenly really missed my Stalker. "When did this happen?"

"One thousand years ago." Talk about dating yourself.

I fished for the polite way to ask why she wasn’t murdering up cities across the continent. "What …you don't appear to be a warlord now."

"I was not precisely myself. I was Nightmare Moon." Luna turned away and stared out the window that may or may not have been there moments ago. "I was banished. My sister found a way to control Nightmare Moon. I was saved by Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the elements of Harmony."

"And that ended all of this," I motioned to where the large marauding Princess Luna had been, "so that you were suddenly the good guy again."

"There was a misunderstanding."

"I'll say."

Princess Luna began pacing. "This land is not always in harmony. My sister has been working for a thousand years to keep it this way. She raised a true magic prodigy who can control the Elements of Harmony to face the threats to this world when my banishment ended."

"I don't know what scares me more, Princess Luna." I stopped for a moment to collect my thoughts. Difficult to do while dreaming. "I don't like all of this magic. I shoot things. I don't have fantastic powers to just make people be nice to each other. If I could walk up and say 'Hey, you're being a dick! Stop it!', I would! They only call me in when the shit hits the fan! I don't come cheap. When it's so bad that a city needs to be levelled, that's what Atari is for. So I don't like being looked down on like I'm some kind of monster when that IS my power. By the time someone calls me, the city-levelling monster is the only solution left." I started pacing, and Princess Luna stopped to look at me with quiet amusement. "Nobody here has seen that kind of pain, and that's fine. That's great! But that makes me a monster in the eyes of the whole populace."

I spun around all theatrically. "But on the other hand, I've seen this magic that you people use for almost the same reason. It doesn't always end in friendship songs. And whatever THAT was," I gestured helplessly to where the vision was, "is not Happy Friendshipland. So all of the singing and friendship beams that get flung around really strike me as covering up some kind of lie."

Princess Luna kept looking at me with that quiet amusement, daring me to continue. I kept going.

"So now Twilight Sparkle, who herself has vanquished monsters and toppled empires with her fancy magic powers, is looking down on me because I shoot things. And not only do I not see the difference, but she seems to think that because she uses magic, which I have no defense against, she's somehow a better person than I am!"

"What I find most fascinating is how you keep referring to us as 'people'." Luna kept looking at me calmly with a small smile. I did my best to keep my temper, but it was slipping.

"Is that offensive? Am I wrong? I guess it's a thing with us humans…anything that isn't shaped like us can't think. I'm trying to acknowledge that you…ah…ponies…are at least our equals."

"I am most humbly thankful."

"That-Don't change the subject!" I shook my head and felt the dream ending. "What is all of this friendship magic hiding?"

"Friendship is magic, Commander Black."

I woke up.

---

I was on a rather comfortable sofa in a guest room. "Fucking dream bullshit!" I mumbled, and opened my eyes. Judging by the state of the room, I had broken into the bottle on the table and passed out while trying to make sense of the map. "Fucking cryptic dream bullshit."

A knock at the door came a while later, long enough for me to almost drift off to sleep again. It scared the shit out of me. I pulled my shirt on. "Yeah, what?"

"Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna," a guard announced as he opened the door. In strode the dark Moon Princess in all her splendor. I stood up quickly.

"Good morning, Princess," I said evenly. The door closed behind her.

"Friendship is magic, Commander Black," she repeated.

I went slack jawed and she allowed me a moment to let that sink in. I dropped back to the couch with my head in my hands as I remembered the dream and realized the implications of her greeting. I had just spent the last part of the night bitching out an actual goddess of dreams.

"Oh fuck me," I whispered.

The princess had the grace to simply grin and continue her explanation. She must have had that happen a time or two. "A more powerful magic than that used by any unicorn. The truth is that many seek power, and for many reasons. But the most powerful magic is that of friendship. I do not mean that as a fancy metaphor, either. The greatest wizard of my time researched the subject personally, but could not unlock its potential. We suspect it was because he had no friends himself." The princess yawned, of all things. "Excuse me, it is late for me."

"Well you were up half the night playing guardian." I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this princess was, amongst other things, a mind reader.

"I would like to apologize for my first misgivings about your intentions, Commander Black. As one who has wielded nearly limitless power, know that I trust you with the power you wield. I will be relaying my opinions to Twilight Sparkle. You have already won the trust of my sister, but Twilight likes to trust research." She grinned the same grin that Celestia wore when she put up with Luna's adherence to formalities.

"Thank you, Princess."

"I would also like to apologize for any intrusion on your personal thoughts. The citizens of this land know my powers well. It is one of my functions as a princess."

I could only nod. It took her a moment to find the words to continue.

"As for your question, the kingdom does not intend to hide anything. The horrors of tartarus are well known, even in this age. We wish to run a better kingdom through the power of friendship and harmony. However, I know better than most that sometimes the only true end to a conflict is to crush the other power completely." The darkness washed over her face, and for a moment I could swear I could see the black and silver armor again. But I blinked, and it was gone.

"When this conflict is resolved and we have the time, we will research the spell to send you and your unit to your real home. Until such time, know that you have the full trust and support of this kingdom. Your service has been well worth the price, Commander Black." She nodded to me in thanks, and it was all I could do not to give her a sweeping bow. I settled for a polite nod.

"Say that after this is over, Princess, and I will feel a lot better. I don't make a habit of taking praise for things I haven't delivered on yet."

"Then I shall. If you have any further wish to converse on this topic with me, you know where to find me," she said with a particularly cheshire cat gin. I smiled in return.

"Good morning to you, Princess. Thank you for the pleasant dream."

"You are most welcome, Commander. Good morning to you as well." She strode back out of the room, opening the door with her magic.

I watched her midnight blue tail disappear into the hallway, unsure of what to think of the exchange. I had not expected one of the princesses to talk to me about how much turmoil the kingdom was actually in. I really had not expected the morality lesson and subsequent warning. I didn’t think of myself as angry. Mostly I just thought ‘dear Blake, she can see into dreams.’ Any deeper thought was interrupted.

The doorman peeked into the room a moment later. "Commander, I understand that you have a train to catch this morning."

"Oh, uh yes." Trains and schedules seemed so much less important after meeting the goddess of the night.

"The morning express has been prepared, and a flat car has been prepared to transport your machine if you would be willing to move it for us."

I had forgotten that too. “Yeah, I'll be ready in a couple of minutes?"

"That will be fine Commander. Please let me know."

"'Kay." He shut the door a moment later, and I went to find a shower.

---

Princess Celestia and Captain Shining Armor met me at the end of the hallway.

"Did you sleep well, Commander?" the Princess inquired. I nodded politely.

"I was not aware that Princess Luna had the ability to control dreams."

"Oh yes, I hope you were not disturbed by that."

"On the contrary, she ended a string of unpleasant dreams. Surprising, but not disturbing."

"I was wondering when she would talk to you. I should have been able to guess." Her amusement at her sister's antics was all over her face.

"Commander, is it going to be possible to safely get your machine onto the train?" Shining Armor was curt as usual.

"Easily, Captain. At the very least, I can fly it."

Shining Armor's eyes went wide. "That monstrosity can fly?"

"We call it jumping, it doesn't last very long."

"You believe that you can jump softly enough to not break a train?"

"I have done it before, Captain. It should not be a problem," I replied with what was hopefully enough assurance to convince him.

It seemed to work. The captain nodded, and turned to the Princess. "I will go to make sure that the train is prepared."

"Thank you, Captain." The Captain saluted, and left.

I waited until he was out of earshot. "Princess, have I done something to anger the Captain?"

"He is just protective of his little sister. Twilight Sparkle," she clarified. I stopped in my tracks. "Is something wrong, Commander?"

"This entire argument makes more sense now, that's all." The princess looked interested, so I continued. "There is some history involving Twilight Sparkle's heroics under your service, your Majesty. She sees what I do as different, somehow. I don't think she sees my service and the Captain's service in the same light."

"The mercenary force is seldom working for the same reasons, Commander. Surely you will grant me that."

"Of course, your Majesty. I am well aware of that. However, she doesn't seem to think that I am capable of any sort of loyalty."

"Twilight Sparkle's knowledge is mostly academic. I will be sending her a letter with Princess Luna's opinions after you leave. She will have it by the time that you return. She is passionate and defensive of her friends, but she will respect my authority on the subject." The Princess turned to me and looked me in the eyes. "You possess an understanding of war that is not common in our society but, as I'm certain my sister noted, this is greatly appreciated right now. I value it, I do not fear it."

"I don't want to know the thing you would be afraid of, Princess." I was taken back, but that was probably due to her being the magical sun princess.

"Admittedly, most of them are beyond the scope of your unit, Commander." The momentary pain that her expression noted only confirmed my fears. She looked back and smiled, and kept walking. "Nevertheless, the problem at hand. When can you return?"

"Assuming no delays, a day's ride back, tomorrow evening at the latest, around 1 AM tomorrow at the earliest."

"I'd like your unit fresh, commander. The assault isn't anticipated until next week."

We crossed the trainyard, and a thought occurred to me as I looked up at the Tiger. "What of Ponyville? Is there only a pretense keeping us there, or will something else keep it safe when we leave?"

"I did want you under Twilight Sparkle's direct surveillance for the first few days. I also did truly worry for the safety of Ponyville. It is closest to the Everfree Forest, and has no guard detachment." The princess looked ashamed. "Our search into this cult has told us much in the last week, and among that is that they intend to bring down the throne. They will assault the capitol with full force, and to assault anywhere else first would simply weaken them. Their target is the government, not the populace." The princess smiled. "Putting even that aside, Ponyville has the Elements of Harmony. They will be fine. Twilight Sparkle has a habit of coming up with creative solutions."

"The Elements of Harmony won't be with us in the battle, Your Majesty?"

The Princess gave me a sidelong grin. "Twilight Sparkle can teleport, Commander."

I gave a silent 'ah' at that and felt stupid.

"There is also the train you are taking now. Failing those, pegasus chariot is an option. No matter. Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony can be on location very quickly." She looked at me with an almost surprised smile. "Seldom does a mercenary unit concern itself with matters of logistics."

"Just one of the services Atari provides," I grinned. "Honestly, half of the people who hire me don't understand logistics at all. It is…ah…reassuring to work with an established royal guard again."

"Are there any other matters which concern you, then?"

"No, I think that covers everything." I pondered this for a moment.

"In that case, you might want to get your machine loaded, Commander." She leaned down conspiratorially. "Shining Armor is returning." I looked up and around, found the white unicorn marching toward me with his perfect Captain's glower, and realized I was holding up his perfect operation with all of my second guessing.

I turned back to the Princess with a fake plastered smile. "Pardon me, Princess, I must attend to my affairs."

"Of course, Commander." She smiled politely in return and nodded. I bowed, about-faced, and marched to the Tiger.

I managed to make it up the ladder before the unicorn could come over and glare at me more.

---

The train ride was about as pleasant and boring an experience as I'd had in decades. I had been surrounded by the rest of Atari since we appeared, and I never left the "I'm just a mercenary on another planet" mindset. In the five hours I was on the train, I sat, I watched the scenery, I went over my notes on the invasion intel, and I talked to the locals. It was the most normal thing I had ever done. For a brief moment when I got off of the train, I forgot why I was there. Then a pony in a steward's outfit walked up to me nervously. "Excuse me, sir, but your machine is ready to be moved."

"Thank you, I'll get right to it."

Rather than cook the train car, I walked the Tiger off and jumped over the rest of the tracks. I landed, the railroad workers assured me that everything was undamaged, and I set off back to Sweet Apple Acres.

"Omega to Atari, returning to base, anyone on? Over." I thundered and loped my way across the picturesque landscape. There was a good ten seconds of silence, and I figured I'd caught my lance playing poker or something.

"Reaper to Omega, welcome back, orders?"

"Omega, we're moving out in the morning. Everything good here?"

"Reaper, we're fine here. You're just in time for lunch."

"Roger Reaper, eta ten minutes. Over and out."

"Over and out."

---

The giant gyroscopes in the Tiger spun down slowly as I detached my vest from the cooling system in the cockpit. The slow lowering pitch of the all encompassing hum was a sound that i had grown so used to over the years that I almost didn't hear it anymore. However with the handful of ejections I had performed in my career, I knew it was a signal that things hadn't gone completely to shit that day.

The Tiger was still running well, and the chassis seemed to be handling the extra power and stress from the Atlas engine without complaint. Hiro had not reported any problems with his machine, though he hardly ever complained. The targeting computer seemed to be lagging. I would have to ask Hiro about that when I had a free moment. The techs who had refitted it for me warned me that the computers weren't meant to handle sixteen weapons systems at once, but they made it work at the time. I would have to get it into the shop when we got back.

The warm afternoon breeze through the apple trees was a refreshing change from the sweat and oil soaked cockpit smell and the constant hum of the gyroscopes, but the unfamiliarity and serenity of the world set me on edge now. I knew that somewhere over the horizon was an army waiting to raze all of this. I felt bad for assessing the populace homes on a scale of flammability and cover, but I knew if the assault came early that I would regret not having planned. I expected that an assault on Ponyville might be a good terror campaign to spread the forces of the army in preparation to an attack.

However now that I knew the lay of the land, some strategic limitations made themselves obvious. The main river that fed the town came from the mountain on which Canterlot and the castle were built. It ran all the way to the forest we had found ourselves in. It served as a natural barrier as the river cut off access to Canterlot from the west. Any army that wanted to assault from the southern forest, the Everfree, would have to chose between Ponyville and Canterlot. Obviously this meant either splitting their forces, which they were already desperate to augment, or doubling back after attacking Ponyville, giving the army in Canterlot more time to assemble and prepare a defense. That ruined the element of surprise which they obviously still wanted to keep.

Both were bad choices strategically. Any attack on Ponyville would therefore likely be a small scale terror raid, most likely targeting either us or the Elements of Harmony. It would also have to come before all of the forces joined together in Canterlot next week or be almost completely pointless.

Suffice to say that my thoughts were elsewhere as I walked out of Barn-Hangar B and into the Apple family barn. The poker game between Rolf and Dan I expected. The addition of Applejack and Big Mac I did not. Apple Bloom almost tackling me from behind along with a constant verbal assault was definitely not expected. After taking a moment to figure out what the kid was saying and separate that yelling from her older siblings chiding her for slide tackling their alien guest, I apologized for ditching her and reminded her that I had a job to do. When she nodded and sadly said that she understood, I excused myself to meet with my comrades.

"How's the princess?" Dan asked with no small amount of eyebrow wiggle.

"Both princesses are doing well."

"Oh, y'all met Princess Luna?" Applejack looked up from her hand and dwindling pile of chips.

"I did, she seemed to appreciate our experience." Rolf seemed mildly surprised, catching the implication that she knew the true horrors of war.

Applejack smiled. "She's a might odd, but she's nice once ya get ya know her."

I nodded. "We had more in common than I expected. Very different from princess Celestia."

"Orders?" Rolf rumbled. He was going to keep me on task whether I liked it or not. One more reason to keep him on payroll, honestly. I turned back to my unit.

"Continue operations in Ponyville until tomorrow morning. The Equestrian Army intelligence is convinced now that the main target is Canterlot, and they want us on site to start patrols.”

Hiro and Dan nodded. "No real chance of movement tonight?" Hiro asked, no small amount of apprehension in his voice.

I shook my head. "Far as they can tell they're still gearing up. It's two days march through the forest from any of their possible camps at best, another day to the capitol, and we've got air intel from yesterday afternoon. I understand that the Everfree Forest is not the most friendly place either." I looked to Applejack for clarification, and she shook her head.

"There's all manner of nasty creatures an plants in there. If it ain't hydras, it's timberwolves. An if it ain't timberwolves, it's chokevines."

"Hydras?" I asked with curiosity. I had heard the creatures mentioned before.

"Yeah, big, mean, tall as a tree, lotsa heads."

I nodded and turned back to my team. "So marching an army through it is not a quick or easy operation. We'll know when they move."

That seemed to satisfy my team. "So what's the plan?" Hiro pressed.

"As far as intel can figure, they have no reason to rampage and cause…ah," I looked around at the room of farmers and chose my words carefully "…collateral damage, so they're preparing for an assault on Canterlot. We move out to defend against the attack. From there, there are several targets of opportunity that might be hit, the main of which is the actual fu-uuuh…actual gate of Tartarus." Children in the room. I looked at Applebloom. "This really isn't a discussion for kids, 'Bloom."

"But y'all are talkin' about monsters! How are we supposed to know if we'll get our cutie marks in defending against an invading monster army?"

I grinned and pulled off my jacket. "I don't think you want this cutie mark," I said as I pulled my shirt up. The scar tissue from my first real botched ejection and summary incarceration crisscrossed my back. There's nothing like having molten plastic burning into your skin while being tied into the back of a truck.

"Is…that…" The poor kid’s eyes got real wide.

"There was a fire, and in the middle of a war the guys we were fighting wouldn't stop to treat my wound."

"That's…that's just wrong." Applebloom’s bravado for marching onto the battlefield melted.

"That's war, Applebloom. You may be a soldier someday, but I want you to grow up big and strong first." I pulled my shirt down and grimaced at her. She nodded.

"Are you gonna be ok?" she asked quietly with giant scared eyes.

"Midnight will protect me."

"Alright." Applebloom threaded herself expertly through Big Mac's legs and snuck out the door.

I blinked. "So she's afraid for the guy in the 85 ton death machine, but her sister the pony is going to be ok?"

"Y'all ain't seen Twilight in action," Applejack said with a grin.

"Fair enough."

Chapter 8: Escort

As we stood at the train station the next morning, waiting for the crews to finish setting up the flat cars, Dan poked me hard in the shoulder.

"Hey Chris, I just had a crazy idea. How fast is this train?"

I wasn’t prepared for a serious question. I shrugged and guessed. "Oh, 80 kph or so. Maybe less. I'm not used to being low to the ground. Why?"

"’Cause I'm getting that crazy paranoid feeling." Dan looked at me funny. "Usually you're the one who gets the crazy paranoid 'we should use this strategy' feelings."

I nodded slowly. "This place is too nice. Maybe it's throwing me off of my game." I took a deep breath of the fresh country air and tried to put the picturesque countryside out of my mind. “What are you thinking?”

Dan started pacing around, not looking me in the eyes. "I might just be being paranoid. There's only one train from here to the capitol?"

"Yeah."

"The Elements of Wonderosity are going to be at the capitol for the invasion?"

"As I understand it."

"Are there any other trains they could be taking between now and the invasion?"

"As I understand, they're stopping the train line after this because of the danger."

"And it's pretty well known that Twilight Sparkle and Friends will be taking this train to escort us?"

"Yeah, I'd say so." After a moment, my eyes flew open. All of the special forces were on one unguarded train. And everyone knew it. The happy swimming feeling of happy sunshine land snapped away and left me with my usual mechwarrior paranoia.

My expression must have shown my change in mood. Dan nodded grimly. "Yeah, that's about where I am."

I began speculating. "There's no point in terrorism, but a strategic strike against the main danger to their forces is totally fair game, and other losses aren't a concern."

"Yeah. Collateral damage. All's fair in love and war."

"I'll go talk to Twilight."

"No more ‘Ambassador’' now, eh?" Dan elbowed me in the ribs.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you," I called over my shoulder.

---

"Twilight! I need to talk to you!" I had heard someone yell 'All aboard!' and figured I was late. I was running full tilt across the platform once I ignored my way through ticketing. "Twilight!" I hurdled a baggage cart, clipped a hat box, and went sailing through the air. "Shit!" The platform smashing my face and following abrasion never came, and everything turned purple. I looked up to find several shocked looking ponies, and the now familiar disgruntled face of Twilight Sparkle. The world turned its normal color, and I fell two feet to the ground.

"Our society has rules, Commander Black."

"I need you to keep the train slow." I barely looked up from the ground.

"What?" I started standing up

"We are going to escort the train to Canterlot."

Twilight glared at me. "So you can show off-"

"Look Twilight," I snapped, "There is a serious threat to everyone on this goddamn train, and if you'd shut your academia-addled mouth for five seconds and accept that I might have learned something from experience, I will tell you."

Turns out people don't usually tell off Twilight Sparkle in Ponyville. The entire platform stopped dead. Every single pony was staring at me, some enraged, some appalled, most just shocked. I mentally cursed myself out. "Let's not talk military strategy right here," I offered. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were now standing next to and flying above Twilight respectively, looking about as angry as I had seen them. "Please hold the train." I turned and walked into the building.

I learned later that the angry blue pegasus in front of me had convinced the conductor to wait, but she was the first inside the building. "You better have a good reason for this," she said through clenched teeth.

"The train is gonna be attacked." Her expression went from surprise to suspicion.

"How do you know?"

"What's goin' on, Commander?" Applejack was thankfully level headed, but understandably on edge.

She and Twilight walked into the room, Twilight lighting the door in purple behind her.

"Ok, follow me here,” I said in my best diplomatic voice. “This is the last train from Ponyville to Canterlot, correct?" Twilight, knower of everything, nodded. "Everyone in Equestria knows all six of you live in Ponyville, right?" Nodding from all three. "And everyone in Equestria knows that if there's something terrible going on, the Elements of Harmony will be there by order of the Crown, right?"

Applejack nodded. "Of course! Equestria can always count on us!"

"Right!" Rainbow Dash chimed in.

"The Princesses send us to help in any situation they see fit. It's not precisely correct to say we will be at every catastrophe."

"But if everyone knew that there was going to be a catastrophe, you'd probably be there, right?"

"Well, I suppose that's a reasonable assumption."

"So if an enemy with the most minimal intel knew where you six were, and when you were going to be travelling, alone no less, to the capitol, why wouldn't they attack you when the Equestrian Royal Guard couldn't back you up? Why wouldn't they attack us at the same time when we aren't in our titans, ready to defend ourselves?”

"Because they…Because…" Twilight's expression slowly shifted from her enraged logical debate to silent fear.

"You ain't suggestin’ they're gonna attack a train?" Applejack asked with incredulity.

"I am suggesting exactly that."

"So why are we slowing the train down if they're gonna attack it?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Because the Atlas and the Stalker are very slow. We can guard the train all the way to Canterlot, but not if it moves at top speed. I am willing to bet that we can put out enough firepower to scare off any force that would be trying to strike an unarmed train. It's safer for everyone on the train this way, not just us. You six could defend yourselves, but we become very vulnerable, and the rest of the ponies on the train would be in harm’s way.”

"They wouldn't," Twilight mumbled, mostly to herself. Applejack nodded solemnly.

"Yeah they would, Twi. It makes logistical sense." Twilight looked up at Applejack, confused. "What, I run a farm! Of course I know what 'logistical' means."

"With my unit out of the picture and everyone in Canterlot preparing for a siege, they have almost nothing to lose by hitting the train. If they don't, then we just have a slow ride to Canterlot. Hell, I hope they don't. But I'm not willing to risk it."

"You have no guarantee, Commander." Twilight countered quietly, but she didn't look up at me.

"The thing about war is that there is no guarantee of anything, Twilight Sparkle. You just have to be prepared for as much as you can."

In the end, Twilight told the conductor, he agreed, and we all set off. We had an uneventful trip once the conductor learned how to match the speed of the train to the maximum speed of the Atlas and the Stalker. The Tiger and the Kodiak kept in formation. Until we got to the bridge.

---

I swore at myself, having crossed this particular ravine in my previous trip. I hadn't even given it a second thought at the time, the jump was trivial for the Tiger. I have made much more challenging maneuvers while being shot at.

Hiro, trained as a scout, realized the ambush point and the Tiger suddenly swung out of formation. Once he was a safe distance from the train, the Tiger roared into the air.

"Ninja?"

"Incoming, small formation and something else, bearing 290." The Tiger slammed into the ground and the whine of his engine told me it was hitting full speed. "I'm gonna jump the ravine, get around and hit 'em as soon as you can!" Another roar of the Tiger's jump jets and the mech flew over the chasm. Green lances of light spouted from its head.

"Orders commander?" Reaper sounded on edge. I ignored the comms in favor of mashing the external speaker button.

I yelled into the mic. "Twilight Sparkle, stop the train!"

"That'll work," Reaper commented.

"Nearest crossing is a half kilometer east, book it Atari. Ninja, you have the train."

"Roger Commander!"

The massive engine in the Kodiak whined to life as Big Bear floored it for the first time since we had run our demonstration. The Stalker and Atlas lumbered along at something like a jog, but the Kodiak could truly run. Ruby lances from its claws cleaved through trees in his path, and he tore through the small grove without breaking stride.

A horrible screech of metal on metal filled the air, and I noticed the whole train lurching. Just on the other side of the bridge, it was coming to a stop. The figures that Ninja had seen were just coming into my radar range. Somewhere between two and eight small things, ponies obviously, and one large thing. The last was as tall as a small scout mech, and as bulky as the Tiger. It was moving, but Ninja could easily outrun it. I started around the chasm.

"I don't know what's going on, but there's more of 'em, and they're casting some kinda spell." Ninja sounded worried.

I keyed my mic. "Are they in royal armor?"

"No?"

"Shoot to kill." I sighed and leaned back in my chair. I could only just barely see the train from inside the light forest I was walking through, and I was too low to feel safe about shooting over it. Big Bear was almost back to the train. Beside me, Reaper's Atlas plodded along. "Big Bear is incoming, fall back to the train if you are in danger."

"Roger."

There was a bit of a purple glow from the train, and a bubble suddenly appeared above it. The bubble popped, leaving six familiar figures standing on top of the train car. One of them immediately tore into the sky. Her rainbow trail headed toward the cultists. Yeah, Rainbow Dash seemed brash enough to think she could scout. There was some movement, another pop, and something thudded against my cockpit armor. Probably Twilight Sparkle. I flipped on the external speaker.

"-can teleport the girls out to safety, but not the whole train!" Twilight was on the verge of panic.

"Stay calm, ambassador. Big Bear and Ninja will hold them off until we arrive."

"Should I teleport us away?"

"I would feel more comfortable with you where I can see you. For all we know this is a diversion." I thought for a moment, and Twilight blissfully remained silent. "Stay at the train and do that shield thing until we push them away."

"Understood Commander." Before I could say anything else, there was another pop, and there were five figures on top of the train once more. Fortunately, the rainbow blur came back my way.

"Ten ponies in weird cloaks, and one monster, Commander!"

"Roger Dash, keep it loose out there and watch the lines of fire."

"Roger!" The rainbow trail shot back into the sky.

Reaper gave me about five seconds. "'Keep it loose'?"

"What?" I was sure I'd heard that before.

"Omega, never become an air jockey."

"Shut up."

"Three targets down, they've put up a shield, the weird thing is getting bigger!" Ninja called.

"On your six Ninja, move left!" Big Bear growled. There was a roar of the Tiger's jump jets, and I saw it for a moment as it moved out of the way. The searing scream of the Kodiak's large laser echoed over the plains. "Too strong," Big Bear reported.

"Fall back Ninja, we're almost in firing range," I ordered.

"Roger!"

The Kodiak was about to carefully step over the train tracks when they were surrounded in a black glow, and began to roll up like party favors. After a moment the train's brakes started squealing.

"They're going for the train, hit 'em hard, forget the tracks Big Bear."

Big Bear didn't even acknowledge. The Kodiak tore one huge foot at the earth, and lept forward when the other found purchase on the track bedding. Two steps later the tracks were bent beyond use, but the Kodiak was on its way.

"Reaper, support from range, see if you can hold those tracks down."

"On it."

I bounded across the tracks, as much as a Stalker ever can be described as 'bounding', and the Atlas stopped. With its two massive hands, it reached down and grabbed the rolling tracks and forced them back to the ground. The metal screamed at being torn in so many different directions at once, but the train stopped moving. I zoomed in on the magical barrier over the forms in the distance. "Firing."

My first shot went wide, and I once again cursed the weird physics on this planet. My second shot hit the ground in front of them, sending a wave of dirt over the shield. The third shot barely hit. What I saw first was the glow bending. Then it popped like a bubble, but in the wake of that pop, all of the figures inside were sent flying. The glow around the tracks went out instantly.

What I saw next was the big thing. It had horns, big bat-like wings on its back, and eyes that actually looked like they were on fire. It stood up, screamed an unearthly howl, and ran straight for me.

"Is that a demon?" Reaper asked from the train tracks. With the massive bulk of the Atlas holding the tracks down, he stood up on the tracks themselves. At least I assumed that's how he started pelting the thing with blue lasers from behind me. "Is that a fucking demon?" I didn't stop to compare notes. I opened fire.

Four more shots from my PPC's actually hit the thing somewhere near where I aimed, tearing great holes in its wings and causing it to fall backwards and scream, only to roll onto its feet and charge again. Nothing critical. The lasers Reaper was hitting it with didn't seem to do anything.

"Twilight says it's a creature of fire!" Rainbow's disembodied voice came from outside. I hoped she was far from the particle cannons.

"Right, no heat damage Atari."

"I've got some non heat damage for it," Big Bear growled. As the Kodiak finished closing the distance, the massive clawed arm of the battlemech reached back and it punched the thing across the face. The Kodiak recoiled from the blow, but the demon flew backwards. When it hit the ground, the Kodiak's autocannon barked.

The LBX-AC-20 tank-shotgun mounted to the Kodiak was the perfect weapon for the job. The demon rolled backwards again, as great gaping holes exploded across its body. Another unearthly scream came from it, and it stood up once more. Where I expected blood, I saw only fire. Magma dripped from its mouth. Its eyes looked like flares. It…well could only be described as screaming...once more, and my world was awash with pain and sound.

"What the hell!?" Ninja screamed in confusion and fear.

"Hell, Ninja." Big Bear thankfully remained calm.

When my vision cleared, all I could see out of the cockpit was fire. "Need melee backup!" I fired my lasers out of instinct, but nothing much changed.

"Hold still!" someone screamed into the radio, and I pulled the throttle back to neutral. The fire changed to metal, and the Kodiak lumbered past my window. I heard the Kodiak’s fist slam into something that wasn’t my mech, and I slammed the throttle into reverse. The Kodiak's autocannon barked again. The roar of the Tiger's jump jets came from behind me, and the Tiger's feet landed on top of the creature, which screamed again.

"Clear the target!" I shouted. The Kodiak wheeled away, and the Tiger's jump jets fired again. I fired all four of the PPC's at almost point blank range. The demon slammed into a crater on the ground, and fire sprayed everywhere.

"Internal heat warning," my computer spoke. My reactor kicked into high gear, trying to recharge the four capacitors fueling the four particle accelerators while running all of the radiators. I ignored it. The demon started climbing out of the hole, and I pulled the trigger again. Four more PPC shots. More fire spraying. The form flew backwards and fell beyond the rim of the crater.

"Reactor critical: Shutting down."

Everything in my cockpit went dark. Midnight drooped as the legs and gyroscopes lost power. The 800 degree nuclear reactor underneath me threatened to bake my cockpit, and the heat sinks whined their metallic cooling ping under the heavy stress. The coolant tubes in my vest worked overtime, trying to make sure I didn't bake to death. Midnight couldn't move. I could barely breathe. I was facing the hole though, and could see the crater through the reinforced cockpit glass.

Fire licked up from the edges of the crater I had buried the creature in. I thought I saw a hand, and I pulled the trigger again instinctively. Nothing happened of course, but the fire cleared and nothing was left in its wake.

"Reactor: online. Sensors: online. Weapons: online. All systems nominal." The silence was cut suddenly by my computer rebooting and the reactor kicking the power back on after it had cooled to within safe operating temperature, and the giant gyroscopes that kept the Stalker standing upright began spinning to life again. The dashboard lit up across my cockpit.

I slammed the throttle forward.

The Kodiak stood guard over the crater, one arm pulled back and ready to give it another hundred-ton punch, autocannon barrel glimmering with heat. The Tiger had pulled back and stood away, ready to pounce again. I strode up to the hole, looked down, and fired a single ppc at the middle of the flames. Aside from more dirt scattering, nothing happened.

"I think it's dead," Ninja offered.

"God I hope so," I said.

"Incoming!" Rainbow Dash yelled. I saw her rainbow trail shoot up over the battlefield.

"Movement, the cultists are back," Reaper called. I spun my giant torso around. The Tiger's engine whined as it rocketed forward, jump jets speeding it along. A small group of the original cultists were charging toward us. No shield. Ninja didn't even have to be told. The Tiger flew into the air on jets of plasma, spun and looked down, and red lasers fired from its weapon pods. Two of the cultists fell immediately, and he landed on a third. The lasers fired again and impaled a fourth. I fired a couple of shots wide to guide them back toward him. The Kodiak's blue laser fired from behind, killing another. The green lasers from the Tiger's center fired and the last fell.

I looked around. "Where's the rest?"

"Fled," Ninja huffed.

"Good. Reaper? How's the train?"

"All clear here Omega."

"Damage?" I asked.

"Leg armor's scratched," Ninja said.

"Right arm's melted, three AC shots fired." Big Bear responded.

"Clear here," Reaper said.

Nothing serious. "Just running hot, torso's scratched. Fine. Form up and wait at the train."

"Roger."

"Joining."

"'Kay."

The rainbow blur zoomed past my cockpit window.

"Wow, I could ride the thermal coming off of your machine," Rainbow Dash said. "The rest ran into the forest. We all clear?"

"Yeah, you guys ok?"

"Yeah, train's fine. Reaper saw to that."

"Good. We have to get this train going."

"On it." The rainbow blur led back to the train. The other two machines fell into step behind me.

The train tracks were still bent all funny from where Reaper had mashed them back into the ground and Big Bear had stepped on the bedding. The train was stopped, several ponies were looking out the window, most at us, in horror. Twilight looked up at us. “Is everything ok?”

"The train is safe for now. How do we get it going again?"

"We need to repair the tracks."

"Can we be of any help in that?"

"I don't think so, Daniel has managed to put them back where they were." She looked like she was still working things out in her own head.

"Alright, we will stand guard."

"Thank you Commander."

I nodded to myself. "Atari, give them some space. Ninja, cross the tracks and look for anything else coming our way."

"Roger Omega." The Tiger started moving again, jogged a respectful distance from the tracks, and leapt over with a burst from the jump jets. I was able to watch the fearful looks on the faces of the ponies in the train this time. Well, as long as one group of the citizens of this planet learned to respect our machines, maybe it would spread. I didn't think it would help our cause in the short term.

Twilight ended up straightening the railroad tracks. There was a bit of a pep talk beforehand, and Pinky Pie started singing. I shut off the external sound for that part.

One musical number later, the tracks were in place. Two earth ponies got out of the train and went about replacing the spikes with Rarity's help. I was about to question why the perfectionist was in charge of a quick repair job, but I realized that it gave me a moment to talk to Twilight. I opened the hatch and climbed down.

“Commander, in the future I would appreciate warning before you...engage like that.” She sounded and looked like she was going to be ill.

“I apologise Ambassador. The train looked to be in imminent danger.”

It took a moment, but Twilight looked almost ashamed. “Yes. Thank you for defending it.”

"The last time I saw those cultists use magic, they all teleported away and we haven't seen them since. Before that, they summoned four murderous, rampaging Titans from who-knows-where. I didn't think you wanted that again."

Twilight gritted her teeth. "No, we don't want that to happen again." I nodded.

"I am at your command, Ambassador. Feel free to tell me to stand down."

"Okay."

We stared past each other in awkward silence for a moment.

"Twilight, the tracks are done, and much nicer than before,” Rarity said, sounding proud.

"Good work Rarity. Commander," she said, turning back to me, "we are ready to move again."

"Understood Ambassador. Start the train at your leisure." I closed the hatch and got back on the mic. "Break's over Atari. Mount up."

---

The sun was close to setting by the time we finished winding our way up Canterlot Mountain. Princess Celestia herself met us at the station with royal guard in full fanfare. Reaper and Ninja stopped and immediately started scanning.

"Welcome back, Commander Black. I trust your trip went well?"

"We met with some resistance, Your Majesty. I will require a space to conduct repairs. The Colonel will want to hear my full report."

"Well, the train looks undamaged, so thank you for that."

"Happy to be of service, your Majesty." She gave me a lingering 'we're talking later' look as she turned away, and then was back in full Royal Princess mode. Shining Armor strode up to our formation, the guard pony looking intimidating despite being dwarfed by our legs.

"Commander, please follow me, we have prepared a space for your machines."

"Understood Captain." I flipped the external speakers back off. "We're moving, Atari. Apparently they built us a hangar."

"Classy," Reaper said hopefully.

---

"It's a barn," Reaper deadpanned.

It certainly looked like a barn.

"Hell of a barn," Big Bear countered.

"How is a barn not a hangar?" I was confused as to the difference.

"Less hay?" Reaper asked.

"It's tall enough, I'm not complaining."

The barn was indeed big enough for all of us. Someone must have taken some measurements, because the loft was at perfect exit height for Reaper and Big Bear. The Stalker, being shorter, left me climbing all the way down, but I wasn't about to complain that my free caviar wasn't my favorite color. As I hit the ground (which wasn't covered in hay) the Colonel walked in the door.

"Nice place, those earth ponies do quick work," he said, smiling at me.

I saluted him quickly. "Good to see you again Colonel."

He waved his hoof in what I had gathered was a salute. "I hear you boys hit some trouble on the way."

"Balrog, according to Twilight Sparkle. They were using it as a fast strike unit. About ten cultists backing it up, four or five got away. They know we're coming, and what we're packing."

The Colonel was silent for a moment, and looked at Midnight with a blank expression. "I was afraid of this. We hoped from their earlier mistake in summoning you four that they didn't know how to summon creatures from Tartarus. Now we know they can."

I nodded. "How many are we talking?"

"I don't have the numbers with me. Lots. They’ve probably been preparing for this for months. Enough to be glad your four are here. This is going to be bloody."

I grimaced. "I've faced worse odds."

He smiled at me. "Worse than 'this is going to be bloody'?"

I held up a hand and began counting off. "'We will disavow all knowledge of you if captured', 'We're not really all that formal around here', 'I can't believe they would attack a mercy mission', and my favorite, 'All previous legal disagreements will be forgotten if you accept this mission'." I looked up. "That one was particularly bad."

"Sounds like a good story for after this."

"Beer's on me."

"I'll hold you to that, Commander. Briefing will be at 1900." He turned and walked away with a grin.

"Roger, Colonel."

Reaper walked up beside me. "Local time?"

"About 1815."

"Just enough time to find our rooms then, I think."

"Yeah, go get settled. The Ambassador should be here soon." I looked up at the Kodiak distractedly as Rolf walked up. "How bad is it?"

"Right arm armor's half gone. Three of the lasers are out. Still makes a good fist though."

"Noted. Great work Rolf. I appreciate the ass-saving."

Rolf grinned. "You still scream like a girl Chris."

"A girl who authorizes your paycheck."

Rolf patted me roughly on the back. "I'm gonna go remind Dan he doesn't know where our rooms are."

I chuckled. "Good luck."

I was still looking at the Kodiak's arm when Hiro finally got himself out of the Tiger. He walked for the entrance staring at the ground.

"You ok Hiro?"

"I don't like shooting soldiers, Commander," he replied quietly.

"I know Hiro. You did good out there."

"Thanks Chris. It just…doesn't sit right."

I grimaced. "You know I try to avoid it. We have a new situation here though. Think of them like elementals. They're trying to hurt us, and they can if they want to. They're not defenseless and they know what they're up against. We saved lives of noncombatants."

Hiro nodded. "I suppose that's a good point."

I shrugged. "I doubt we'll have to deal with it much anyway. The Colonel seemed to think they're gonna bring more demons to the actual fight. Probably even a real titan."

He seemed to brighten up a bit at that. "See, being the underdog I can do."

"And you do it well." I patted Hiro on the back. "The bonus from this mission should be pretty good. We're getting paid in pure gold. Not even like 99% pure gold, apparently the unicorns just know how to make pure gold bars. We'll be sitting pretty when we get back."

"Yeah…can't wait to get home," Hiro said, distracted.

---

The ‘short briefing’ of the princesses and the heads of the Equestrian military was as terrible as the first meeting I had attended. It was painfully obvious that these ponies were doing this all by the book, and the book was incredibly dusty. They were deploying troops in laughably predictable setups. The intelligence collected by Twilight Sparkle was the only useful thing about the whole thing. They eventually decided on additional Battlemech training with the ground forces for the Equestrian Army (once I suggested it). This highlighted the lack of emergency mobile hospital staging points (which I also suggested) and having supply lines set and practiced (which I also suggested).

The four of us gave each other looks of relief and disgust once we had walked out of the meeting, walked down the hall and turned the corner.

"Are they always this terrible?" Dan asked with honest incredulity.

"Yeah. It's pretty sad. I'll take the rest of the meetings from here on out."

"Thanks," Hiro said. Rolf nodded.

Dan shook his head. "I'd invade the country too if I had to listen to this shit."

I internally winced and hoped we’d made it far enough from the room. "Stay classy Dan."

"I'm nothin but class."

"Orders Chris?" Rolf rumbled.

"Stay on comms. We don't know if they will need us to shore something up with almost no warning. I want daily checks on 'mech systems. Other than that, take it easy. Since it's a half day train ride to get here, the army won't be arriving with less than a day's warning."

"Woo paid leave!" Dan cheered as we stepped into the evening sunlight.

"Be back for dinner," I mentioned.

"I'm going exploring." Rolf turned away and waved. I headed back to the hangar with Dan and Hiro.

"I guess it's sim time and crisp mountain air for me," Dan said with a bit of boredom.

"Sorry we're not on a planet with good strip clubs."

"You pick the worst missions Chris."

"They probably have strip clubs," Hiro pointed out with a questioning hand wave. Dan stumbled for a moment and looked like he was going to be sick.

"Thank you for that image. It will never leave me." Dan split off with a wave and headed for the rooms we had been given. Hiro grinned at the victory.

"What about you Hiro?"

"Rarity told me that there are good performances here. Figured I'd catch some."

"Maybe do some performing yourself?"

"Nah, not gonna happen." He grinned and went to find his room. I grinned and knew he’d crack. I had notes of expected power and number of non-pony things we might be fighting fed into my personal computer from the briefing. I intended to spend the evening studying the list and playing with possible attack formations.

"Commander, I would like to speak with you," the soothing tone of Princess Celestia said from behind me. I spun around on a heel and saluted the princess.

"Of course your Majesty. Now?"

"Yes, I believe that would be best. If you would follow us?" A steward appeared from the crowd on cue, and I wasn't sure if it was by teleportation magic or practiced loyalty. I nodded and followed.

---

Princess Celestia's idea of a meeting was a quiet cup of tea on a balcony overlooking a glorious sunset. It rang false to me, but I told myself that was years of deception and contracts with House Liao at work. Here I was working with royalty who A: controlled the sun, and B: enjoyed the simple pleasures of life. The sunset was a pretty backdrop and a subtle reminder of who was in charge. I smiled at the simplicity, and was quietly in awe of someone who could assert their bargaining stance with a sunset.

"The train was three hours late, Commander."

"Yes, that was my fault, Your Majesty."

"Do not apologize, it was obviously your intention. I simply wanted to know how it came to be."

I took a breath and organized my thoughts. Usually mission reports weren’t something I gave on the spot. I was just going to have to be as professional as possible. "Well, it hit me that everyone in the kingdom knows where the Elements of Harmony live. My wingman Reaper figured that out, actually. You have our actions to blame for it, but everyone who was paying attention knew that they were still in Ponyville until yesterday. It was no secret that we would all be taking that train to get to Canterlot. Since the royal guard is preparing for an assault on the capitol, it made an attack on the train likely. It was a good target of opportunity, Princess. One I would have taken."

"I am in doubt that you would have attacked a civilian transport, Commander." I put on my best poker face. "This is exactly the sort of experience I had hoped I was buying. For this one thing, you and your unit have earned my thanks and your payment. Expect to be appropriately commended when this is over."

"You are most welcome, Princess. I expect there will be less surprise orders on my part though."

"On the contrary, I believe I have empowered you with the appropriate rank to do just that. The Royal Guard will regard you with your rank. But please, if you wouldn't mind, I have not heard the details, Commander."

"Of course, Princess. I arranged to have my unit escort the train here. I did not see what the ambush point would be until it happened. They struck after the train had crossed a ravine. There were about ten unicorns and a creature. Hiro held them off while my unit ran around to the nearest crossing. At that point they attempted to destroy the train by rolling the tracks up with magic, and cast a spell that enlarged the creature that was with them. Rolf and myself ended up shooting the creature until it seemed to disappear in fire. At that point several of the cultists attacked on foot, and we prevented them from reaching the train. Hiro made most of the kills and should be recognized as such. We unrolled the tracks and the Ambassador took over repairing them. There were no other incidents."

The Princess's expression was thoughtful. "Twilight Sparkle tells me it was a balrog?"

I allowed myself a moment of relaxation. "That is what she told me, Princess. It was tall, had wings, and bled fire. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you what it was, but I sure don't want to see one again."

The Princess grimaced. "Sadly there could be many more where that came from. The balrog is known for its foul temper and its speed. There are much stronger creatures in tartarus, but most are quite ponderous."

"I intend to compile a list of the various creatures that Twilight discussed and their weaknesses and spread that to my unit."

"A sound course of action."

"Was there anything else Princess?" I knew she had some other reason for wanting this meeting.

She looked out at the setting sun. "It takes a seasoned military mind to understand all of the moving parts of a war. It takes a particularly talented mind to think creatively about the situation. I want to make it perfectly clear that you are being paid to think creatively on the battlefield. My generals run my army, but you may make any requests that you think will safely end the conflict." She took another sip.

"I understand, Your Highness.”

"Thank you for saving the train, Commander." She smiled at me, turned back to the sun, and her steward showed me out.

I was surprised at how well that had gone.

---

The steward led me through the vaulted ceiling corridors of the castle. He led me up a flight of ornate stairs in another wing and showed me to four rooms at the end of a hallway. Each was very nice, but I was being given a suite with a sitting room. I radioed the team after I had settled in, but the steward had already met them at the entrance. Whatever he was getting paid, it wasn’t enough. He came with the other three and showed them their rooms as well. Then he showed us to the dining hall.

We were served the same high quality food I had been on my previous trip. Dan about died at the table in pleasure. I wasn’t going to point out that he was eating vegetarian. “Good evening Commander.” I turned at the voice and saw Twilight Sparkle and friends at the table next to us.

Pinky Pie and Applejack insisted that we share a table. Considering the size of them, fitting wasn’t an issue. We talked about our out of combat interests and lives, though Dan pointed out that he was just going to live in the dining hall for the rest of the tour. Pinky Pie pointed out a few desserts she had introduced the head chef to, and promised to get them for Dan. Twilight Sparkle promised to show Hiro the royal library, a place she was only too happy to show off. Rolf mentioned that he had spent a few minutes in the hangar with the construction crew as they worked on fabricating a new metal sheet. It sounded like they were trading welding techniques. For the first time, I almost felt like we were all getting along.

Fluttershy finally started to open up as we left, matching Hiro’s quiet demeanor quite nicely. I guess the six were reluctant to leave us once we’d actually started being friendly with each other, and they walked with us to our rooms. "Well, what would you like to do while you are here, Hiro?" Fluttershy asked. Hiro looked down, then glanced at me. I already knew his answer and nodded.

"I'd perform," he said quietly, "I haven't been on stage in years. I used to be a musician."

"You're still a musician," I pointed out.

"Yeah, just not professionally."

I turned to Rarity. "Don't let him fool you, he did solo concerts for thousands." Hiro looked at me with surprise, then away in embarrassment. "Hey, I do my homework."

Rarity smiled and fluttered her giant eyelashes. "Well that sounds amazing. What do you play?"

"He plays the flute," Twilight said with a dreamy sigh.

“Sweeter ‘n a summer evenin’ breeze,” Applejack added.

Hiro shook his head. "The flute is just a hobby. I play the koto."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "The hay is a codo?"

"No, koto. It's an ancient Neighponese instrument," Twilight corrected, "though I have never heard it played. I wouldn't know where to find one. I'm sorry Hiro." She seemed genuinely saddened by this.

Hiro smiled and shrugged. "That's ok. Not a big deal."

"Is that all?" Pinky asked. "Here!" She motioned to a seemingly random room in the hallway we were in, opened the door and disappeared into the dark.

Twilight stopped, a mix of confusion and fear clear on her face. "Pinky, what are you doing?"

"I have kotos -grrr- stashed all over EquestriaaAAAAA!"

Pinky Pie flew out of the room on the heels of a crashing noise and several hats, with a koto rolling slowly behind her on casters, one of them squeaking softly. "In case of koto emergency!" She said, upside down leaning on the far wall and stopped the runaway instrument harmlessly with a hoof. While smiling.

"How...you-I'll be in my room," Dan said as he turned and walked away, eyes wide, “I’ll be in my room.”

Twilight held her head with a hoof. "Pinky Pie that’s the semiannual holiday decorations storage closet! How do you even have-"

"Who do you think gave the princesses half of these?" Pinky had righted herself and began shoving an assortment of banners and hats back into the closet before slamming it shut. "I'll clean it later."

Hiro stared at the thing for a moment before plucking a couple of strings experimentally. "Ok. Yeah, that's a nice instrument." He played a chord. “How is it in tune?” Twilight winced, I shrugged. Pinky Pie beamed with pride.

Rarity watched for a moment. "This is the instrument you know how to play, yes?"

Hiro nodded and played a few measures of a song. I nodded to the beat while Twilight stared with jaw open and Rarity's eyes widened.

"Oh, that's so exotic," she said quietly when he stopped. "It's positively soulful and alien, this could be amazing." She was instantly at Hiro's side. "Please tell me you'll put on a show, just one night. It will be the talk of all of Canterlot! I can arrange everything!"

Hiro looked scared at the assault. "Uh, ok, I mean I need a day or so to get warmed up and put together a set list."

"Night after tomorrow then! I haven't a moment to spare! I must-" she spun around suddenly in the middle of her wandering, gasped and stared at Hiro with a wide eyed, manic stare. "What will you wear!?"

Hiro staggered backward, away from her slow stalking advance. "It- I-if I were at home I'd be in traditional costume," he stammered.

Rarity smiled, looking excited. "Patterned silk, of course, I know just where to get the fabric, quickly!" She turned to run but glared at Hiro when he stayed where he was. “Darling, I simply cannot match fabric to your tones without you.” He looked at me for help, and I laughed.

"Your performance, Hiro, better get ready."

Hiro saluted and ran to catch up with Rarity.

---

Twilight Sparkle wished me good evening, but lingered in the hallway. “Can I help with something, Ambassador?”

She grimaced. “In your...professional experience, do you need to shoot soldiers with your machines very often?” Ah.

“No. Early in my career a lance I was with was tasked with stopping a riot. I watched a man kill a few hundred people armed with angry signs. I refuse those missions now,” I said as she turned green. “I’m sorry Ambassador. I did not know if the ones that attacked us would be capable of killing us inside of our machines.”

She took a moment to steady herself. “That was a rational conclusion from their willingness-” her voice caught in her throat for a moment, “to attack. And also probably a valid concern.” She looked up at me with a haunted expression. “Can you avoid that from now on?”

“I will do my best, Ambassador.” I watched her look down again. “Twilight, what happened in the changeling attack?” She winced. “I wouldn’t normally press, but something is obviously troubling you. That isn’t a luxury we have with the cult coming.”

She refused to look up, but she started talking. “We fought. I used magic against changelings. I accused my friends of...really bad things. Then Shining Armor and Princess Cadence saved us from the changelings.”

“But you all lived,” I pointed out.

“Yes.”

“If I may offer some advice, Twilight?”

“What’s that.” She didn’t seem enthusiastic about the prospect.

“Tell yourself whatever lie you have to. Tell yourself you are a good pony who saves the world, because you are. But convince yourself that what you did was right. If you get into the battle with the cult and you stop to question yourself, to ask if you are doing the right thing, you’re gonna die.” We were both silent for a moment. “Afterwards you can ask yourself if you are right.”

“Is that how you live with yourself?” She asked sadly, half to herself.

“That’s how I stay alive. I live with myself because I am helping.”

She looked up at me, swallowed, and the warmth faded from her expression. “Have a good evening Commander.” She walked off as I responded in kind. So we were back to that. I sighed and began looking through the cabinets of the suite for liquor.

Chapter 9: Scouting

I dreamed that night of a life I never had. I’d married a nice girl, settled down to raise a family, working a farm and selling to the people of the town. Everyone knew everyone else. The royalty didn’t tax the living fuck out of the peasants. People worked hard and cared for each other. I woke up as I played with my children in front of our house. I’ve woken up scared, confused, angry. Seldom do I wake up sad. Fortunately for me, all I had to do was attend the morning military briefing. My mood shifted quickly from melancholy to boredom.

"Good morning ponies, Commander," the colonel said, addressing the room of officers and Princess Celestia. I nodded politely to the colonel. "No change in the forces in the Everfree Forest. However scout wing Pulsar of the Night Guard made an interesting discovery. Captain Peach?"

The colonel stepped away from the podium as a new kind of pony in a midnight blue uniform walked up. The main obvious difference was the soldier's rather large black bat wings where I had kinda gotten used to feathered pegasus wings. The fangs became apparent when she began speaking.

"Good morning. We discovered a supply route that was run in the middle of the night by carriage. The run was made to the south eastern section of the Everfree forest. However more enlightening was that we were able to tail four of the ponies back to the Equestrian border southeast of Dodge City.”

A collective gasp shot through the room. The Princess looked mildly intrigued. I was suddenly not bored.

Some young officer in back called out. “The ponies of the Forbidden Jungle are attacking? But we have a treaty!”

"You are absolutely certain of this, Captain?" The princess asked with royal authority.

Captain Peach nodded. "As sure as we can be your Majesty. Their path matched the tracks left by the wagon. Either that is their true point of origin, or somepony is going to great effort and risk to make it look that way. We followed the tracks for hours south. We lost them in the swamps east of Dodge City.”

There was much concerned mumbling in the room for a moment. The poor captain at the front looked around the room with darting eyes. She looked like she had already had a long day, and finishing it by addressing every officer and a princess wasn’t helping things. She yawned, then stood up straighter when she caught herself.

"If I may ask some questions?" I stood up and looked at the colonel.

"Of course Commander Black."

"Thank you. Captain, was there evidence of this being a well-used route?"

The bat-pony looked at me with shock, but nodded. "Not the exact route, but we found evidence of multiple trails. It looks like they vary their route by day."

"May I suggest running an armed scouting party out to that area? An armed presence may confirm their identity and allow us to apply pressure through diplomatic channels." There was more mumbling, but the Colonel seemed to nod after a moment.

"A sufficiently sized force to defend itself might be taken as a threat," he pointed out.

I nodded and thought for a moment. "Unless you can blame it on an alien mercenary temporarily overstepping his authority." I immediately saw the colonel frown. "Let me send my small machine out. It will be fast enough to get away should they assault or try to take our presence as a threat, and I won't send the rest of the unit so I cannot be seen as an attack."

"Are you comfortable doing this mission solo?"

"If you are comfortable sending us, Colonel." While there was more mumbling and uncertainty, everyone finally agreed.

The rest of the briefing was actually reasonable. Apparently having focus made this military function. We agreed that my unit would head out before sunrise and for two scout wings to check the area that day just in case. The colonel assured me that I would have provisions ready for the trip in the morning. The map would be copied so that I could send one along. I graciously accepted his help and made a note to spend the evening pouring over the map trying to match places to landmarks I had already passed.

---

The shortest path to our hangar was through the royal gardens. My internal dialogue on locations and ambush points was stopped in its tracks by the sight of the sun rising over the mountains and lighting all of Equestria. I could blame the nitrogen content of the atmosphere, but really the sight was breathtaking. I sat down on a convenient bench.

What was I doing? Playing at war, shooting talking horses with lasers in fantasy land. We were the most literal definition of overkill I could think of. This land didn’t deserve what we were about to put it through. Usually if I have regrets over a mission I have them after the mission, but this hit me hard.

The sound of hooves on stone made me turn around, and I saw Princess Luna approaching. I stood and saluted. “Good morning Princess.”

She smiled. “Good morning Commander. Please do not let me interrupt, you are free to enjoy the gardens,” she said with a wing gesturing to the bench.

“Thank you your Majesty. Your sister puts on a good show,” I said motioning to the horizon.
“She does indeed. Some evening when you are not busy with the protection of our kingdom, you should see mine.”

“I am sorry I’ve missed it. I look forward to it.” She didn’t verbally respond, and I stared into the skyline and tried to collect myself as I sat down again. I blame the rest of my conversation on succeeding. “I feel bad for bringing ‘Mechs to this land,” I said out loud, coming to the realization.

“Oh, Commander? I was under the impression that the cultists were to blame for your presence.” I looked at the princess of the moon as my head spun, trying to figure out a way to salvage this politically. Her Mona Lisa smile almost made me roll my eyes. I had watched her report on the magic that brought us here.

“I mean-” I cut myself off, almost slipping into the banter of my dream with her, “Princess Luna, that the escalation of force which follows a mechwarrior company has taken a toll on the populace.” I felt myself drawn back to the sunrise. “I’ve never seen such a nice place. This actually is a peaceful kingdom. Now that I’ve had a taste of it…” I didn’t know what to follow that with.

“One does what one must to protect a kingdom, be that an entire country or simply a group of friends.”

“Even if that thing is terrible.”

“Indeed, Commander Black.” I couldn’t tell if I heard regret or resolve in her voice. Did she mean Twilight Sparkle’s group of friends, or mine? I couldn’t dispute the accusation of my employees being my friends at this point, but business partners was closer to the truth. Maybe.

My primary concern was still bringing battlemechs to Friendshipland. “And if that terrible thing irreparably damages the thing you set out to protect in the first place?”

“Then one dedicates one’s life to fixing it.” It was too early in the morning for a subject that deep. After a few moments I heard the hooves again. “Please excuse me, Commander Black, a princess’s work is never done.” I stood and saluted, and she smiled and walked away. For that matter, neither was mine. I had a scouting mission to command. Hiro would need a debrief, the maps, and a patrol route. And to delay his concert.

That thought stopped me. The young pilot had been torn from his life in nobility, but had reacted honorably in all he did since. In the years I’d employed him, I’d yet to see him as at home as he seemed in Canterlot. The prospect of performing for a capitol city seemed to light him up like I’d never seen before. I’d worked hard to get him to be himself, assert himself on and off the battlefield. He had a keen mind and I feared that bossing him around too much would keep it locked up. Tearing the concert away from him now would just be cruel, and possibly undo years of my hard work..

Another breath of fresh air and the sight of the sun rising majestically over the mountains made up my mind. There was no need to do any of that. It had been years since I had been on a scouting mission, but it was how I had gotten my start. I thought to myself as I walked, let Hiro perform his concert. This is a peaceful land. It’ll be fine. I can handle this.

---

I headed to our new hangar and radioed Hiro to meet me. The hangar was abuzz with ponies. For a moment, if I ignored the wood beams and sunshine pouring in, I could almost imagine we were back in our dropship. Rolf was assisting with a team fabricating a metal plate. From the way he kept pointing at his fist and up at the kodiak’s arm, I assumed they were replacing the melted armor. A second team was putting the finishing touches on Midnight, painting a pair of angry eyes and a menacing beak on the formerly melted nose, just below the cockpit. I laughed in spite of myself, making a note to incorporate that on future repaints. All four of our mechs now sported the sun and moon banner of the kingdom of Equestria painted on the right shoulder.

With a brief greeting to Rolf, I made for the Tiger. Hiro showed up not too long afterward, knocking on the open cockpit glass. "What's up Commander?"

I barely looked up from my typing. "Special scouting mission in the morning. Just the Tiger. I'll be flying solo."

He grimaced. "Alright. Watch the left leg, I think I tweaked it on the landing at the ravine."

"Alright." I paused in my checks to make a note of that in my pocket computer.

"What's going on?"

"One of the scout wings thinks they found the supply chain. It's coming from a friendly territory to the southeast. I'm gonna go try to confirm." I started the daily diagnostic of the reactor.

Hiro was taken aback. "Wow, that's unexpected."

I nodded, taking a moment to look up while the computer crunched numbers. "Might be a rogue operation."

"Still." Hiro looked across the hangar as he hung off the side of the ladder.

"Yeah. Certainly puts the politics on this planet into an interesting light."

Hiro grimaced. “I was happy not seeing our kind of interesting here.” He looked back at me hopefully.

I nodded again, but had nothing to reassure him. I didn’t like thinking that this planet might be just like every other one we’d been to. I refocused on the task at hand. Hiro kept his machine in good condition for the most part. The computer has no relevant complaints for me to worry about. I made a note to get food and maps for the day. "I'm done here. Sorry to take your mech from you."

"Hey, you're the commander. I just drive the thing." He smiled at me in his youthful sincere way and climbed back down. I chuckled and headed down after him.

A pony in court robes was waiting for me in the doorway into the hangar, looking either confused or horrified as he looked around the hangar. I approached him with a smile, Hiro automatically falling in step behind me.

I gave him my best ‘nice alien’ greeting. "Good morning."

"G-good morning. Commander. I have a letter for you." He handed me a sealed scroll, I thanked him, and he exited the hangar as fast as he could without looking unprofessional. I opened the scroll.

The royal court of Equestria announces the yearly

GRAND GALLOPING GALA

held in the royal ballroom this Friday evening

The description was flowery and long, and I confess I skimmed most of it. I noticed the second piece of paper rolled underneath it though. I handed the first to Hiro’s curious hands and promptly forgot about it.

Commander Christophe Black

Our yearly royal ball is being held in two days time. As it currently stands, the threat of the Titan cult is at least two days away. Barring new information from our scouts tomorrow, the ball will go on as scheduled.

This event draws the high society from all corners of the kingdom. It is high profile, and could be an event to attack. However, this could all be for naught. I refuse to be intimidated into canceling this event simply due to a threat. It would be pointless to have your unit on standby. Should there be no report of an advance from the scouts, the royal court of Equestria would like to cordially invite Commander Christophe Black and Atari Mercenary Operations Limited to the Grand Galloping Gala. Formal attire is requested.

Her Royal Highness,

Princess Celestia

I raised my eyebrows as I read. I must have been raising my eyebrows too loudly because Rolf had put down his blow torch and walked over to us.

"News Commander?" Rolf asked, looking over my shoulder.

I shook my head. "Well, we've been invited to a ball." Hiro handed him the invitation as I looked back.

"A fancy ball?" Rolf smiled incredulously as he read.

I nodded. "Assuming the invasion doesn't start tomorrow."

Hiro laughed nervously. "I hope she wants a train wreck."

---

After dragging Dan away from what I gathered to be an extended late breakfast, I marched my unit through the halls looking for the seemingly ever-present steward. Who I found was Captain of the guard Shining Armor. I stiffened.

“Captain Armor, good morning.”

Shining Armor had on his perfect captain’s glower. “Good morning Commander Black.”

“Captain, I request an audience with the Ambassador concerning diplomatic matters.”

“Certainly Commander. Right this way.”

Shining Armor led us through the upper levels of the castle to Twilight’s personal quarters with perfect military bearing. I found myself matching the captain’s rhythm while judging the private wing of the palace against the other capitals I had been toured through. Compared to the halls of the Draconis Combine that we had saved the clans from on Luthien, this place was less intimidating, but slightly more ornate. I think it was the lack of carved snarling oriental dragons and the addition of marble columns.

The captain of the guard knocked properly on the door of a nice room in the second tower. "Twilie!” The Captain caught himself mid-word “-ight-Sparkle, guests." He went rigid.

Twilie?

The door opened after a moment to reveal a more disheveled-than-usual ambassador. "Shiny?"

Shiny? I knew they were brother and sister, but this caught me off guard.

"Guests," he repeated, gesturing to us. She nodded. "Are you coming to dinner tonight?"

"Yes, though I will be at the gala friday if it happens."

"Well of course, so will I."

She nodded. "See you there Shiny!" She waved and smiled at her brother, who smiled back but retained enough military demeanor to not wave.

"Later Twily."

I gawked at the exchange for a moment. My professional demeanor was slipping by the day in this place. Twilight glanced up at me as she left her room. "He's my big brother. And best friend. Forever.” Something about the way she said that silenced three of us. The telltale grunt of Dan getting elbowed by Rolf came from behind me, signaling that he had attempted to open his mouth. I noted that I didn’t pay Rolf enough. “What can I do for you Commander?"

I offered her the scroll. “We have received an invitation, Ambassador, and I would like your advice.”

The door swung open slowly as the scroll absorbed Twilight Sparkle’s attention, revealing the other five Elements of Harmony lounging about in Twilight’s personal suite. I assumed as such from the bookcases that covered every visible wall, anyway. "The Gala?" The ambassador's surprise was apparent until her demeanor caught back up. "I see. Well, if the princess thinks it's still a good idea to hold the Gala, then I'm sure she knows what she's doing." Her voice was tinged with nervousness. That statement struck me as odd, but I was derailed before I could work it out. She glanced nervously back at Rarity and Fluttershy who were busy over sewing machines and a table, respectively. Pinky Pie, Rainbow Dash and Applejack sat over books in a corner. She looked back at me. "Do you have Gala appropriate attire?"

"I don't think I've ever owned ball appropriate attire. I have my full dress uniform, but the rest of my unit doesn't. Know anyone who could come up with fancy clothes for aliens in a rush?" My gaze had drifted over to Rarity whose horn was literally glowing with excitement. She dropped her work and rushed to the doorway.

"Commander Black, it would be my privilege to provide outfits for your unit. My treat, I insist! I will not take no for an answer."

I nodded graciously. "I would not want to impose on you, since you are already making Hiro’s costume. But if you insist."

"I do,” she smiled in relief, “who else will be able to claim that they made the outfits of the best dressed aliens at the Grand Galloping Gala?" Now her prideful streak was showing again, though I was beginning to see how she was so successful.

"Is this a big deal then? I'm afraid I'm not much for high society functions."

Rarity sighed dreamily. "It's only the biggest social event of the year!"

"It is the most important event that the kingdom holds for itself," the ambassador added. "In past years it had been less than successful though," she added with a grimace. The rest of the girls looked suitably muted by that statement. I steered the topic away.

"Isn't your workshop in Ponyville, miss Rarity?" Twilight seemed content to let us work this out.

"Oh I have a little place here in the city, it's not much compared to the Boutique but it will suffice in a pinch." I wondered how many chandeliers it had.

"Alrighty then. When do you want to meet?"

"Oh we haven't much time to spare, I only have two days to do everything, and I'll need to choose fabric, I'll need a sample of your fashion, I don't know where I'm going to get..." she turned back into the room and began pacing around, still talking.

"I assume that means now?" I asked the Ambassador. She nodded.

"Rarity gets caught up in her work."

"Should we stay here, or..."

“Rarity, should we go back to your workshop now?”

“Yes! Yes of course! I must...I must…” she trailed off again, carrying her sewing machine and the mid-stitch fabric of Hiro’s kimono in her magic as she walked past us out into the halls.

Twilight sighed as she watched Rarity go. "I'll take you there."

"Thank you Ambassador."

I nodded, the four of us stepped out of her way, and we followed. "Do you have family, Commander Black?" Twilight Sparkle asked as we set off.

"No."

She seemed content with this answer for a moment. Her hooves clicked on the marble floors as she walked. Our military boots marched along following the noise. Not wanting to give myself more opportunities to anger her, I marched along automatically. I only stopped because the rhythmic clack stopped.

"Surely you at least have parents." Twilight Sparkle was looking at me in exasperation.

"They were killed in a terror raid. I was raised by my uncle who shipped me off to mechwarrior academy as soon as he could. He died in a coup soon after. My closest friend was the commander of my first unit, who died on a mission. She left me the entire company in her will. She had no family either. I made about three million bucks the day I lost the last person who I considered family."

The ambassador looked up at me with a neutral mask that slowly gave way to sadness, then looked back down the hallway and kept walking. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"I meant nothing by it. Think nothing of it Ambassador." That might have been over the line.

That confession kept her quiet until we left the castle proper, and left me alone with the memories of the month long flight in a dropship in the tattered remains of the scout mech that my first Commander was letting me pilot. The surly dropship pilot and crew that ignored me didn’t help. “Look at the bright side, kid. You get to keep all the money.” I remembered landing and listening to her pre-recorded will, leaving me everything and warning me not to get killed over some pointless mission. Mechwarrior academy may have taught me how to pilot a mech but it was commander Harris that taught me how to survive. And here I was, running a multi million c-bill business, some eighty million in assets. Her lesson in when to run screaming away from a mission had stuck with me.

Twilight Sparkle lead us up the road a few blocks once we had left the palace grounds. She kept her speaking to simple directions The other three clowns were apparently content to listen to the city. Dan apparently figured that teasing the ambassador about her brother's nickname was a bad idea, because that went thankfully unmentioned. A glance back told me that Rolf had an arm around his shoulder and a grin that was anything but casual. Yeah, note to self, give Rolf a raise.

Rarity's crash pad was indeed smaller than her store in Ponyville, but it was large enough to have a storefront, a work room, and a two bedroom apartment upstairs. I was beginning to wonder just how loaded she was.

I showed her current men's fashion on the mercenary world of Outreach and the high roller gambling world of Solaris 7 on my pocket computer. She looked at a few of the more odd outfits with interest, took measurements, examined how my body moved, and the shooed me out the door again. The other three were called in one by one, with Dan looking distinctly uncomfortable. I just smiled at him.

He grimaced. “I take it back, this is the most awkward thing I’ve experienced with ponies.”

I smiled condescendingly. “Welcome to politics, Dan.”

He lowered his voice, thankfully. “Fuck politics, you can keep your commander pay.”

Rolf snickered. “I keep telling you, Dan. This is why I stay quiet.” Dan shot him a glare.

“All the gold bars you can carry,” I reminded them. Dan nodded and shuddered.

Once Hiro emerged from her design room, Rarity called out the door. "I need space to think. Twilight, please be a dear and bring them all by tomorrow!"

"Ok, thanks Rarity!" She turned to us. "Rarity doesn't like to be disturbed when she's creating. Please follow me." I nodded, motioned for the team to follow.

Without much fanfare, the ambassador led us back to the castle and then immediately headed back to her quarters. We looked at each other and decided on lunch.

"Chris, why the hell are we going to a ball?" Dan asked over curry.

"Because we were invited by the crown.” I nodded at Dan’s continued incredulous look. “I told you, welcome to politics. They're trying to keep up appearances. No possible threat can be seen to stop the gala, so everyone who’s high profile or interesting has to go. Just raid the buffet table and look pretty."

Dan saluted. "Aye-aye commander."

---

Hiro actually requested that I come back to his room after lunch. He let me listen to him practice as he asked me for an outside opinion on the set list he was putting together. Rarity burst into his room in a whirlwind of cloth and makeup. I don't know where Rarity got the traditional Japanese silk, but I suppose the capital city had decent trade routes. More impressive was putting the pattern together in less than a day. "Darling! The finest concert hall in Equestria is prepared for tomorrow night! I've spread the word to some of my best clients, Hoity Toity said he would tell everyone he knew!" If we had an opinion on that, she didn't seem to notice. "Please Hiro, let's get you into this, I must see if the spring lilac or the setting sun matches this best with the whole ensemble!" Hiro stood up without complaint or hesitation and waited for the onslaught of clothing, makeup and hair to end. I watched in fascination.

"What?" Hiro finally said with one eye closed as Rarity took a pencil to it.

"I've just never seen you prepare for a performance before. You seem so calm."

"Being judged by a crowd is a matter of mental preparation. Fighting for my life is more a matter of quick reacting."

I shrugged and watched the two masters work, Rarity with cloth and makeup and Hiro with his instrument and music. I could always see how out of his element Hiro was on the battlefield, but watching him be comfortable was a new thing for me. Still, he was the best scout I had ever worked with. It made me sad, briefly, to know that his family had ostracized him for this. Then I remembered the times he had saved our collective ass and was once again glad he was here.

"Done! Let me look at you...oh yes." Rarity sighed in pleasure as Hiro turned. "I dare say it will be perfect once Fluttershy finishes the obi."

"Fluttershy is sewing part of it?" I asked in confusion. I supposed I had seen her working on something.

"Oh yes, she is second to none for detail work, and has quite an eye for fashion. No love of the spotlight, mind you, the poor dear, but I trust her implicitly on these matters." She stepped back and the glasses lifted off of her face. "Your costume is prepared, Hiro. If there is anything else I can do for you, don't hesitate to ask, darling."

Hiro nodded and smiled. "I think I'm good. We just need to get the koto to the hall after lunch tomorrow and I will be ready."

“You’re sure that this won’t be an imposition, Miss Rarity?” I asked, trying to remain courteous about all the work she was doing.

She laughed lightly. “Not at all! I have the most excellent idea for your suits. Please come by tomorrow for your fittings. Ta ta!”

I took the excuse to stand up myself. “I’d better start working on the mission for tomorrow.”

“Alright Chris, thanks for the help.”

“No problem.”

As nice as listening to a master musician was, I had actual work to do. Giant piles of gold don’t just get handed out for no reason. I curled up on the couch in my room and started memorizing the map.

---

The morning started way too early, and I could swear I heard the dark chuckle of a psychopathic mercenary commander I worked for once.

I wasn’t even hungry enough to eat as I walked through the castle. My computer said that the local time was 3:30. The moon was still firmly out. Three ponies from Pulsar Wing met me in the hangar. A big blue with teal hair earth pony pulling a cart with supplies on it, and two bat ponies. I recognized captain Peach.

"Morning Captain Peach," I said with a wave. She saluted briefly.

"Morning Commander Black. Provisions, maps, and this is Foxfire, my wing pony. He spotted the tracks." She motioned to the other bat pony who snapped to rigid attention and saluted.

I saluted back. "At ease, please. I'm not real military, Foxfire."

He looked embarrassed. "Sorry."

"No sweat." I remained all smiles, though it wasn’t really putting him at ease.

Captain Peach was, by contrast, in control. "Foxfire has volunteered to show you where he found the trails."

"Awesome. Hm, I don't have another radio. You gonna lead on wing or did you want a ride?" I motioned to the Tiger.

He didn't seem like he was ready for that, glancing warily up at the Tiger. "I can probably find it better from the air."

"Alright, maybe on the way back. We ready to load up?"

"Yeah. Yes."

“Yes Commander,” the captain replied much more cooly.

I ignored the correction. "Alright, can I get a hand with this stuff?" I grabbed a bag of food.

"A hand?" Foxfire was now thoroughly confused.

"Hoof?"

"Oh." We all looked at each other and laughed.

"Aliens, am I right?"

Peach and Foxfire were surprisingly nimble flyers, and the three of us had the supplies into my cockpit in a couple of minutes. As I climbed into the cockpit and began suiting up, I paused. "Hey, how am I supposed to find a black pony in a black uniform in the sky at night?"

Peach grinned. "Foxfire is his talent. Watch for the glowing balls." She turned to Foxfire. "Light up, good hunting. Be safe out there."

"Sure thing captain." They hoof bumped, and Foxfire flew out of the hangar and hovered there, doing something with his hooves. I put my helmet on and missed the specifics.

"You take good care of my wing pony, alien."

"Haven't lost a squadmate in ten years, not gonna start now, captain."

She saluted, and I saluted as my cockpit closed. Then my world went black as usual.

"Reactor: online." The hum of spinning gyroscopes and massive voltages of electricity surging through the mech vibrated the hangar.

"Sensors: online." The neurohelmet synched to my brain and the Tiger stood up. My vision cleared.

"Weapons: online. All systems nominal." The readouts looked good. The low hum of the gyroscopes settled into background noise. I keyed the external speaker.

"Moving out. Back this evening."

"Good luck Commander, good hunting." The captain and the earth pony moved to the side and saluted. I carefully maneuvered out of the hangar and started looking up to find the black pony in the black sky. What I found was a floating light illuminating the fluttering wings of Foxfire who waved at me. I waved back and slammed the throttle forward.

Foxfire and I took a good half hour to really start working together, figuring out how far to lead and follow, how to signal each other without verbal communication, how to not lead me over the side of ravines. Other such inconsequential details.

By the time the sun was daring to make itself known, we had arrived on the edges of the Everfree forest. We gave the forest a good five mile buffer as we turned and began making our way east. If the map was accurate we had another four hours to get there. A long day for sure.

After two hours, Foxfire began circling, and I pulled the throttle back and stopped. I popped the cockpit open when he flew over, and I motioned to the former missile launcher 'arms'. He landed gratefully and stretched for a moment. "We're getting close. Might be a good time for lunch."

My stomach grumbled and I’d realized I’d missed breakfast, but the name wasn’t important. "Good idea. Keep your eyes open and I'll get the stuff."

"Alright."

I climbed up onto the back of the Tiger with our food and we ate there. The morning sun was warming slowly in the fall weather, but with my jacket it was a nice day. Foxfire seemed comfortable. "So how does a nice pony like you get roped into day shift?" I asked around my sandwich.

He put down his fruit cocktail. "Volunteered. I don't mind the day so much. I assume you noticed the wings?" I nodded. "Most of us bat ponies still get the 'are you gonna suck my blood' or 'is Nightmare Moon coming' jokes, but it doesn't bother me so much. I always thought I'd be a weather pony, but the night guard needed ponies who could handle a storm."

"You can make ball lightning, right? That's what that trick was?"

"Yes. I'm pretty good with all lightning, but foxfire is my real trick."

"Neat. So we're like half an hour to an hour away?"

"Yeah, got that map?" I pulled the map open and he started pointing out landmarks. There were three places we could check that had possible wagon trails and one place I could poke my nose into the forest if I felt brave enough. It would take about an hour to do everything. We finished eating and talking in a leisurely twenty minutes and got moving again.

---

The first of the tracks we ran across was faint, but I took pictures of it anyway. The second was the set that had been discovered the previous day. Sure enough there were signs of a heavy cart being pulled through soft grass. More pictures. The third set was another twenty minutes further. I wasn't sure if the variance was intentional or just a product of working with no paved roads. There were several entry points into the Everfree Forest, but Foxfire led me back to a point with a nice set of tall trees large enough to walk into the forest. Foxfire found a nice tree to hide in while I snooped around for a few minutes, but after that it was obvious to me that I wasn't getting anywhere in a mech without some serious landscaping work. I opened the cockpit when I came back to the edge of the forest.

"Foxfire!"

"Omega, sup? Can't fit?" He called from his hiding spot in a tree. It took me a moment to find him. He was finally getting comfortable around me, which was a good sign that the general military was at least getting used to me, if not our ambassador.

"Yeah, not without going in on foot."

"That's really not recommended in the Everfree."

"Ok. Shall we go check out the border and head back?"

"Yeah..." Foxfire looked south wistfully.

I nodded. "I'm mad this was a wash, but at least we have evidence."

"I just wish we could scare them off for good."

I nodded. "I doubt that's gonna happen. Wanna get the bird's eye view real quick?"

"Sure. Back in a moment."

"Ok"

The tree rustled as he took off, but there was no other sound. I followed his black silhouette for a minute as he gained altitude. He was gone after that. A damn fine scout indeed.

I mistook the rustling when he returned for a small forest animal, and jumped when he spoke. "Omega! Incoming cart from the border!"

"Blake! Don't scare me like that." I took my hand off of my sidearm, barely even remembering putting it there. "Ok, so maybe we won't ask the border patrol about the cultists."

"What are we gonna do?"

I thought for a while. "Ok, how...about...how quickly can you make plain old lightning?"

"Minute or two for a quick burst, why?"

"Can you get up and watch for reinforcements, and drop a couple bolts if I need to drop what I'm doing and run?"

"Yeah, easy."

"Ok, I'm gonna meet them here. Verify some information."

The apprehension was apparent in his voice. "If you say so, they've probably got some powerful unicorns."

"I'll try I let Tiger do the talking. How many are there?"

"Three, plus the wagon team."

"Alright, get out of here. I want them to think I'm defecting."

"Man, you're vicious Omega. You sure about this?” I nodded and he gave a military smile and nod. “Roger Commander. Luna watch over you."

There was another rustle, and I assumed Foxfire had left. "Oh she already is," I mumbled as I closed the cockpit. I moved the Tiger out of the forest to just a few dozen meters from the trees and waited for the cart.

---

I spotted the cart after half an hour. I know whoever was driving spotted me because it stopped for a good ten minutes and then changed course and began moving toward me. I zoomed in on them.

The wagon was being led by a brown unicorn with a cape. There were four ponies pulling the wagon, large earth ponies. There were two more walking alongside the cart which was covered with canvas or some other heavy-looking material, and looked quite full. Probably weapons or food. One of the side escorts was a unicorn. No pegasi. Pegasuses?

I had run the situation over and over in my head dozens of times by the time the cart pulled up to within fifty meters of the Tiger. I hit the recorder and the external mic.

"-be it didn't hear us."

The unicorn leading cleared his throat. "Ahoy, Titan!"

I swiveled the body to face them with a whirr of electric motors. This let the giant steel Titan look down at the ponies who approached and let me aim the dozen lasers I had at the cart. I adopted my best bored, condescending tone. "You came."

The ponies looked amongst themselves. The unicorn in the cape spoke again. "How did you know to find us here?"

"I used my eyes."

The unicorn shifted uncomfortably, obviously annoyed at my sidestep. He seemed to weigh his options for a moment before confronting me. His voice was loud and commanding. "You are the one called 'Tiger'. We know that you made a deal with the Equestrian Princesses. Since you are here and not the Equestrian Royal Guard, I assume that you found something they did not."

"I am far smarter than these little ponies. They know nothing of war." I briefly worried that Foxfire would object. "I knew I would find someone here."

"And here we are. We attempted to contact you days ago. Why are you here now?"

That was a question I expected. "I am not at your whim. I have learned what I wanted to learn from the Princesses. Now I come here to learn from you. Choose your words carefully, my little pony."

I watched the movements of the ponies. Ponies one through four were...still pulling the cart, five was trying to be a diplomat, nice cape, six was looking ferocious with his spear and seven.... Where do you think you're going, second unicorn? He was backing up slowly and casually.

"Surely you have now witnessed the arrogance of the princess sisters, how they control everything."

"I have." The leader began moving to one side. The earth pony lancer number six flanking the cart began milling around, two of the cart pullers unclipped and joined him, and number seven, the clever unicorn began slipping behind the cart. My throttle hand flipped the optics to thermal then dropped to my sidearm. The canvas blocked the view mostly, but I could still see the heat of his body.

"They pervert this land by so blatantly ignoring the natural order. This cannot last. We have both the supplies and the ponies necessary to retake this land. Other titans will fight alongside us. Join us for the final assault. What do you say?"

The second unicorn was definitely hiding now. "I will need time to return with my friends without suspicion. I assume you need more time to finish bringing supplies."

"Yes, several days. But no more than a week."

"Then I will return."

The two earth ponies who had been pulling the cart were putting on their lances. I still wanted to walk out of this with no suspicion but I could see the trap coming. I focused the lasers on the hiding unicorn.

"I must ask, Tiger. We are curious as to why a Titan would be so short. Why ride inside a larger machine?"

"Perhaps your spellcasters should learn how to target their spells. I am not a titan of your legends. Do you intend to fail so spectacularly when the assault comes?"

I heard the growling in anger before I saw the flash of light, and I squeezed my trigger finger at the back of the cart before I felt the magic overtake me.

I didn't feel myself move. I was now sitting on nothing and fell to the ground outside. I did get a perfect view of the Tigers ten small lasers blossoming out the back of the hiding unicorn's torso. I rolled back with the fall and onto my knees with my sidearm drawn. The lancers were charging. Sight in the closest lancer. Fire. He recoiled and fell. Reset. Sight in the second lancer. Fire. Too high. Sight in. Fire. He collapsed. Third lancer. Sight in. Fire. The lead unicorn looked at me and his horn started glowing. I went for his body, and hit the hindquarters. He fell over with a scream.

The two earth ponies still strapped to the cart looked on the verge of panic. I stood up and stared down the sights of my sidearm. "You are all now my prisoners. Stay right where you fucking are," I yelled in my best drill sergeant imitation. One pony with a hole in his head, one torsoless, two more not moving, the lead unicorn just writhing in pain. I took a moment to breathe and manage the fear from the assassination attempt.

Foxfire came in from the trees and landed on the Tiger, wings crackling with electricity. He blanched as he looked down on the scene. "Omega!" He called down in panic.

"Foxfire, prisoners."

"Celestia, Omega." The horror was apparent in his voice, and he didn’t really seem to understand what to do.

"Help," I reiterated. One of the ponies on the cart twitched and my gun was instantly pointed at his head. "Not you. You're pulling a cart for your friend the leader here."

"Prince," he growled, "show some respect Titan."

I confess I looked shocked for a moment, before the wicked grin spread. "Prince. Blessings of Blake upon us all." I lowered my gun, walked up to the writhing unicorn and put on my best condescending tone. "My most humble apologies, your majesty. I will do everything in my power to assure your safe travel."

He looked up at me with anger and fear but only grunted in pain. His hip was bleeding, and he hadn't tried to use magic again. Jackpot. "Foxfire, hold these guys for a minute. I gotta fix the princes booboo."

"You killed him!" The other earth pony pulling the cart was coming out of shock. I intentionally missed the point.

"He's fine, and if you quit delaying me, I'll keep him that way." The shocked one shut up and glared at me. I spared a glance at Foxfire, who flapped over to the wagon and landed on the back. He grinned with fangs bared and static crackling across his body.

"Move and you fry." Points for presentation. I jogged over to the Tiger and began climbing into the cockpit. I paused as I got to the back, knowing this was their window to make a rescue attempt. No movement. I climbed up and over the top. Just as I reached the cockpit, I heard the growl as Foxfire yelled. "Omega!"

The uppity one slipped out of his harness, grabbed a spear with his teeth, and went for Foxfire. Brandishing a metal tipped weapon at a weather pony with lightning ready was a dumb move though, and Foxfire let the charged bolt fly where it wanted, straight down the spear into the earth pony's mouth. The last pony took the confusion to break away. I stood back up and aimed. The last lancer was running around to try to get Foxfire from behind, but by that time I had the shot lined up. The sound of my gunfire wasn't as loud as the pop from the lightning bolt, but Foxfire was startled nonetheless. He swiveled in time to see the last earth pony drop.

Foxfire breathed hard as he landed on the cart. I grimaced.

"Is his Highness moving?"

"No."

"Alright be down in a second."

I ducked into the cockpit once more, fishing behind the seat for the first aid kit. I thought about getting the Tiger to kneel, but the computer was throwing all sorts of errors about me suddenly ceasing to exist and would take a couple minutes to re synchronize before I could drive it again. I settled for scrambling down the back and sliding down the ladder.

The unicorn was fine, probably just shock. I bandaged the wound and looked up at Foxfire. "I think we've got what we came for and more."

Foxfire nodded slowly, then nodded at the prince. "You managed to take out the cart team, now what?"

"I have some rope, we can strap him to the back of the Tiger." Foxfire gave me a horrified look. "Ok, maybe the cockpit then, but only if you can lift him."

"Yeah, no sweat."

"Ok, cool."

"And the cart?"

"Examine, pillage, burn."

We both glanced at the moaning pony on the ground. "Does it hurt that bad?" Foxfire asked with genuine compassion.

"It hurts, but I think the prince is a wimp." He looked a little horrified at that response. “I’ve been shot before, it’s not the worst thing ever.”

He seemed placated by that, and turned back to look the prince over. "It’s funny, I don't recognize him."

Odd. "We'll deal with that later. Let's get packed up."

"Ok."

I jogged back to the Tiger and climbed in. There was enough space behind the cockpit for supplies, or in this case a wounded pony. I pulled the last of the day's provisions out and set them on my lap. Foxfire came up a moment later, holding our bandaged hostage. He grinned that strained 'no, take your time' grin and I helped maneuver the prince into the space behind the seat. The sedative I had given him seemed to be working, so I handed Foxfire the bag of lunch, grabbed a flare, and climbed back down.

We ate while we sorted the cart. Mostly food and a few dozen spears, but there were a few random sprigs of herbs, and what looked like one pony's marbles. I pocketed the marbles and the herbs and set the rest back on the cart. Once we had finished eating I took pictures of it all. "Ok, stand back. I'm gonna light it on fire and then shoot it as best as I can. Once I turn and head back, you're welcome to ride on my back to Canterlot."

"Sounds like fun."

I lit the flare and tossed it into the canvas, watched as it caught fire, and headed for the Tiger. The computer whined about not having a pilot and unbalanced something and a fatal error, so I put my helmet back on and mashed the power button until it stopped. Eventually the system booted clean and I made quick work of the wagon wheels just to make sure they couldn’t use it again. The whole thing was a smoking mess, so I turned and headed back to Canterlot at full speed. Metallic clangs let me know that Foxfire had landed, and he grinned at me through the canopy.

We rode in peace until late afternoon, when the prince began moaning. "Ugh, where am I," he mumbled.

"Rise and shine! Glad to hear you're alive. The Ambassador would have had my hide." I kept driving without really turning to look at my prisoner.

"You...I am inside the Titan."

"Yes." He was actually coming out of the shock. Damn, I’d hoped he’d stay quiet until we got home.

"Take me back!"

"No."

"I will make you!"

My hand was already holding my sidearm. I pointed it at him. Or at least back. I couldn’t see behind the seat. "You are really bad at negotiating. Who the hell didn't teach you how to be a prince?"

"What? You are born a prince, you aren't taught! My royal blood makes me a prince!" He must have squirmed, because he gasped in pain.

"And royal blood makes you a good negotiator? How good does it make you at balancing a budget?"

"If you don't take me back right now, my family will invade this land and have you killed."

"This is a gun, and if my finger so much as twitches, you'll die right now. Now do you understand why you're a terrible negotiator?" I glanced back and saw him writhing in pain, quietly crying. "Fuckin royalty by birthright. You wanna rule, learn how. And quit panicking, I'll have you to a doctor in an hour. You slept most of the way."

"I'm going to die," he whispered. I sighed and holstered my sidearm. Thinking again, I pulled the clip out and cleared the weapon while I was at it. Rarity wasn't nearly as good at magic as Twilight, but she could still manage to lift small objects. I didn't want this jackass prince-by-birthright grabbing my gun.

"You're not gonna die. You're just gonna be in horrible pain until we get there." Yeah, I'm a dick. Assassination attempts have a way of getting under my skin. He cried softly all the way to Canterlot, and I silently enjoyed every minute.

---

When the windy path up to Canterlot came into view, I keyed the radio. "Omega to Atari, reporting."

There was a few seconds of silence. Hiro's voice was first. "Omega, Ninja, welcome back. You good?"

"Ninja, Omega, we're fine. Brought us back a surprise. Can you get the ambassador to get the best medical support they've got to meet us at the hangar?"

"Shit, wounded?"

"P.O.W. Nabbed us a damn prince by birthright."

"Bullshit!" Dan cut in.

"I shit you not," I said with barely suppressed giggling.

"You crafty mother fucker Omega."

"Finding the Ambassador now, ETA?" Hiro said while what sounded like running.

"Thanks Ninja. Ten minutes."

"Roger."

"They make fuckin figurehead royalty out here?" Dan cut back in.

"Guess so. Wingman here says he's not a prince he knows. Probably tenth in line and moving up."

"This planet is starting to get interesting."

Hiro radioed me five minutes later, clearing me to run right up to the main steps of the palace and their medical team would meet me there. I bashed my hand against the cockpit glass, and Foxfire looked over. I shooed him off and he saluted and flew away. When I came up to the palace steps I opened the cockpit and waved.

"Medic!"

Two pegasuses flew up to my cockpit and I turned and pointed them at the crying bound figure in the back. "Back right hip, metal object embedded in the muscle, bleeding, you know the rest." One of them nodded and the two landed and hoisted the moaning prince out of my cockpit. Two unicorns stood on the steps waiting, holding a stretcher between them. Once he was loaded, the unicorns took off. I told the pegasus who flew back up how long he had been wounded and what I had done about it. She thanked me mechanically and took off after the unicorns.

Prisoner dropped off, I waved to Hiro and gunned the throttle back to the hangar. I soon noticed that I was in formation with two bat ponies in the twilight sun, as Foxfire and Peach flanked me.

We arrived back at the hangar, and I parked the Tiger and shut it down. When I descended the ladder Peach and Foxfire were waiting at attention. "At ease, at ease."

"Thank you for bringing my wing pony back in one piece Commander," Peach said with no small amount of military stiffness. I walked up and found a crate to sit on.

"Peach, you have a damn fine pony here. He was invaluable. In addition to being the second best scout I've had the pleasure of working with, he had to take a life today. I know you'll treat him accordingly." She nodded, and I turned slightly. "Foxfire, I'm sorry. That shit got hairier than I ever hoped it would. I've known seasoned officers who hesitated where you acted. Thank you for backing me up."

"You're the one they tried to assassinate, Omega," Foxfire said with a quiet smile. "I'm sorry I wasn't there sooner."

I shook my head. "Would have blown the cover. That mission went down flawlessly."

Peach had a rather strange look on her face. "How many?"

"Seven. We took out six of them. They weren't expecting my weapon and tried to attack with spears."

"Luna." Peach looked down solemnly.

"But we caught us a prince red-handed." I was met with confused stares. "In the act. He admitted everything." These hand metaphors were going to kill my attempts at bonding.

"Ah...what prince?"

Foxfire shrugged, and yawned. "No pony I recognize."

The captain grimaced and nodded. "Alright, Foxfire, take tomorrow off and get some rest."

"Thanks Captain." Foxfire saluted and flapped out of the hangar.

"Omega." Peach nodded at me. "Might want to meet up with the Ambassador," she said as she followed her wing pony out of the hangar.

"Yeah, I can't imagine she's going to be happy."

---

Ambassador Twilight Sparkle did not look happy.

I walked into the castle, and a guard I'd never met before escorted me to the Princesses meeting room. Around a table were the Ambassador, both princesses, the Colonel, and some new ponies. Princess Luna smiled at me, and I nodded politely. Princess Celestia rose.

"Commander Black, welcome back. Please take a seat."

"Thank you, your Highness." The guard broke off and stood at the door at attention.

"Commander, the guards tell me that you brought back a prisoner."

"Indeed your majesty. If I may, I have evidence for everything we have been speculating about. My mission today found the smoking gun."

"Certainly Commander." I nodded, and pulled the computer out of my pocket. I set the device on the table and set it for trideo playback.

"Smoking gun?" Twilight asked.

"I apologize. A smoking gun is slang for fresh evidence of a crime."

"As opposed to a loaded gun."

"Correct. Can someone dim the lights please?"

The curtains fell across the windows and the lights dimmed. I pressed the play button and watched the fireworks. Bright light flooded the room from my device on the table, presenting a holographic playback of the recording from the afternoon.

The camera on the tiger had a great view of the whole scene unfolding and the audio came through perfectly. The conversation of the 'prince' incriminating himself thoroughly brought whispers from everyone in the room but the princesses and the ambassador. The assassination attempt and the Charlie Foxtrot that followed made everyone in the room uncomfortable. Ambassador Twilight Sparkle went white with horror when the Tiger’s lasers killed the unicorn that teleported me. She watched me kill the three lancers in shock and a look of horrible realization came over her when I shot the prince. I noted what a terrible shot I was with a pistol. She seemed to regain some sense when I tried to take the rest of them prisoner, but she looked away when the ponies tried to fight back. She quickly buried herself in Princess Celestia's embrace and her body convulsed at the pop of lightning and the gunshot. I mouthed a silent 'sorry' to the princess, who nodded gravely.

When the trideo finished someone opened the curtains and turned the lights back on. I almost objected but figured I would show the pictures I took of the supplies later. The ponies around the table looked at me expectantly, save for the ambassador who sobbed silently in the sun goddess's embrace. "This gives us a timeframe for the attack. I saw no evidence of travel of an army's worth of ponies, so either they came from elsewhere or they have yet to move. I took pictures of the cart load of supplies and then burned it. I trust that the Prince is doing well now?"

One of the ponies I had not met yet cleared her throat. Since the start of the meeting, she had gone from looking pissed off to sullen. "He is recovering from shock, but otherwise stable. The four hour ride with a wound did not do any favors for his condition."

"I apologize for my lacking first aid skills. The drug I gave him to help him rest wore off before I intended it to."

"What kind of drug?"

"Just a sedative, to help him rest and slow his body down."

"I see." She did actually seem to understand, at least the medics could do their damn jobs around here. She looked at the princess expectantly.

Princess Celestia was not looking, but Princess Luna spoke. "We have the prisoner in our care. My sister tells me that he is from a noble family distantly in line for the throne of the scattered baronies of the Forbidden Jungle and the Mysterious South. His involvement could be part of a larger plot to take the throne. This evidence is most grave, but it does not prove that the powers we have allied with south of Appleloosa are currently against us. It suggests a coup in progress."

I nodded, as did the Colonel. "I expected him to use magic against me, Princess."

"As I understand, this particular prince is not well trained in magic, nor is he very strong. I doubt he is capable of much beyond the most basic of cantrips," Luna explained.

The Ambassador returned to her seat with matted cheeks and bloodshot eyes. She somehow looked even angrier than before. "You have made the t-task of keeping this situation from escalating very difficult Commander," the ambassador managed shakily.

"I apologize if I have created an international incident, but my experience tells me that it already existed."

"Was it entirely necessary to kill s-six ponies?"

I balked internally. How could she ask that after having watched what happened? "I wanted to leave at that point but their insistence on threatening me left me no choice."

She seemed to want to deny this, but the Colonel shook his head sadly.

"The Commander was left with no choice, Ambassador. They would have killed him or taken him prisoner."

I sighed. Note to self, buy the Colonel a drink. "I hope the prince proves to be a useful source of information."

"Information?" Twilight asked incredulously.

"From interrogation," I clarified, confused for a moment about why this was unknown. Twilight looked even more horrified, and sputtered gibberish rather than insult me with words of any kind. Most of the other ponies in the room looked at me with equal abhorrence. I had forgotten to take into account the sheer idyllic nature of this place. I sped to the end. "As I said, I collected picture evidence of the supplies they were attempting to ship before I destroyed them. I was able to bring back some herbs and a toy though." I fished into my bag for the items in question and put them on the table. "I didn't know if they would be important or not."

"Thank you Commander. We will examine them," princess Celestia assured me. I nodded.

"If there is nothing further then I will go debrief my unit. I will be in my suite."

Princess Celestia smiled at me royally. "Thank you Commander. Have a good evening."

"You as well, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Ambassador, Colonel."

---

I was almost back to my room when Rainbow Dash caught up to me. "Hey, Commander! Wait up!" I sighed and stopped.

I leaned against a wall and waited while Rainbow Dash caught up. "Twilight wants to talk to you."

"Not surprised." This was going to be fun. With a capital FU.

"Can you wait here?"

"Yes." Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow, then flew off. I must have been showing too much emotion, but that’s what I do sixteen hours into a mission. She returned two minutes later, slower, with the ambassador in tow.

I nodded politely. "You wanted to speak with me Ambassador?"

She glanced at me, then looked past me. "Yes." Rainbow Dash grimaced and started moving away.

I cleared my throat in the pause. "Miss Dash, would you stay here please?"

"Uh..."

The ambassador sighed. "It's fine Rainbow."

"Ok." Rainbow Dash was not cool with this.

"I just want a witness in case she tries to kill me."

"I'm not the murderer here Com-" Twilight Sparkle snapped, then caught herself. "I’m sorry, but you and that...thing scare me." I nodded. "You killed six ponies today. I didn't want to believe you were capable of such an act. Now I'll never be able to get the image out of my head." Twilight's voice cracked as she closed her eyes. I said nothing, and she took several deep breaths as Rainbow Dash moved to comfort her. "What really bothers me is how automatically you did it." She managed to finally look me in the eyes.

"That was not the first time someone has tried to murder me while they were pretending to negotiate with me. I don't know if they would have stabbed me on the spot, or taken me prisoner and then tortured me to death. But I have seen that happen before. When they moved to hurt me, I defended myself."

Twilight blinked and her expression slowly shifted from anger to horror. When she finally spoke again she was quiet. "How many times has that happened?"

"Three? Five? One more now."

"Is that why you keep that...thing with you?"

"It's called a gun, and yes I keep it with me and loaded."

She was silent for a long moment. I waited for the eye glowing to start again, but it didn’t. “My friends and I...the Elements of Harmony...have spent the last few months stopping horrible things from happening by reasoning with ponies.” She looked up at me, eyes shimmering but not glowing. “I watched you try to reason with them, even if it did mean you were betraying us. And they still tried to k-kill you.”

“‘War is hell’, Twilight,” I reminded her softly. “I don’t have magic. I’ve got a mech, and a gun.”

“Is there any way you could...I don’t know...try to be more dangerous without killing? Threaten before attacking?”

“I’ve tried that twice here, Twilight. They either want us, or they want us dead. I don’t have your power.”

“You just have...death.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You control space and time itself, Twilight. You have many powers at your disposal, including death.”

“What do you mean?” How did she honestly not see this?

“I mean that anyone who’s looking to start a fight anywhere near Canterlot has heard of the exploits of Twilight Sparkle and friends. You are terrifyingly powerful, both with magic and political sway. Your negotiation works because you have the power to unmake reality, and call down the fury of the actual living gods.” Twilight had the grace to look embarrassed about that for a moment. “All I can do is act with my full force.”

“If you full force wasn’t so horrible, maybe they wouldn’t be trying to kill you as a first resort.”

“My point is that you are probably only seeing this reaction now because you don’t have a mech to get out of.”

“I’d never make such a thing!”

I tried not to balk. "Just…ok, imagine…imagine if you could take your horn off. If you could take your ability to use magic and put it away so you were powerless."

Twilight looked slightly confused. "Okay?"

"That's me outside my 'mech." Twilight thought for a moment, then her face resumed its placid expression.

"Alright."

"You have all this …power to throw at the universe. Outside my machine, I have nothing."

"No, I think I see what you are trying to say. I still don't understand why you think I’m more dangerous."

"Imagine if I slept in my 'mech. Imagine if I WAS my mech. I look at you and I see all of this…potential, with insane power at your fing…er…hooves."

"Horn," Twilight corrected.

Fuck I was never going to get that right. "Details. You never take it off. At any moment, ready or not, you could do anything,” I emphasized. “In order for me to exert that kind of force, I have to willingly get in my mech and consciously start shooting. For all I know, you could sneeze and turn me into an orange. If I'm going to shoot you, I have to get in my mech, turn it on, aim at you, and fire."

It was at this point that my head hit the marble, and my stomach was crushed in. It took me a moment to realize that my head and body had been relocated to the ground in order for this to take place. The blazing red eyes of Rainbow Dash were boring into my skull. "Make. One. Move." Behind the eyes, a hoof threatened to smash my skull in. I didn't. I was pretty sure I was bleeding anyway.

I could just barely see Twilight out of my peripheral vision. Rather than interpret what I'd just said as a threat, or notice Rainbow Dash tackling me, she stared at the vaulted ceiling. "I am your proverbial 'loaded gun'," she said quietly after a moment. "And…I've done that."

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow and looked at her. "What?"

"When I got my cutie mark, that day. The burst of magic while you were doing the sonic rainboom, and spike was hatching? My parents turned into Carnegiea gigantea." She turned around and saw Rainbow Dash threatening to end me. "Rainbow!” She shouted at the pegasus pinning me to the floor, “let him up!"

"He said-"

"It was a hypothetical!" She looked haunted. Rainbow Dash looked confused. “He was pretending,” she clarified, and Rainbow Dash lowered the hoof of doom and got off of me.

“Sorry.” Rainbow Dash had the grace to look ashamed of herself. I noticed that my hand had automatically flown to my sidearm while I was being attacked. I glared at Rainbow Dash by way of acknowledgement, but let go of the gun.

"And he's right. I make mistakes with my magic. I hurt good ponies," Twilight Sparkle added as realization washed over her. Rainbow Dash was instantly at her friend's side. I took the opportunity to see how injured I was.

"Twi, you're an egghead, and you're scary powerful. And yeah, sometimes your experiments go wrong, and sometimes you lose your temper, but things work out and you get smarter. I crash, but I learn."

"The pe-ponies here aren't afraid of you, Twilight Sparkle. If you were that dangerous, you wouldn't have their admiration," I attempted to point out. Twilight looked at me and nodded. "I'm not even saying you guys shouldn't be afraid of our 'mechs. They are killing machines. But we aren't."

"I'm sorry, Commander-are you hurt?" Twilight's apology was interrupted when she saw me sitting up and wincing from where Rainbow tackled me.

"I didn't need my spleen anyway." I rubbed my stomach as I sat up, and my head started pounding.

Twilight's eyes flew open. "Your spleen controls your-"

"Sarcasm, Twilight," Rainbow reminded her.

Twilight sighed. "Let's get you to the hospital."

---

"I'm not drunk enough for this shit," I declared as I walked into the lounge of my suite with a bandage on my head. Hiro waved from the couch.

Dan met me with a high five. "Fuck man, hard evidence and a prisoner high enough to know the timetable? You're a damn hero."

"And the ambassador wanted me arrested for murder."

"Shit, really?"

"She is so fucking pissed. My trid of the shootout fuckin traumatized her."

Rolf appeared with beer and a bottle of something clear. "Might have been too much for her," he offered. Cans were passed around.

"Yeah, that was my fault. I should have warned her."

Dan shook his head. "Fuckin owned their shit though. Nice call on that ass who teleported you."

"Lucky I fired when I did." Rolf handed me a shot glass.

"Why didn't they just kill you?" Hiro asked.

I shrugged and took a drink. From each hand. "Maybe he couldn't. Maybe they wanted a prisoner."

"Probably a prisoner," Rolf agreed.

Dan rolled his eyes "Shit man. Perfect intel, a bargaining chip, a successful supply raid. The hell is wrong with the ambassador?"

"She was mad I shot the fuckin purebred prince. Then she watched me take out his guards and lost it, started bawling in a military debriefing. She's not used to this." For as mad as I was at her and Rainbow Dash, I did feel bad about bringing our style of diplomacy to the front. Dan shook his head and held his beer up to mine.

"Fuck her, Omega. To Atari, best fuckin merc unit on the planet."

Hiro held up his beer in toast. Rolf grinned darkly. "Fuck yeah."

Chapter 10: Diplomacy

I had never tried attending a concert after a mission before. Most of the contracts I had gotten were in remote wastelands or war torn cities. Hiro put on a show that was as beautiful as ever. Even more wonderful was actually getting to see and hear him perform in person, though on the heels of fighting for my life it seemed unreal. The civility and the luxury of attending a concert struck me as false. Maybe that was Rolf’s emergency reserve vodka. Maybe that was the head injury.

Hiro put together a list of sad songs. He told me that they were generally songs of longing and loss. It seemed to really affect the crowd. I know that as I listened I felt calmer, but there was more to it. For the first time, while listening to his music, I felt affected by the mood. Hiro was technically very talented though I confess I heard him make a few mistakes. He was out of practice. I knew these songs, having listened to recordings of his concerts before hiring the guy to keep me alive, but I actually felt them for once. He had entitled the concert ‘The Death of Innocence’. I suspect he was referring both to himself and to the locals.

I spent the evening in a haze of concussion, booze, melancholy, and fading adrenaline. Many of the finely dressed ponies in attendance either asked who I was in relation to the performer or asked me to pass on their praise for Hiro's skill. I did my best to be polite, but thinking was too difficult to play the crowd like I should have been. I wandered back to the castle in a daze, traded some of the spending money I had been given to the head of the kitchen staff for a fine bottle of sake, and drank myself to sleep.

---

"Why is your virtuoso a scout?"

I was dreaming. I could tell that much. I had been dreaming for a while. I answered. "He wishes to honor his family."

"Is music not an honorable trade?" Princess Luna was the one asking the questions. Had been for a while.

"The oldest child is expected to defend the family name. His brother was killed in the clan wars. He gave up his music to honor his parents and brother."

Princess Luna nodded sadly. "Are you angry at them for taking him from that life? Or are you angry at the world for the strife that drives such fates?"

"What? I'm not angry."

"I think you are, Commander Black. I know anger when I see it."

---

When I woke up I could recall little of the night long exchange with the goddess of the night. I could specifically remember my fear when I realized she could feel my anger. I wasn't sure what I was angry at.

I did know three things. Luna was a frightening god, I had a headache, and I wanted words with my prisoner of war. If I was angry at anyone, it was definitely him.

---

The dungeons of Canterlot Castle were amazingly true to every fantasy trid I had ever watched. It took a few minutes of clever wordplay with Princess Celestia, but Shining Armor led me down the carved stone steps by torchlight. "Feel free to ask him questions. Princess Celestia seems to think you can figure out something that we can't." He paused and looked me in the eyes. "Don't hurt him."

"You have my word, Captain." Not that I was going to let anyone hear, anyway.

He glared in response, and continued.

The cell was a few hallways away, iron bars set into stonework. The prince was the only pony in the cells, except for one at the end in a palace guard uniform, snoring. I nodded curiously to the end and Shining Armor sighed. "Not your concern, Commander, " he answered with less anger and more resignation.

"Of course.” Drunk on duty, probably. Wouldn’t upset my plan. “I imagine I will be done within the hour."

"You had better be." I nodded, and took a moment to calm myself and get into character.

The prince looked up at the sound of talking, half curious, half angry. Shining Armor nodded at me and walked away without ever meeting the prisoner’s look. "The failed titan," he spat as he saw my face.

I grimaced. "If you can't be civil, your majesty, we will have to stop treating you civilly."

"You kill my ponies and want me to be civil?!" He yelled the last word as he slammed his front hooves into the bars.

I startled, probably as he had expected, and I let my hand fly to my sidearm. "And you expect me to stand there after you lie to my fucking face?!" I screamed the last part of that with pent up rage as I gripped my pistol. We both stood silent for a moment, his expression flipping between defiance and fear. When I realized that I was holding my sidearm and seriously considering using it, I took a step back and willed myself to calm down.

I had let my anger show for a moment. As much as the audacity of this supposed royal made me see red, I needed him alive. I made a show of calming myself down and letting go of my gun, opening my hands and taking a deep breath. The prince glanced very briefly at my gun, then up at me. He was taken back long enough for me to continue. I made a show of looking around the empty corridor, and then just sat down on the cold stone floor. I lowered my voice so that it wouldn’t echo down the corridor. "Look, we got off on the wrong foot. We need you, Prince..."

He took a moment before answering, either missing or ignoring the implied request for a name. "You need me for information, titan,” he replied cooly.

"We have to get out of here," I corrected with a bit of panic, "your majesty. These ponies don't have access to the magic that brought us here, and you are the only link we have to those that do. It's all well and good that you want a war with another kingdom, but we are under contract with an employer who will get very angry if we do not show up." When he glared at me and opened his mouth, I cut him off. “And I don’t mean Celestia and Luna.”

He stared at me, then straightened up. "I am Prince Proud Stride. You have assaulted and injured me along with killing a hoof - chosen unit of my best ponies. I do not see why I should do anything you ask."

I kept my voice low. "Your highness, if you can get us home, we will not be on the defense of Canterlot when your army attacks. I will have no choice but but to deploy if we are still here."

The prince looked thoughtful, speaking mostly to himself. "I will need to negotiate with the leader of the Earth." That sounded like an important name to pass along.

"There's not enough time to get you out of here and us there before the battle, much less get the spell prepared," I argued.

He nodded thoughtfully. "That may be true." He was horrifyingly terrible at this. That meant they were days out, not weeks.

"Look, your majesty, if we just roll up to the Everfree Forest, will they send us back? I suppose that would look bad, four metal titans striding up to your infantry army."

He shook his head. "The titans would defend the army against you, even if our best unicorns could not. But the priest would never hear it without me to negotiate."

"Is there anything we can do to get out of this before the day comes? Look, just get me away from these idiots, I don't care how.”

Prince Proud Stride shook his head, then sat in silence for a moment. "Deliver a message containing the number of units in the Equestrian Royal Guard to the edge of the forest in two days, abandon the defense, and I will make certain that you are sent home."

I bowed and stood up. "Thank you your highness." I turned and marched away.

---

Shining Armor unlocked the door to the dungeon when I knocked. "That was quick. No screaming," he commented.

"His name is Proud Stride. The attack is in three days at the least, a week on the outside. He called the cult ‘The Earth’. Infantry, casters, and more than one titan, and the titans are already there," I reported. Shining Armor looked at me with surprise. "Torture doesn't work. Everyone knows that, Captain."

He looked at me with appropriate suspicion. “How do you know he’s telling the truth?”

I grinned as we walked away. “Because he thinks we’re defecting.”

---

I had to admit, the four of us looked sharp in our suits. Rarity did good work. There were unexpected but good looking personal touches on each suit with ties that represented our call signs. Hiro had a stylized throwing star, Rolf a bear and Dan the silhouette of a spectre. Mine had the greek letter Omega. We all had opal and marble tie pins and cufflinks with the company logo, four black go pieces surrounding another. The suits themselves were almost flamboyantly baggy, but the effect was striking. Even Hiro looked intimidating.

Rarity was dancing around us with a tape measure and pins, checking for some imagined imperfection. When she finally found none, she put her supplies down on her workbench. "Well, how do they look?" She asked, with equal parts nerves and pride.

Dan spoke up first. "I haven't been very respectful of your skills, but you are one hell of a tailor."

Rolf nodded. Hiro admired the suit.

I was stunned. "This is ten thousand cbill work apiece easily, miss Rarity."

"I don't intend to show off mediocre work at the gala." She moved quickly over to a closet with several dresses hanging in it. "Now if you gentlecolts will excuse me, I need to prepare the girls for the evening."

"Alright, back to your rooms Atari. Don't wreck your suit."

---

We actually held drills with our battlemechs for the soldiers of Canterlot that day. The captain I had worked with before, Silver Spear, was happy to work with us again, and he kept good control over his troops. We worked for a while, marching next to the ponies, scaring them with weapons fire, generally trying to get them used to the concept of us being around. We needed a few weeks of this. It was too bad we had days.

I noticed the elements of harmony watching about an hour into our exercises, which wouldn’t have been a surprise except for when Rainbow Dash dived into the fray and began showing off around us. She was doing a pretty good job of keeping close to us in the air without being near our lines of fire, and eventually coaxed one of the pegasus wings into joining her. I was still mad at her for my fading headache, but that was really a good thing for our timetable. The ponies on the ground just needed to stay out from under our feet, the air wings would have to learn to work with us. Before the bragging blue pegasus dived in, none of them would dare. Not that I blamed them. By the end of our morning we had two wings flying with us, practicing taking dives at our cockpit entrance doors to keep out would-be invaders.

I stayed behind to talk details for the next day’s drills with Silver Spear and sent the other three guys back to our hangar. What I found when I returned was Rainbow Dash and Dan. Together. Having a serious discussion. Dan seated on a workbench and Rainbow Dash standing on the thing next to him. “Right, so if you cross in front of me less than two seconds after I’ve fired, you won’t slow me down.” Dan was maneuvering his hands, pretending to be a pegasus and a battlemech. Rainbow Dash was nodding while listening intently.

“But behind is safe,” she clarified.

“Unless I turn, and that’ll take a couple seconds as well. You’ll be in and gone long before I can swing around.”

“Hah, yeah,” she grinned. “Alright, I’ll tell the scout wing. I thought they did pretty good. Not great, but good.”

“It’s a start. Gotta have someone reliable watching my back out there, not three complete chickens oh hello Commander,” Dan said as he looked up at my arrival, the mock surprise on his face not doing a very good job of hiding his cheeky grin.

Rainbow Dash looked up at me, startled by my sudden appearance somehow despite having walked up while facing her and arrived in a walking tank. She smiled nervously. I smiled politely back. “Briefing the locals on how to save your ass, Dan?”

“Someone’s gotta teach the pegasi how to work with us. Don’t see you doing it.” And suddenly you’re the responsible one? I didn’t buy it for a second. I did let him off the hook though.

“Alright, carry on. Nice flying, Rainbow Dash,” I added as I turned around and headed back for our rooms in the castle.

“Thanks Chris,” she added, happy but confused. They continued to talk, and I wondered how much longer I was going to keep that picture private. Probably until the next time Dan tried to make me look bad. Oh well.

Keep the brash idiots of both our groups on my good side, check. Start training the Equestrian military to not freak out at the sight of laser-spewing steel titans, check. Next I had to attend a slightly more reasonable after lunch briefing, get cleaned up, and attend a royal ball. Which left me the entire afternoon to wonder when Dan had made the transition from ‘screw these hippies’ to ‘for our glorious pony overlords’. That would have to be a mystery for another day, but I could still be happy he wasn’t bitching them out.

---

We walked up to the steps of the palace as the sun began to set. I looked up at the towers for the princesses, but couldn't find them. Two guards greeted us at the door.

"Welcome to the Grand Galloping Gala, Commander Black."

We were not the first to arrive, but there were not many others talking yet. I realized why when I looked around the room. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stood at the top of the steps, performing the the nightly ritual of lowering the sun and raising the moon. We were gently stopped by a well dressed pony at the bottom is the stairs. When they finished, Pristine Scroll smiled at us and waved us forward. I hadn’t recognized him in formal duds.

"Commander Christophe Black, Daniel Wilks, Rolf Hansf, and Hiro Suzuki, Atari Company," he called to the room as we ascended the steps. Now we were a spectacle.

"Good evening Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Ambassador Sparkle."

Princess Celestia smiled at us. "Good evening Commander. Thank you for joining us."

"Oh, our pleasure. Thank you for inviting us."

"The refreshments are in the main ballroom through the double doors, and the courtyard is open for your enjoyment as well."

"Thank you Princess."

"Commander Black, would you stay with us for a moment?"

"Certainly Princess." I glanced at the boys who nodded and continued into the party. Dan gave me a subtle eyebrow waggle. I walked around to between the Princesses.

I was introduced to several local prominent families, a handful of foreign dignitaries, several members of the military, and a zebra. The Wonderbolts were in attendance, and we promised to speak later. Mostly I looked pretty while the Princesses played hosts. Occasionally princess Celestia would glance at me out of the corner of her eye or give a particular pony a particularly big smile, and I would follow suit. We had very little time for small talk when the line of fancily dressed ponies packed the stairs.

The ambassador looked almost bored, but at least she looked at me with wary curiosity and not burning rage anymore.

After a good twenty minutes of this, princess Celestia apologized for taking up so much of my time and wished me enjoyment of the evening. I said something equally gracious and meaningless and wandered into the ballroom.

It was a fancy royal ball. Dancing, upper crust nobles, boring music, a buffet where every dish cost more than several weeks of food. Hiro was dancing with Pinky Pie, who apparently knew human ballroom dance. And was leading. Rolf was nowhere to be seen so I assumed outside away from the crowd. Dan was also out of sight, but that concept worried me far more.

"Excuse me, but would you be Commander Black?"

I turned to see a well dressed white pony in a monocle and top hat. Years of working with royalty from different sectors of the galaxy let me flow directly into an apology and greeting while I silently balked at the oddity of the sight. It was the vest that set it off. Why even bother with the vest?

I found myself sucked into a string of pleasant conversations with the local nobility, or what counted for it in this kingdom. All of them wanted privileged military information about the possible upcoming attack. I did my best to give each group a slightly different false story just to keep the gossip interesting for the evening. Between nods and apologies I kept trying to keep an eye out for my unit. Dan was still nowhere to be found. I eventually excused myself when the game of 'shake the foreigner down for intel' became boring to me, and set off in search of my hothead.

The Colonel and I almost bumped into each other. "Excuse me sir, so sorry."

"Not at all Mr. Black. Enjoying yourself?" He seemed almost distracted.

"Oh yes." I glanced around for a moment. "No updates?"

"No change in the schedule."

I nodded. "The locals are hungry sir, watch yourself."

"Oh?" He asked with a knowing grin. "Then I won't delay. Have a good evening!" He was gone behind a conga line of ponies a moment later. Led by Pinky Pie. Followed by Hiro. Hiro gave me his worst 'caught in the act' smile, but I laughed and hit his shoulder as I walked away. The room appeared split in decision about the conga, but both young and old were joining so I assumed the element of laughter knew what she was doing.

"Omega, come in," my ear vibrated with Rolf's urgent bass.

"Movement?"

"Neg, Reaper engaging the civvies. Balcony."

"Fuu." I managed to cut myself off and made my way to the giant glass doors.

A snooty male voice dominated the courtyard. "Frankly I do not see the point of enlisting unproven outsiders in a private Equestrian matter," condescended a white unicorn with a royal coat. I had heard there were princes in the kingdom, obviously with no chance at the throne while it was occupied by gods. From the way this one was acting it seemed like he was trying to provoke a fight. To Dan's credit, the prince was untouched and Dan wasn't yelling.

"Bear, Omega. On it, break off." I didn’t have too long to break this up, but Dan would react badly if I sicced the rest of the lance on him.

"Roger, out." I wasn't sure where Rolf had been observing from, but I didn't see him.

Dan pulled a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and draped it over one arm. "My good prince, I assure you that I am proven in many different professions. I simply do not wish to step on the feet of the actual servers who I am sure know the kitchen much better than I do. But please, I would never seek to displease your highness, what would you ask of me?" The sarcasm dripped off his words even as he straightened like a board and took up the classic butler pose. Several nearby ponies mostly held back laughter.

"I cannot see why else a...foreigner such as yourself would be working in the castle. No event could possibly be dire enough to be beyond the reach of my guards." Now I wanted to punch him, and that was just for the cocky ownership he proclaimed over the royal guard. He knew exactly what we were hired for. He was either baiting out information, a fight, or both. However Dan was too in character.

"You wound me your highness. I only wish to serve as well as I can. Surely you can tell me what matter it is that you need taken care of, and I will see to it before you can blink."

"There is no matter, unless you know of one. Which should be your job, as should also be your job to keep me informed." This one was sloppy. Already falling for the bait. Didn't they teach royalty around here how to manipulate?

"I am afraid that your highness has found a lowly errand boy, allow me to find my boss and request the appropriate information for you, Prince..."

"Blueblood!" He snapped. "My family has run the royal guard flawlessly for generations. No errand boy will tell me what I am and am not privy to!"

"Then I am sure that your highness has been informed to the extent that is necessary for you to continue your impeccable service, Prince Blueblood." Dan was getting tired of this. I moved forward casually. The setup had been delivered, and the smack down was coming if I didn't stop him.

"Then your boss is as incompetent a hired soldier as you are!" I had a single momentary lapse in judgement, in which my only thought was 'Ah, fuck him'. I hesitated, wanting to see Dan finish this, which was all it took for two more ponies to get between me and the exchange. I regained my composure and looked for another opening in the crowd that wouldn't involve impolite shoving.

"Well then, surely your highness knows about the information we obtained from the prisoner that the royal guard could not catch. Surely your highness is not an untalented, magically inept busybody like the prisoner who simply wishes to worm his way into power." A gap on the right, near the edge of the balcony. Titters and gasps about the implications rippled through the crowd. The prince sputtered and Dan took a step forward. "Surely your highness has more worth than a courtesan to this kingdom, unlike the prisoner, and has better uses of his time than to be reduced to gathering rumors from outsiders."

"You...! How dare..." The prince sputtered, turning red in the face. Dan’s face shifted to something much more neutral.

"You want me to dare?” Dan asked, the accent and subservient attitude instantly gone. “Fuck you, you worthless whore. If you had another job I'm sure you'd suck at that too." The arm-based handkerchief was whipped expertly into the prince's gaping mouth. Dan swiveled on a toe and stormed through the crowd.

"Atari, fall back. Party's over." I turned to follow Dan. He caught me out of the corner of his eye but continued for the entrance. We made it inside and turned to head for the steps, when I was hit in the back of the head with a cake. I staggered forward a few steps, stood up slowly while holding back a laugh from the sudden shock of adrenaline, and turned around to see Prince Blueblood standing frozen in fear at the buffet table.

"Commander under fire!" Hiro whimpered into the comm.

"Incoming nine o'clock," Rolf growled.

I didn't have time to react as two banana cream pies slammed into the prince from the side. I looked to see Miss Rarity with her horn glowing, looking like she was ready to rip him apart. Rolf stood next to her with two other ponies. Each was offering another pie from the dessert table to the enraged Rarity.

"You insolent wretch!” she screamed into the suddenly silent dance hall. “That was my finest work!" She glared and snorted angrily at the pastry covered prince who looked at her with confusion and rage, and then suddenly flipped to primal fear. I didn't know why he would be afraid of her, perhaps the elements carried some sway in high society. Rarity hurled a chocolate pie and a fruit at the unicorn prince’s head with extreme prejudice. And good aim. He dodged the first, but not the second.

I heard a scream of "FOOD FIGHT" in a pitch that could have come from Pinky Pie before all hell broke loose. Caviar cluster munitions rained from the skies. I ducked for a table and found myself back to back with our purple ambassador.

"Not again, I am so sorry Commander."

Wait, again? I said nothing but my moment of confusion left me open for the fondue missile that sailed past us. The ambassador was quicker than I gave her credit for and the chocolate mess splattered against a purple energy field.

"Protocol in this situation, ambassador?"

She gave a defeated laugh. "Make it out without needing a week long shower."

I looked at her, rather confused at this reaction. Finger sandwich shrapnel bounced around us. Screams of dismay, joy and fear echoed through the great hall, on top of thrumming dubstep which had replaced the orchestral dance at some point. I scanned for an opening.

"There, table, pillars, to the staircase." I pointed out the path of our escape.

"Got it."

I picked up a silver serving platter to defend myself as the ambassador dropped her shield. She looked at me, I nodded, and we ran.

"Every man for himself!" I yelled into the comm as we ran. Indiscriminate yelling followed my words.

"Bug out Atari!"

"For the Commander!"

"For the suit!"

---

I woke the next morning and put on my dress uniform. Someone was going to have to try to put our relationship back together enough to finish this contract. Since our Ambassador was barely competent and the three clowns I worked with were too busy laughing about the events of the evening, it was going to have to be me. I knew that even if things went well, it was going to be intensely unpleasant. I straightened up my uniform and walked my ass into the throne room. Finding a spare small laser to shove up Dans ass sideways would have to come later. Only a small one though, the prince deserved every second of the dressing down he gave.

"Commander Christophe Black, Atari Mercenary Operations," the squire announced. I marched into the room and took one knee in front of Princess Celestia's throne. I heard the great doors close behind me.

"Good morning Commander," the princess said pleasantly.

"Good morning Princess."

"Please rise Commander."

I stood at my best impression of military attention. "Your highness, I must formally apologize for the actions of my unit."

"Oh?"

"I have insulted this kingdom. Should the crown wish to renegotiate our contract, I will be available."

"You may drop the act, Commander," Princess Celestia commented. I was expecting some manner of dressing down or fake acceptance. I certainly wasn’t expecting the princess to start acting human. "I am several thousand years old, Christophe Black, I know when I am being handled. I assure you it's not necessary anymore." She sounded...amused.

"I don't mean to be insulting, Princess, I am sorry if I have offended you."

The Princess laughed. Actually laughed, not proper-princess laughed. I smiled and attempted to be comforted by the gesture. "No, not at all Commander, I just know a level headed individual when I meet one. You can think on your feet, and I do tire of yes-ponies." The prim and proper royal demeanor was instantly gone from her voice. She stood up and walked to the back of the room, and continued when I didn't respond. When I chanced a look around, we were the only two in the entire throne room. "I know words that have been run through the 'do not make the princess mad' filter when I hear them. Do you take me for an idiot?" She asked, as sweetly as possible.

Capellan diplomacy all over again, I thought to myself. "It takes considerable intellect and insight to run a kingdom."

The princess laughed. Threw her head back and laughed while leaning against the cabinets she was looking through. "Oh you are good,” she said, sounding impressed. “How many assassination attempts have you survived? Or is it missions you aren't expected to live through?" she added with sudden insight.

"Mostly the second," I responded, unsure of where this was going. This was usually where the guard unit burst through the door, but they had that opportunity long ago.

"We are both products of a different time, Commander,” she continued as I glanced back at the door and then at the various alcoves around the room. “The ponies outside do not know a world of war. Combat, dark powers, certainly. We have monster attacks, but danger here is color coded, the bad ones come in black with evil laughter. Not with smiles and platitudes." She stared into my soul and my smile faded. "There is no struggle for power here, not anymore." Then she sighed and gazed sadly out the window. The silenced lapsed long enough for me to assume that either she had forgotten I was there, or that she was hinting I speak next. I really wasn't sure. I had yet to meet a politician quite like her.

"Will you at least forgive me for showing extra caution to a goddess, Princess?"

"Please, just Celestia. I am tired of the incessant fanfare." Both her voice and her body emphasized the word 'tired'.

"Celestia, then."

"Of course. Your caution is what makes you good at your job." I breathed a silent sigh of relief and tried to figure out what game she was playing. "But please, you don't need to placate me by worrying yourself with local politics." She waved me over to a table with chairs and tea with a wing. I followed and prepared for the explanation.

“One of my men met with one Prince Blueblood at the Gala. I’m afraid that was when the...food fight broke out.” I couldn’t believe I was saying those words. Nor could I believe the gleeful smile that the Princess broke out in and then fought down.

“Yes...Prince Blueblood. Did you know that Rarity had a similar run-in with him some years ago? Last year?” She shrugged, halfway between sips. “The years run together, you understand.”

“She seemed particularly annoyed at him.”

“He is a beast, and a busybody. I know,” she said as my eyes went wide, “I shouldn’t speak ill of my family, but it is the truth. He has been poking his nose into this whole titan affair when the general and the captain need to be doing their jobs. If the letter he wrote me this morning is accurate, he deserved no less than half of what your...what did you call them, lancemates?” I nodded. “Lancemate gave him. The pie to the head is simply…” she giggled. “Icing on the cake.” She snorted and laughed, eventually recovering with a sip of tea.

Her laughter was contagious. However, I have more self control than that. “Still. I apologise for my unit making a mockery of your ball.”

“No apologies necessary, Commander. The ball made a mockery of itself decades ago. Pinky Pie is one of the first ponies I’ve been able to find with the ability to begin steering it back onto its rightful path.” I opened my mouth again and she interrupted. “Please, no more on that Commander. I assure you that I place no blame on yourself or your unit. So tell me.” She leaned forward in her chair. “What do you really think of the army?”

I had to restrain myself from looking for the hidden camera crew. “Really?”

“Really.”

I leaned forward in my seat. “They’re outdated and rusty. They’re going by a book out of sheer habit without understanding the meanings.”

She nodded. “I figured as much.”

“There are ponies within it that are very promising soldiers, your Majesty, but they lack the training of those with experience. I do not doubt their loyalty or their effort, but without knowledge and experience those can only take one so far. They are trained, and we will simply have to do our best to work with them.”

“But?”

Her ability to read me was all the scarier because that was when I realized she had been doing so since we arrived. “But I worry about how they will react when the actual fighting breaks out.”

She leaned back and grinned. "That is true, they have yet to be tested. The army is voluntary, Commander. We may not have the time to train them properly with your unit, or prepare them for the brutality of open field combat, but they will defend their homeland. I believe in them, my sister knows their hearts, and we will be there to lead them. But I have misled you, that is not the real question." I steeled myself. She turned around and stared deeply into my eyes. "Do you actually like the tea, Commander?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"Honestly." She looked honest.

I managed to only laugh once. "I could go for good coffee right now." This was so far outside my dealing with royalty experience.

"Ooh, and some doughnuts," she added, eyes going wide with sudden interest, focusing on the not-yet-existing doughnuts on the table in front of her. The teacup dropped to the table and a small bell near it lifted up and rang. "The tea isn't anything special today anyway."

"Know a good place?" As impossible as it seemed at the time, that was the only thing I could think to say.

"The best." The steward opened the door respectfully. She started talking before he could open his mouth. "I am taking the day off to...discuss matters of the protection of Equestria."

"Of course your Highness." I got the impression that this had happened before.

The princess rose with youthful excitement. "Come on Christophe, to doughnuts!"

"Sure. Doughnuts." When in Rome...

---

Pony Joe's was a 24 hour diner and doughnut shop not a stones throw from the castle. By the time we arrived, Celestia had told me of some of the odder bits of history of the kingdom. The Princess knew every pony on the street. There were plenty of startled ponies, but whether they were more startled by the alien or the princess, or both together, I wasn't sure.

I ordered myself some coffee and stared at the menu for a while, trying to figure out what could possibly be in the biscuits and gravy.

"So do you get many cults declaring war on the kingdom?" I asked once our doughnuts had arrived.

"No!” Celestia replied between bites in unbridled exasperation. “I haven't heard from these fools in centuries! The titans were horrifying and destructive. No pony who actually knows history would ever want them back. It boggles the mind."

"Nobles who want more power won't stop at anything," I commented, shaking my head. "It's ridiculous!"

"I know!"

I adopted my best nasal mocking voice. "Oh, the Franklins have ten more acres..."

Celestia dropped her voice comically. "And that riverfront summer house!"

"The Duke won't even listen when I tell him how they lord over everyone..."

"They must think they're better than everypony!"

We both sighed and laughed at the same time.

"God. Job security," I said.

"Of the most depressing order."

"Truth. I usually get the jobs from the peasants caught in the crossfire. Noble houses hate when I show up and ask for surrender instead of a job," I chuckled.

"Do you like that?" She asked with the same demeanor as a lancemate. I responded in kind.

"Putting assholes with no manners or scruples in their place? Hell yes."

The princess sipped her coffee and nodded.

My sudden decision to go with the flow seemed like a bad idea. "Does that bother you?"

"I suppose what bothers me is that there is a market for it," she said thoughtfully as her cup lowered itself to the table, neither angry nor annoyed by my lack of professional demeanor. "I have worked for a thousand years to fix the problems that led to my sister..." She sighed. "My sister tried to usurp the throne a thousand years ago. She went mad and was fueled by dark magic," she said in response to my questioning look. "I had no choice but to banish her, but Twilight Sparkle and her friends were able to wield the elements of harmony properly. They saved her, Christophe." Her grief and subsequent relief were obvious on her face.

I nodded appreciatively. "She gave me a glimpse into that, just not the story. But you were telling me about the kingdom."

She nodded. "Yes. After she was banished, I turned a more critical eye to the kingdom. I made myself a more prominent presence in their daily lives and tried to figure out what would drive a pony to such depths. I've done all I can to make this a kingdom of harmony."

I shrugged. "It's the most harmonious kingdom I've ever seen."

"Coming from your world, that's not a high bar,” she said with a grin.

I chuckled. "Still."

"Well thank you for that. We have no need for mercenaries like yourself here now, but I remember when your kind found ready employment." She picked up her coffee again and bit into a sprinkled chocolate donut. "I may be a goddess, but I can't run everything. I wish I could fix these other places you speak of."

"Trust me, where I'm from, there are much deeper problems."

She nodded. "At least there are donuts."

"Amen to that."

---

The princess and I talked until sunset, when she paused to lower the sun. She told me of the nobles she’d had to deal with. The busybodies who felt it their task in life to rule through her. I had vented my frustration at working with militia leaders for short term contracts, backstabbing clients willing to use me as a bargaining chip between leaders, and working with unreliable parts refurbishers. I got to witness magic that moved the heavens and the earth. It seemed easy for her, but it made sense that the sun goddess and the sun would get along. I watched as the moon rose a few moments later. "That is the work of your sister?"

"Yes, Princess Luna controls the moon and has domain over the night."

"Do you two get along?"

"The magic that consumed my sister was responsible for her actions."

I gave her a look of disapproval. "That sounds rehearsed."

She snorted. "Yes, you've caught me." She shook her head. "Sometimes I don't even know when I'm doing it. We do now. Thanks to Twilight Sparkle and her friends, we do now. We did before, but...she went mad. The power of dreams and night is...shall we say, mercurial."

"Meaning?" After today, she wasn’t getting away with sidesteps like that.

"It does what it wants." I nodded.

"So it was out of control."

"Yes. But that was a long time ago, and I can't be happier to have her by my side again." Her limited smile said as much but hinted at other problems.

"That's good."

"Meaning?" She grinned at me, and I laughed. I must not have hidden my reaction to the smile.

"I'm probably getting tired, I've got too many contingency plans in my head, and I'm itching for this battle to start. Meaning I can tell you’re still worried about something.” I smiled in apology. “Sorry I slipped into 'placate royalty' mode for a moment there."

She laughed. "Apology accepted, Christophe. I should get back to the preparations myself." She sighed and looked out the window at the fading twilight. "I only hope the guard and the army are as ready for this conflict as they claim. I hope we are all ready. There are going to be a lot of devastated families by the time this is over."

I finished my coffee and stood up. "And that is why I stay out of politics."

"You are wise beyond your years Commander," the Princess said as she rose.

"May I escort you back to the castle, Princess Celestia?"

"Why thank you Commander Black."

We made it two steps out the door before she stopped. "Commander," she said quietly, looking down, "Christophe...please keep me informed." I looked at her curiously. There was a vulnerability in her emotion that I had not heard from her. "I don't need another yes-pony right now."

I put a hand on her back, and absentmindedly started scritching between her front shoulders. "I know Celestia. You’ll know what I know."

"Thank you. And," she looked around conspiratorially, "don't do that." She eyed my hand for a moment.

I blushed. "Sorry." I withdrew my hand quickly. Too personal. Seriously, I was treating a goddess like a dog.

"In public." She winked at me. "I should find a griffin masseuse. Fingers you called them, right?"

"Yeah, and fingernails."

"This way, Commander." She straightened up, shook her royal flowing mane and took a step forward with royal grace. The Princess was back, as abruptly as she had left.

"Of course, your highness."

---

I had not taken a personal day in some time. I enjoy my work. Tinkering with Battlemech load outs is relaxing for me. Still, an afternoon spent in the company of a wise, if capricious, immortal while bitching about the idiocy of our daily lives was put on my list of greatest work days ever. Something about her demeanor made me feel so at ease. At least, I confirmed my suspicions that I was being played, just as I was playing her. It was this feeling of a solved mystery and companionship that left me smiling and riding high when I walked into the hangar to be greeted by an accusing look from Dan.

"Either you swindled our contact out of more money or you just got laid."

"Have I ever mentioned that you are incorrigible?"

"Dude, you wanna bump uglies with horses, whatever,” he held his hands up as if to stave off the details, “I just want more money if we're getting it."

"No bestiality for you sadly. You'll have to get it yourself." I smiled at him. No amount of Dan ribbing could erase the day I’d had.

"Really, either way I should be getting more money if you wrote our contract right."

"How much fucking do you think is involved in being...a diplo-ok, yes, but not this time." I realized where he had gotten that impression halfway through saying it.

"Deny it all you want, you're glowing."

"Keep dreaming."

Dan went all faux-dreamy eyed and faked a falsetto. "Oh Commander, what is underneath those strange clothes?"

Hiro stepped into the hangar in time to catch half of this, raised an eyebrow with his mouth half open, and slowly backed out. Dan followed my gaze.

I got some peace and quiet while Dan chased Hiro, screaming denial and obscenities.

---

My team and I seemed to settle into a routine.

I would get up and make myself presentable but ever so slightly disheveled and meet with princess Celestia, seeing how many nobles I could get to look at me in disgust but not say anything. We would talk over breakfast. We would score a point for every pony that reacted, but lose two for every one that spoke up. Occasionally Princess Luna would join us and we would talk of happier times.

I made a show of inspecting the hangar and our machines, just as my lance made a show of testing the systems, but they really wouldn't break in a day of sitting turned off. The colonel would invite me to the pre-lunch briefing and I would accept while wondering why they couldn't hold it well before lunch again so that it didn't leave everyone hungry and angry when it ran long.

Hiro abused his newfound musical stardom to spend most of the day practicing the koto. Dan would run simulated missions in the atlas, or sample the wonders of the castle kitchen while discussing the finer points of comfort food with the cooks. He would seem ever so slightly more restless than the previous day, but I would have no way to do much about it. The four of us would spend the afternoon running basic maneuvers with a unit of the royal guard, and that seemed to calm Dan down a bit.

The waiting was the hard part, knowing that we were as ready as we were going to get, and no amount of training we could squeeze into a week would prepare the Equestrian military for what was coming. Fortunately we didn’t have long to wait.

Chapter 11: Siege

It started on Tuesday. I was in the middle of breakfast with the Princess and the Colonel in the castle when the distinctive grating of a plate glass window shattering broke the peace of the morning. I could smell fire and ozone immediately. Hooves hit the floor hard.

"Colonel! Princess!" A female voice screamed in panic. I was out of my seat with my sidearm drawn in an instant. I vaulted a table to see the Sun Goddess turn and stand up from her meal. A red and orange maned pegasus in a blue outfit stood on shaky knees, gasping for air in the middle of the room, a broken window behind her and glass all over the floor beneath her. I'd met her at the gala. Spitfire, the captain of the Wonderbolts. I knelt by the table and took aim outside the window.

Princess Celestia spoke. "Spitfire, are you in danger?"

The pegasus shook her head, coughed once as she choked on fresh oxygen with dry lungs, and gasped for air. "Inc. Incoming. Movement. Forest. South." Spitfire gasped each word out on breaths.

The Colonel chose that moment to walk up to the pegasus. "Captain, is this the invasion force?" Spitfire nodded. "Good work. Commander," he said as he turned to face me. I nodded in his general direction, keeping my eyes toward the broken window. "That will not…Captain Spitfire, were you followed?" The pegasus shook her head with a defiant grin. "Of course not. You don't make Wonderbolt by being slow. Stand down, Commander, there is no danger here." I nodded and holstered my pistol. Still I walked over to the window and glanced out.

Spitfire began pacing slowly around the room, I assumed trying to cool down. She looked completely spent. "Commander, if they are coming from the south then I will need your unit on the eastern pass. As quickly as you can muster."

"Fifteen minutes, Colonel."

"Understood, make it happen." I saluted, and ran out of the room.

Combat never starts with written invitations, at least not in my line of work. The Wonderbolts were renowned for their speed and precision maneuvers. Their skill made them an effective scout wing. If I wasn't going to get planet wide radar, good aerial scouting was the next best thing. I had set up plans with the rest of my unit based on where the scouts predicted the attack. An attack from the south or east meant that the forces would have to take the eastern mountain trail for the quickest path to Canterlot and the castle within. The western path was longer, windier, and across the river. Worst case, Ninja could break off to harass any fast strike units they sent that way. I had measured the distance from the forest just outside Canterlot mountain, and it was a good half hour's waddle from the base of the mountain in Midnight. We had fifteen minutes to suit up and get outside the city, and start the light show. I activated my personal comms. "Atari Lance, we have incoming, this is not a drill. The enemy is here. Suit up, grab your packs, make sure you have food, and get to the hangar. Eastern Pass is the guard point, Nav Alpha."

"Roger." Rolf's curt bass.

"Roger Omega!" Hiro's panicked treble.

"Rffm," Dan mumbled through breakfast.

"It's gonna be a long day Atari." Showtime.

---

"Atari Lance, can you hear us?" A formation of pegasi flapped overhead as we lumbered to the eastern guard point.

"Loud and clear,” I responded.

“I’m Captain of Sunbeam Wing.” One of the two scout wings.

“Glad we found you."

"You too. Listen, we've got incoming from the south. There's a bunch of things coming out of the forest. Couple of the fire ones, four or five hydras, an entire unit of hellhounds, and five…giants?"

"They were called Titans," one of the wingmen corrected.

"Titans then. Big guys. Bunch of other things. Those seemed like the heavy hitters though. They've got a lot of ponies on the ground."

"Do they look loaded to siege Canterlot?"

"Yeah, there are a few catapults and the like."

"Thanks for the info Sunbeam. We'll take up forward guard."

"Roger that Atari. The Royal Guard should be in position soon to meet you."

"Roger Sunbeam. Keep us informed, but get back here if you need backup."

“Roger that Atari.” With that, Sunbeam Wing shot off south again.

---

Another air wing of pegasuses came up from the east around the mountain, also heading south. They were moving faster and flying tighter than Sunbeam had been, so I assumed they were part of the air strike wing. Either Hailstorm or Tornado, but I couldn't tell them apart at this distance. I decided it was Hailstorm for the moment. Without much else to go on, we continued to the base of the path up the mountain. We could see forms coming out of the forest and beginning a march across the plains now, but we couldn't make out much beyond that. Five minutes later the loose V formation of Sunbeam Wing headed back our way, and the action started.

Hiro was all over his duties. "Omega, check out behind the air wing. I don't remember anyone red in that squadron."

"Me either." I swiveled and zoomed in with the expensive cameras i’d had mounted to Midnight. There were red and black forms in the air chasing the air wing back to the mountain. It was more of a flock than a formation. I almost laughed when I finally zoomed in on one. Reaper must have done the same thing.

"Are those fuckin imps? Demons?"

"That's what I see. They're on the summon list. Don't hit the air wing Reaper."

"Roger Omega, opening fire." He sounded way too happy about that.

Hailstorm wing had dived out of the rising sun to come up behind Sunbeam Wing. Someone had listened to my briefings, and I felt a momentary surge of pride. At half a kilometer, Reaper and I opened up. Without any verbal warning from us, the air wings split in panic for a moment but reformed in pairs and made straight for us. I smiled, the strategy lessons I’d prepared had paid off. With the imps hot on their tails, but coming in straight lines, we plugged ten or so each by the time they had made it to us. Ninja rocketed into the air and sliced two more open, and one ducked low enough for Big Bear's laser claws. With four remaining, the air wings circled back around and tag teamed the remaining imps with 200 kph horse kicks.

Reaper snorted. "That's one scout group down. That's the best Tartarus has got?"

Big Bear chuckled. "Imps were supposed to be dumb. Maybe they got them on sale."

Reaper laughed. "Nah, package deal, buy three titans, get a box of imps!"

“This is Hailstorm Wing, Commander, thanks for the backup.”

Hey, I’d guessed right. “Thanks for the easy setup, Hailstorm. You make us look good!” Several of the pegasi saluted, then the formation zoomed back over the mountain. The scout wing darted over the top of us.

“Thanks for the save, Atari.”

"Pleasure working with you Sunbeam, you know where to find us," I piped through the external speaker.

"Good hunting Atari!"

The pause in our march must have given the Royal Guard enough time to catch up, because a thundering quick march behind us got me to turn around. What looked like hundreds of Equestria's Finest were decked in polished armor and spears. I thought I caught the gleaming white and silver of Shining Armor at the front, but with combat on the horizon, I didn't stop to double check. I turned back to the valley to see the enemy was fielding a similar force. If intel was correct, a good half of them were at least minor spellcasters, and they had plenty of demons backing them up.

I doubted I was going to get another free minute to set up our battle plan. "All right Atari, priority targets are siege weapons, then any big guys that start getting close. If you have the time and ammo, feel free to take targets of opportunity, but save yourself for the titans. The Royal Guard can handle the ponies, they need us for the big guys. We guard this point but don't stay stationary. Be ready to reform. Alpha is the hold point, Beta is the advance point, Gamma is the flanked fallback point, Delta is the alternate western pass. Hit 'em hard Atari!"

---

"The holy fuck are those things?" Reaper asked as we marched.

I looked over the battlefield and zoomed in on the back line. Giant creatures with multiple heads and necks like giraffes swayed uneasily forward. "Hydras," Ninja replied.

Looked like it to me too. "Computer, display reminder of 'hydras'." My computer popped up a list of all of the information Twilight had copied down about hydras for us. I keyed the mic again. "Hydras, ten to twenty meters tall, very strong, multiple independent heads, strong bite. Melee fighters," I read off.

"More heavy melee, what did they think we were bringing?" Reaper asked, incredulous.

"Siege weaponry is still first priority. Stay back and wait for them to get in range."

The rhythmic thundering of the Equestrian Royal Guard got louder as the ground forces rounded the mountain path. They were really an impressive sight, hundreds of gleaming armored horses with banners flying.

"Blake's blood. Fuck this shit, I'm ending this." The Atlas swiveled and hit full throttle.

"Reaper hold formation!" I shouted. The atlas gave me the finger. "Fuck, Atari don't step on the royal guard." I turned and followed after Reaper. The rest of the unit followed my Stalker.

Reaper turned on his external speakers as the steel giant thundered down the last hundred meters of the mountain pass toward the incoming ground forces.

“You want to see the fury of the titans?” Reaper had messed with the speaker and his voice was shifted down several octaves, sounding like some kind of B-movie demon. He had turned the volume up until it almost overdrove the speaker, and he echoed off of the forest behind the opposing army. “I am Reaper, you insignificant ants!” Several ponies mid-field recoiled from the sound. The voice modulation was a nice touch, as stupid as the move was I had to give him points for presentation. Several of the more zealous ponies charged him with horns glowing. Lasers fired out of Reaper's arms, torsos and head, dropping the first four who approached. The remaining were immediately enveloped in the magic shields like Twilight liked to put up. Reapers lasers bounced off of them. Their horns lit up and fired at Reaper, and nothing seemed to happen to his massive armored legs. Reaper hauled back and kicked.

Several bodies went flying into the enemy force, several parts of bodies spraying blood flying out at odd angles. “I am your doom!" Two more ponies charged, covered in magic and casting something, and they met with the full force of the other leg. "Your army is meaningless!" With blood dripping from his legs, the enemy army’s advance slowed.

"Point made Reaper, don't overextend." I hoped I could reel him back with reason.

"These dumb fucks can't do anything." The problem was that they could. We knew from the (terrible) briefings that their magic could hurt someone inside a house...and probably a mech.

I think Reaper realized that he had tempted fate at that point. The Atlas shot twice at the army with lasers. The spellcasters had done their job protecting the army and the laser fire bounced off harmlessly. Reaper laughed over the speakers as he turned away and walked back to the pass. "Go away, you bore me."

I kept scanning the battlefield for the movement I was sure was coming. I had been told that magic had abilities I was not aware of, but all but the most powerful spellcasters needed to be right there to do it. I didn't see it until the pulse of light. A small group of unicorns under an energy shield, near the front, but blending in with the rest of the advance unit. They were working some kind of complex spell together. A PPC can usually hit from about half a kilometer, but the three shots I fired at them went wide. “Caster formation, heading 100, 400 meters out!” I yelled to the unit as I shot. I cursed the weird physics of the world, but didn't have time for much more than that. I was too far away to use my missiles. Then their spell started.

A dark lightning bolt flew out from the group and hit the Atlas as a shield formed over the group. Reaper screamed and the Atlas staggered as the energy latched on. "All fire on the shield!" I commanded. My four ppc's hummed and my computer started whining about reactor heat as the capacitors strained to recharge. The tiger's engine whined and threw itself off of the ledge. Big Bear pelted the shield with laser fire but it seemed to have little effect. Reaper screamed incoherently into the mic. I muted his comm channel and fired again.

"Internal heat at 700 Kelvin," the reactor informed me calmly, "Reactor critical, shutdown imminent". I was burning, my cockpit quickly becoming an oven.

"Override damnit!"

The Atlas staggered back further and fell, its giant hands reaching up to its head. I moved to fire again but the Tiger literally flew past my line of fire.

"Hold fire!" Ninja screamed into the comm channel, over the roar of jump jets. Big Bear held off firing, and I relaxed my trigger finger. The Tiger had crossed the gap and flown into the air. It had reached the peak of its jump jet power, and started falling in silence.

"DFA, bitches," Big Bear laughed darkly. With two quick bursts from the jump jets, the Tiger revised its falling trajectory. Death From Above, Ninja was just going to land on them. The Tiger aimed down, fired all ten small lasers at the shield, and slammed into it feet first.

I don't know what happened to the spell. The Tiger fell through the shield like it wasn't even there. I assume crushing the unicorns underneath, because Reaper stopped flailing. I expected him to stand up and continue the showy rampage, but I was wrong. I watched as the Atlas rolled onto its chest with a horrible creaking sound as the army regiments marched forward. He laid its laser-mounted arms on the ground, began firing and swept an arc across the advancing troops at pony head height. Six seconds and several hundred terawatts later, any pony in the first regiment not covered by a shield was burned in half. A good half of the troops on the front line collapsed to the ground, decapitated.

The Atlas's speaker kicked on as it stood up again, feedback screeching as it turned to max volume. "I am your reaper you pathetic fucks and I will drag you all back to hell!" The word ‘hell’ echoed off of the mountain and forest in the creepy computer modulated voice. The Atlas fired a single laser at the middle of each regiment on the side.

That stopped the advance. The two other forward regiments began falling back as several magic shields enveloped the entire army. The Tiger took the opportunity to shoot back into the air just as the surrounding ponies got the bright idea to charge. Their lives ended in plasma jets as Ninja flew back into the clearing beside Reaper.

I turned Reapers mic back on to be greeted with a steady string of profanity. "Reaper, you with us?"

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm good-" he paused and sucked in air "I'm good now. That should bait the titans out."

"Probably. Reaper, Ninja, fall back to beta."

"Atari, report?" That was a voice I didn’t expect. I looked down to see Twilight Sparkle on the ground by our feet, with two of the other Elements with her, Applejack and Rarity. She sounded shaken. She must have witnessed the Atlas's full antipersonnel fury.

"We have stalled the initial assault. We do not control the skies. I expect the enemy to regroup and assault with siege, fliers, and titans."

"Un-under…stood. Understood. I will…alert the air guard." I could see her looking over the cliff at the halted army. Movement in the enemy ranks, I expected whatever medical unit they had to move in. I pondered firing.

"We could use Rainbow Dash's scouting abilities," I said instead.

"If we can spare her I will tell her. Send-I…yeah."

"Roger. Advise you pull back Ambassador."

"Right. Of..c…" I looked up to avoid watching a purple unicorn puke.

"Hah, it's not rainbows," Reaper cracked over the radio.

"Damn, you win," Big Bear chuckled.

"Pay up."

"Someone get the civvies outta here," Ninja sighed.

"Trying," I replied.

"This is not harmony," Twilight said. At least I think that's what she said. The ground rumbling from Reaper and Ninja's arrival made hearing difficult. Reaper walked confidently, the Tiger constantly scanning behind to look for targets. None followed.

The two other ponies ushered Twilight up the pass and away from the battle.

The Equestrian army arranged itself blocking the path that led up to Canterlot. I was assured that two more companies guarded the western road. The command tent was set up behind the army. The blue and yellow uniforms of the Wonderbolts stood out amongst the silver and bronze armor of the royal guard. Spitfire led her wing, and it looked like she had recovered from her sprint that morning.

I climbed out of Midnight to join the impromptu meeting. To my surprise, the wayward Prince was there, under heavy guard. The Elements were present, Shining Armor out of position to stand over his sister. He glared at me as I approached. I nodded and headed to the pavilion tent.

"Omega, th-" a cough interrupted the radio call. "Reaper. Maybe not so o-" another coughing fit, and the Atlas started powering down.

I spun around wide eyed. "Atari, incoming?"

"Neg."

"No Omega."

I grimaced and ran over to the tent. "Corpsman!"

Two ponies trotted out, the two pegasi who had airlifted my POW prince from my cockpit flew over, and I pointed to the head if the atlas where the hatch was opening. Dan clung to the ladder uneasily, still wearing his cooling vest and coughing. His hand was covered in blood. Rainbow Dash looked up to follow the action and zoomed up to meet the others.

"Dan!"

"Hey Dash." He looked at the two pegasi and shook his head. "Let me climb down." He started coughing again and shook dangerously on the ladder. Dash flew behind him and held his back to keep him from falling off. "Let go."

"No."

"Fuck off."

"Screw you idiot. You'll fall." She yanked her hoof away and he teetered dangerously, but the hoof was back before he could fall. "Don't be an idiot."

Whatever snide response he had was interrupted by another coughing fit, and he nodded and began climbing down with Dash holding him to the ladder.

The unicorns with the stretcher were there at the bottom and almost tripped him into it. Then they ran, pegasi leading and clearing a path.

"Omega, trebuchets loading!" Bear called. Shit. I was glad I could count in Big Bear to keep his head screwed on in battle.

"Open fire!" I yelled into the comm, and the high ranking ponies around me turned and stared with fear. "Captain Armor! Incoming artillery!"

The Kodiak started firing its large laser into the field. Shining Armor glared at me in confusion, then turned to look at the enemy army. The trebuchets began rocking back, but one collapsed as the extended range laser mounted to the Kodiak's chest hit home. I grinned, but noted the other twelve.

Shining Armor closed his eyes and adopted a wide stance. His horn glowed almost as bright as I had seen Twilight, and a purple bubble grew around him with amazing speed. It enveloped the whole camp in seconds. Soon other unicorns in the surrounding regiments mimicked the action, but not with the speed or size. Big Bear sliced another trebuchet in half before they fired, and cut a second one as it sprung and threw its payload into the army in front of it.

"Take cover!" I yelled, and none of the ponies moved.

"It's just rocks Commander," Shining Armor called with a bit of strain and a bit of ribbing in his voice, "we're safe now. Thanks for the warning."

I looked around. The Elements of Harmony walked over to Shining Armor and watched as several giant rocks flew toward us and impacted harmlessly against the shield. One burst apart as Big Bear shot it out of the sky. He moved forward to the edge of the shield. "Pull!" He called into the comm. I chuckled. The trebuchets were already pulling back to fire again, and Big Bear took out another. Some unicorn on the opposing side realized their error and began throwing shields over the trebuchets in between shots. This slowed down Rolf's destruction as he switched from a shooting gallery to whack a mole.

Rainbow Dash flew over to me. "What happened to Dan?"

"Dunno, some kind of black spell. Thanks for getting him down."

"Stubborn as a mule." I nodded in agreement. "The nurses here are the best. Don't worry."

"I'm just worried that I'm down a pilot."

"I demand to know what is going on!" Another voice I didn't expect. The captive prince.

"Pardon Dash, idiot duty."

She grinned. "Sure."

I marched over to him and pondered decking him. The two guards next to him saluted as I approached, and I did the same. Twilight Sparkle followed me over.

"Your idiot brothers are trying to assault with primitive weapons. One of my four machines just slaughtered a regiment."

His eyes flew open and the haughty royal attitude slipped away. "Which one?"

"I dunno, the middle one." I shrugged. "Doesn't really matter."

"Which one? What was their standard?"

I rolled my eyes and put a hand to my ear. "Omega to Atari, did the middle regiment have a battle standard?"

"Ninja, I think it was orange."

"Probably orange," I repeated to the prisoner.

His eyes shrank to pinpricks and his voice got quiet. "That's my sister's unit. My sister is leading that unit." He struggled against the manacles and started shrieking. "That's my sister! Let me go!"

"Shouldn't be assaulting a castle if you don't want losses," I replied as the prince broke into hysterics.

"That's enough Commander," Twilight Sparkle said quietly. I nodded and stepped back. "Prince, the commander exaggerated. The medical unit has moved to care for the wounded in that regiment."

"That's my sister," he cried. The prince slowly slipped out of hysterics, but sat down and didn’t hide crying.

Twilight Sparkle looked at the prince, at the battlefield, at the equestrian soldiers, and finally at Shining Armor as he strained to keep the shield up. "That's my brother," she said quietly as she turned away. I looked down at her, she looked up at me with a haunted expression, and nodded. She ran a hoof across her eyes and walked back to the tent. "War is hell, Chris."

"Only gets worse from here, Twilight."

"Commander," the Princesses aid called from the tent.

"Sorry," I called back.

We all filed into the tent. A few more of the rocks hit the shield and the Kodiak's laser fired a few more times.

"Commander Black, report," Princess Celestia said as I walked in.

I saluted. "The enemy infantry forces are interspersed with spellcasters that can prevent our main weapons from affecting the enemy forces. Reaper managed to scare them back for a moment, and-" the sound of another rock hitting the shield interrupted. Another laser shot.

"Last visible trebuchet down Omega."

"And Big Bear has just destroyed the first wave of their siege equipment. I expect them to assault with what air power they have, demons, and titans soon Princess."

"I saw Reaper fall."

"Yes he was injured your Majesty. I don't know to what extent."

She nodded. "Will your unit still be reliable against the titans?"

"Yes your Majesty. We will need defense from enemy spellcasters. I may pilot the Atlas instead. I have not yet seen the titans in action."

"Understood Commander. Please keep me informed." I saluted, she nodded, and I stepped back.

The princess talked to regimental commanders and the colonel. Finally she turned to Twilight. "What do you think?"

Twilight looked haunted. "I think we have not yet attempted to negotiate for peace, princess. The Commander has demonstrated that we have d-deadly force and willingness to use it, and Shining Armor has demonstrated complete ability to defend against a siege with no impact. We have a prisoner with high value to them. A reasonable leader would accept terms to leave."

Princess Celestia looked around the tent. The colonel nodded. The regimental commanders were in favor of the idea.

"Commander Black?"

"One moment your Majesty." I turned away. "Omega to Ninja, you up for honor guard duty?"

"Always Omega."

I nodded. "Your majes-quit glaring at me Twilight. Blake." I turned to the ambassador halfway through my reply as she was glaring at me with almost as much fury as Shining Armor. Twilight looked away sheepishly. "Peace talks are a great idea." She looked at me with sudden uncertainty. "I am just going to suggest that Shining Armor and Ninja accompany the diplomatic unit as an honor guard. Big Bear and I will stay back to counter further siege assault if they do not honor the signal for a cease fire."

"But they can't win!"

"We know that, but they might be too angry to listen to reason. Attacking the princess and the element of magic might be too big a temptation. If they deny the terms and then try to take you hostage then we want to be prepared. They might claim to honor the truce and then try something. Since the siege equipment is down we have the luxury of forgoing Shining Armor's shield for the moment."

Princess Celestia nodded. "Colonel?"

"Seems sound to me. The Commander has more experience with treachery than I do."

Princess Celestia was decided. "Alright. Colonel, please signal a truce and we will try to negotiate for peace."

"Understood your Majesty."

"Commander Black, signal when your scout is ready."

"I will have him move to the front your Majesty."

"Twilight Sparkle, get your brother and I will meet you out front."

"Ok Princess."

"Good luck Princess Celestia," I said. She winked at me.

I jogged out to the captain of the guard. "Commander," he said with a bit of strain.

"I am entrusting you with my scout, Captain. Give him short commands and he'll jump."

"Understood."

The Colonel came up behind me and informed Shining Armor of the plan. I jogged back to Midnight and started climbing.

"Omega to Ninja, you're on honor guard. Move to the front and escort the Princess and the Ambassador with the Captain."

"Roger Omega."

"Big Bear, we're on anti air and siege duty."

"Roger Omega."

"Reaper, talk to me."

"They fucked me up pretty hard Omega." He sounded defeated, but he wasn't the coughing fainting mess he'd been ten minutes ago. "I think I'm at the mobile hospital. Shoulda pulled back."

"Let me know if I've got you back otherwise shut up and get some sleep."

"Roger Omega." He knew he’d fucked up. Still, he had stopped the initial charge singlehandedly. I just hoped it was worth being down a mech.

The Tiger moved forward while the Kodiak and I moved to the side to safely let the diplomatic team pass. Several ponies with trumpets sounded some kind of signal. Four standard bearers with white flags marched forward in a line. Truce. Princess Celestia and Twilight Sparkle moved forward with them. The Tiger loomed over Shining Armor menacingly, but I knew they rivaled each other in threat. Princess Celestia marched forward, crown jewels shining in the sun. Twilight Sparkle followed at her side, head held high. Shining Armor marched along twenty paces behind them, shouted something at Ninja and the Tiger spooled up and followed slowly behind.

"Patch me into external, Ninja. I need to hear this."

"Roger."

The Titan cult army seemed to react accordingly. Two standard bearers worked their way through the regiment with a small formation of others. The advanced camera on Midnight was able to make out the preacher from the first day we had arrived, as well as several other cloaked ponies. There was also an odd shadow, and I zoomed out. I didn't need the camera to see the Titan.

A human looking giant with a burlap cloak and leather armor marched forward. He carried a spear and a shield, in the style of the ancient gladiators. He marched with proper posture and a stoic expression, and stood almost as tall as the Kodiak and about as wide across. He made the two unicorns that flanked the preacher look meaningless.

The two groups met in the battlefield after two minutes of marching. "I see you have come to surrender," the preacher laughed in his musical charismatic voice.

"No sir, we come to negotiate for peace," Celestia corrected with perfect calm. Ninja in the Tiger aimed up and down at the Titan, then began rotating slowly from side to side, scanning the battlefield. They were about 400 meters out, well within PPC range if I could get the damn things to cooperate. I moved Midnight a couple steps to the right to get a better shot at the Titan without putting the Tiger in danger.

"Peace. Bah. Is that what you call this? This magically forced state of unnatural torture of the earth?"

"I prefer it to constantly warring tribes and rule by force and blood," the princess countered.

"You pervert the very nature of existence with your ways. It will end, either quickly when I take over and restore balance, or in catastrophe when you can no longer sustain your perfection." The mocking tones were slowly turning threatening.

Princess Celestia straightened herself and looked up, ignoring the preacher. "Hello Atlas." She sounded like she was greeting an ex boyfriend.

"Hello Celestia," he replied in a polite thundering bass.

"How many of your brothers have returned this time?"

"Just the five of us. I see the kingdom still looks the same, though the castle is in need of a groundskeeper."

"My sister and I had an argument."

The Titan laughed. The ground shook. "And you propagate lies of harmony."

"We've patched things up since."

"You will still insist that you can continue to run this planet, of course."

"Of course."

The preacher broke in. "We have titans at our backs, and an army at your doorstep, 'princess'," he said mocking the title.

"You have agents of chaos that you cannot hope to control," Celestia responded sparing only a glance down at the preacher. "You have an army on low ground in front of a guarded pass and no siege equipment. You have no power and no hope, except for bloodshed on both sides." She took a step forward and stared down at the preacher. "You may not know how this ends, but Atlas does, as do his brothers." She looked back up at the Titan. Suddenly it clicked in my head. Wasn't the Atlas named after a giant? Was this the namesake Kerensky had referenced?

The preacher tried to respond. "You-"

"Stop, little pony," the Titan rumbled. The preacher stopped. "I will use you as you desire. But you do not lead this army." He gestured at the princess with the spear, and the Tiger twitched, aiming at the offending arm. The Titan caught the motion and grinned.

"Ah yes, our counterparts. Men in machines. You consider yourself a Titan?"

Ninja left a pause while Celestia looked up at him.

"I am." Ninja replied simply via the external speaker.

"How many worlds have you conquered?" He sneered.

"Dozens. I've lost count," Ninja replied with no small amount of annoyance. True, too.

"Yet we have already taken one of you out of the fight."

"Not hard to trick a fool," Ninja countered. I laughed. Dan deserved that one.

"Yet you come within spear range of myself. I see you inside of that machine, little man. My aim is true."

"Bring a spear to a fistfight," Ninja recited, "bring a gun to a spear fight, bring a tank to a gunfight," the a tiger took a step forward toward the threatening spear, and Ninja recited the last line slowly and deliberately, "and don't go to tank fights." I loved that movie.

"Stop!" Twilight Sparkle called. The Tiger took two steps back, directly over the top of Shining Armor, who didn't so much as flinch. "Please, this can't end in anything but death!"

"Then surrender, little pony," the Titan rumbled, "and the only deaths will be the two alicorns who threaten the very nature of existence."

"Until you bring back death sentences," Princess Celestia countered. "Do not presume to lie to me. I know your true nature."

"You would be the only one here who does, Celestia,” The titan replied almost wistfully. “It appears we will not see eye to eye on this," he sneered, staring down at the princess.

"Indeed. Shall we duel here, or see this out with our respective armies?"

"Armies," the Titan said with no hesitation. "Your trickery will not prevail this day.”

"Very well. I propose a cease fire for the day so that you may care for your wounded and reassess your strategy. I will not be responsible for the deaths of the helpless."

"How little faith you have in your army. How quickly your compassion will be your downfall. We will take a single hour."

"Very well."

His spear relaxed for a moment in his grasp as he looked around the battlefield. "This will never end until you tear the world apart, Celestia. The Everfree forest is only the start. The chaos will spread until it covers everything." The Titan looked almost regretful.

"I've known that for almost a thousand years," replied the princess, shaking off the concept with little care, "We will take our leave, and thank you for honoring the truce flag."

The Titan bowed. "I look forward to seeing it again for your surrender."

She didn’t dignify that with a response. "Lead us back, Shining Armor."

"Yes Princess. Ninja! You have the rear."

"Roger Captain."

Shining Armor barked orders, and the standard bearers surrounded the princess and the ambassador. They marched away. The Tiger waited until they were clear then slowly walked in a circle, the upper body of the Tiger twisting around unnaturally far to keep the laser banks faced toward the Titan until the last moment. The Titan stood in a mocking representation of attention until they had left.

"You get all that Omega?" Ninja shut off the external mic.

"Yeah Ninja. Good work. One hour people. Five titans, melee weapons, don't let them aim at your cockpit."

"Roger Omega."

"Roger," Big Bear replied.

What the hell were they going to do with an hour? Figure out a way to let their siege engines fire through shields? Move and assault the western pass? Start burning the fields? Dance party? The possibilities were endless, but they had to have a particular trick up their sleeve. Something that would provide more benefit than attacking the princess they so desperately wanted dead.

The Titan led the preacher back to their command post. I could just barely make out the others now, hidden in the trees of a nearby grove. One question stood on top though. How the fuck did Celestia know the Titan?

I climbed out of Midnight when the enemy army pulled back and started medical operations. I met the diplomacy team on foot with a salute.

"Commander," Shining Armor said in acknowledgement.

"Captain. Thank you for returning my scout." He nodded. "Princess Celestia, may I speak with you?"

"Certainly Commander Black. Please come to my tent."

"Thank you your highness."

She dismissed the captain and the standard bearers. Twilight and I followed the princess into her tent. She glanced at me and dismissed her steward. I waited until the soldiers and aids milling about would have either walked away or started eavesdropping.

"You know a damn Titan," I tried to not growl at the sun goddess, and succeeded in at least being politely angry, "that seems pertinent."

"He killed my parents," she replied with quiet poise.

That took the anger away pretty effectively. The explosion of anger from Twilight about me being rude to her mentor, friend, goddess, and princess died in her throat. "You couldn't stop him?" I asked quietly.

She shook her head. "I was barely a hundred at the time. Old enough to feel like I was old, wise and powerful, so young that I didn't yet know what power was. Atlas and the titans assaulted, killed our father and disrupted the kingdom. Over the next year my mother and our army fought a long battle of attrition against them. She died in the final winning battle, but banished the titans to Tartarus."

Hypotheses whirled around in my head. "So...ok, you and your sister weren't involved in the conflict?"

"She was five." I winced. "Yes, she didn't take it well. I didn't either, but I had some maturity of emotion on my side. I feared it would be Atlas that this cult summoned, he led the charge the other two times. Last time Luna was involved, she became unstable, wishing for a better victory than banishment via the elements of harmony. I didn't want to antagonize her this time with speculation."

"And just when, dear sister," a soft sultry voice began from nowhere, "were you planning on telling me of your speculation?" The Goddess of the Moon stepped into the tent through a shadow.

"Just now, when I knew you would be watching from the shadows." The two goddess sisters looked at each other with no small amount of sibling rivalry. "You know how you reacted last time."

"I would like to think that I have learned my lesson from my last experiment with power." She was still angry, but in a quieter way.

Nightmare Moon. I got that much, and I guessed that Twilight did as well from the look of discomfort on her face.

"So the leader of the titans has returned to finish the job," I continued, trying to keep things on track.

"Yes," Celestia responded almost automatically, then shook herself out of painful memories. "The army is larger, though they do not appear to be prepared for the battle with Commander Black and his unit."

I dared to butt in. "The spellcasters are my biggest worry. One group of spellcasters has already incapacitated one of my pilots."

"Our royal doctor is at his side now, Christophe," Celestia said with compassion.

"And I appreciate that, but you are dodging the question. You know this Titan. That means...I mean you must have some idea of how they fight."

Celestia and Luna both nodded, but said nothing.

"Ok, better question. Can they use magic?"

"No," Luna spoke up.

"What would they do with an hour long break in the battle."

Luna grimaced as her sister remained unreadable. "Something underhanded. Something designed to bring fear and respect."

"Like attacking during a cease fire?"

"A what?"

"A truce. Sorry."

"Ah, no. No, he would do something worse like find and attack the hospital." Luna's expression shifted quickly from disgust to realization. "But that is safely up the path, and the only one wounded currently is mister Wilks." She looked at Celestia who nodded.

I waited for the two immortals to share their secrets for a moment. "Which means?"

Celestia finally spoke again. "There is a spell in place which prevents long range teleportation directly to Canterlot mountain. They are forced to march the army up the path. A particularly powerful caster may get to the foot of the mountain though."

"Ok, so they might teleport a Titan directly to the field hospital, but not to the castle."

"Yes. We will post guards at the hospital for the moment. The royal battlecasters will be more than capable of protecting it."

I nodded. "That will pull units away from the battlefield."

"It will, but we have little choice in the matter. I won't risk having those injured being killed while helpless."

"Are there any units that can protect our machines from their spellcasters?"

Celestia looked at Twilight meaningfully.

Twilight swallowed and nodded. "Yes, we can. I expect that we will need to use the elements of harmony which will take some time, but other than that we will be able to help."

"Thank you, Twilight Sparkle," I said sincerely. "If we are working together then we can quickly switch from you helping us to us standing guard over you."

She nodded, distracted as she looked over the map of the arrangement of markers representing the armies. "Dan was trying to intimidate them into ending the war before it started. His move seemed bloodthirsty and reckless, but it almost worked."

"Yes, it did,” I agreed.

"I couldn't imagine anyone crazy enough to march thousands of ponies to their deaths, or to willingly come."

"It's not something you can solve with a song. And about that, Celestia," I said turning to face her,"something about knowing you are ending the world?"

"Starswirl the Bearded predicted that over fifteen hundred years ago. We have been working on a solution ever since." She smiled gently at Twilight. It may have been with pride.

"I see." I most certainly did not see. Celestia knew that now.

Celestia turned to me with royal curiosity. "Do you disapprove?"

"No Princess."

"Don't handle me, Chris."

I winced, and sighed. "He's right, then. You're manipulating the world. But you're not doing it well enough."

Celestia nodded. "Yes. This is a slow process however, and the calamities will continue. The breaking point has been reached, which has triggered all of the recent events either directly or indirectly. Complete control is theoretically possible and several methods were suggested, as researched by the same scrye that discovered the calamities in the first place, Starswirl the Bearded. You have nothing to fear because you will be long back on your proper planet by the time anything else comes to pass."

"So the kingdom of the titans was so terrible that driving the world to slowly tear itself apart from...what, magical stress, would be better?"

Celestia nodded. "Anything will be better than the rule by fear that the titans instituted."

"Yeah, I noticed he didn't deny that part." I sighed and rolled my eyes. "This was such a nice planet when we got here."

Celestia chuckled. "It has been good to work with you, Chris."

I almost found myself drawn back into our evening at the doughnut shop. "Hey, focus people. Battlecasters waiting for an ambush at the hospital. Elements of harmony will keep spellcasters from targeting any more of my pilots. We bait out the titans and then my unit will pin them down while the elements of harmony banish them. Everyone clear?"

Celestia nodded. "I will inform the colonel."

Luna nodded. "I believe that may spread our forces thin. I should assist as well."

Twilight looked at Princess Luna with what could be called academic curiosity. I was about to welcome her help. Celestia didn't even try to hide terror.

"Sister, no!"

"Yes, Celestia. I will hide no more. How many of these calamities have you sequestered me from now? Three is it not?" She didn’t hate herself for that, not even a little. I took a step back.

Twilight was quick to correct. "Two, since you were the first of them, assuming the first was Nightmare...Moon..." She trailed off as she looked at Luna, whose expression begged her to continue with a pleasant smile. Twilight blushed and looked away.

"Nay, that is a fair point, Twilight Sparkle. But no more," she continued pointedly at Celestia.

"Please, sister, it is too dangerous."

"Have we not the elements of harmony, sister? I cannot stand by while foreigners with no stake in this defend my kingdom to the death. I will not." She stomped a hoof. It looked like the two sisters were tearing up. I looked at Twilight for clarification, but she shrugged at me. "Is this not also my kingdom, dear sister?" Luna asked quietly.

"Yes." Celestia closed her eyes and nodded. "I do not want to lose you again."

"I would rather spend another thousand years on the moon than live forever without our kingdom." Wait, this whole argument wasn’t about Luna dying? Why were they referencing the Nightmare Moon incident again?

Both were silent for an uncomfortable moment. They turned at the same time to Twilight Sparkle and myself. Luna broke the silence. "I will activate the night guard and watch over the field hospital. Leave the battlecasters on the field so they may protect the troops."

"Ok Luna." Not 'yes sister'. She sounded defeated. Luna reached over to hug her sister.

"Our kingdom, Celestia."

"Our kingdom," Celestia agreed with tears in her eyes.

When Luna broke the embrace she was clad in the black and silver filigree armor I had seen in the dream. Twilight went wide eyed. Princess Luna looked at me with determination in her eyes. "Good luck Commander."

I saluted. "Good luck Princess Luna." A moment later, the goddess of night was simply gone.

Celestia was her perfect stoic self again when I turned around. "I will remain here to coordinate efforts."

"Alright. You know where to find me." I looked at Twilight. "Ready?"

Twilight was still staring at the now closed tent flap. "That was...the last time I saw her in that armor she was Nightmare Moon." My comment apparently broke her out of shock. She turned to look at Celestia. "Is she..."

"She is my sister, Twilight," she responded quietly. "She is passionate and emotional. She is also exceptionally powerful and capable in combat. She will help us in this battle. There is a possibility that participating in this conflict will cause Nightmare Moon to return. If she does we will need you and your friends to help her, Twilight."

Twilight nodded automatically. "Ok Princess." This seemed to sate her fears for the time. She turned to me. "How do we protect your unit?" At least Twilight was confident in handling Princess Luna going rogue.

I stared at the two for a moment while I processed the concept that Luna was a functional psychopath. "Stay behind us. Rainbow Dash is an excellent scout, let her find targets. You, Applejack and Rainbow Dash should engage casters. Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinky Pie should guard the rear. Stay close and signal me when you need to activate the elements of harmony and we will pull back to guard you."

Twilight nodded slowly. "How do you ignore the fighting?"

"If you don't, the titans will kill all of the soldiers."

She swallowed. "Ok. Lets go."

"Reaper to Omega, the hell is there a black alicorn in armor here with a bunch of mutant bat ponies?" Dan got on the radio a few moments later.

I chuckled and turned my mic back on. "That's the goddess of night and dreams, Reaper. She's on our side."

"I could take her," he said defensively.

"On our side. We think the titans might launch a sneak attack on the field hospital."

"Fine, is she any good in a fight?"

"She once overthrew the kingdom."

The sound of hooves on dirt was the only sound for a long moment.

"Ok, we'll handle things here then,” Reaper replied once he was overconfident again.

"They tell you what happened yet?"

"Magical bullshit blah blah get some rest and here's an arm sling. Just a headache and a sliced arm."

"Then either get some damn rest or get your ass back out here."

"Roger Omega," a defeated Reaper replied.

Chapter 12: Battle

The cultist army seemed to take the full hour to prepare. Formations wheeled, hydras roared, drums echoed off of the mountain. When the army looked like it was ready, the three of us marched to the front. “Reaper scared the foot soldiers, Atari. Keep them afraid, but go for the titans.”

“Roger.”

“Kay!”

Trumpets sounded and flags rose. The hour was over. Three regiments of cultists marched forward slowly. Behind us, Shining Armor led the Royal Guard into position to guard the pass. Four wings of pegasuses soared into the air above us. One titan stared at us, pointed a trident at me, and ran a finger over his throat.

“Looks like they’re taking the bait,” Ninja commented.

“Charge.”

The trident wielding Titan charged me, bounding over the battlefield in great strides. Three PPC shots went wide. I twisted at the last moment and the trident bounced off of my right arm. The horrible screeching of twisting steel filled my ears and the computer screamed warning alarms of penetrated armor. I slammed the throttle into reverse while the Titan stumbled and twisted back from the unexpected impact of trying to stab through glass and hitting solid steel. The metal sound grated my ears again as the trident was twisted out of his grip. "Critical hit: weapon destroyed. Critical hit: arm. Critical hit: weapon destroyed." Two of my ppc's went red on my HUD. My right arm was now a very expensive shield. Time slowed and my heart pounded in my ears as the titan came into view and my trigger finger twitched. The twin lasers fired and the giant put his arms up to shield himself from the burning. Once I had the lasers pointed directly at him I fired the missiles. Eight high explosives shrieked out of Midnight's nose and exploded violently when they hit.

The Titan staggered backward, a face full of pain and shock, one arm a shattered stump. Mostly a miss. I took a step forward. Two of the other titans turned and began bounding across the battlefield toward us. The reloading mechanism stopped clicking and pinged as the ammo bay slammed shut. The indicator on the srms turned green on my HUD but I had already pulled the trigger. Eight more missiles fired with the two lasers, and fire filled my vision as the explosion rocked my ears.

The battlefield went still for a moment as the smoke cleared. Everyone looked at the scorch mark where the Titan had been. Twisted charred limbs were left where he had stood. The bloody torso of the titan flew away and impacted messily on the ground, smoldering.

One Titan down for the loss of two guns. Fair trade. Plus I knew their weakness.

"Atari lance, all weapons free. Titans are weak to SRM's and auto cannons."

"Roger!"

"Omega, permission to pilot the Atlas," Ninja called.

"Granted."

"Fuck 'em up for me Ninja," Reaper called.

"Dibs on Atlas," Ninja said.

"No promises," rumbled Big Bear.

"Incoming on me," I called, interrupting bragging time. The other two titans didn’t like me fragging their brother. Too bad.

"Already on him," Big Bear called.

The Kodiak had turned and started rumbling toward me. I turned to the Titan furthest from him and opened with the two ppc's I had left.

"Break off Atari!" Rainbow Dash yelled from outside.

"Rainbow Dash, harmony?" I looked around for her as I asked.

"Harmony!"

"Atari lance, defend the elements."

I slammed into reverse, skidding to a stop. The Kodiak bounded over and swiveled around as the six elements of harmony gathered in front of me. I took aim at the left Titan and started laying down covering fire. The ppc's were still being swirly but he couldn't figure out where to dodge to either. He slowed down and that was all we really needed. I took a moment to glance at the other Titan, who was carrying a short sword and shield. No sign of Atlas.

"Ninja, eyes on Atlas?"

"Negative! Five minutes to mech swap."

"Belay swap, come on back and defend."

"Roger!"

The roar of the Tiger's jump jets met my ears from across the battlefield. I could tell from the radar that he was running back to complete the circle around the elements.

"Your show Twilight!" I called to the elements of harmony. There was no response except for the bright light and rainbow swirl of magic that came from the six multicolored ponies. The swirl of magic grew in intensity as the Wonderbolts swooped out of the sky on trails of fire and lightning and formed an outer circle that flew around our mechs, keeping the other ponies away from the elements while the two titans circled around to attack the weak point in our defensive circle. The Tiger roared into the air and landed with a thud to complete the defense.

"Sorry I'm late Omega."

"Right on time Ninja."

With an explosion of radiance that would have made Reaper guffaw, a rainbow trail shot away from the center of the circle and completely enveloped the gladius wielding Titan. It wrapped him up like a ribbon, tightened, held him aloft, and popped. The Titan was gone, along with the rainbow trail.

Two.

The Wonderbolts shot off again after a brief salute and went after another group of imps. At least the air battle looked like it was well under control.

The other Titan charged at the Tiger, probably going for the smallest target. Big mistake. Big Bear fired an auto cannon shot which hit but seemed to be mostly absorbed by the titans elaborate breastplate. He jumped to lunge at Ninja.

Ninja roared into the air, spun around on trails of plasma and landed behind the Titan. The giant impaled the ground and span around to face his attacker.

Sixteen lasers radiated out of the Tiger and across the Titan's breastplate. The metal seemed to melt off of his chest as Ninja sliced through it cleanly.

"Open!" Ninja yelled.

Big Bear's auto cannon barked as the ear piercing shriek of twelve homing srms launched from the Kodiak's chest. The Titan staggered back, trying to cover himself and the Kodiak lunged forward with a laser firing arm, followed quickly by a punch from the other arm. The Titan went flying, trailing blood and chunks. "Target down."

Three.

The Kodiak slid to a stop, turned around and walked back to the formation with no fanfare. The enemy ponies in the regiments surrounding us backpedaled from the horror of the scene. I looked around. The elements of harmony were staring in horror at the death of the third Titan. Blood dripped from the Kodiak’s claws. The fourth Titan was directing the army. Atlas was nowhere to be seen.

The Kodiak became surrounded with a black glow. "Twilight!" I yelled into the external speaker.

The elements shook off their fear and flew. Rainbow Dash shot up and looked around, then pointed out the casters. Applejack and Twilight Sparkle charged. Pinky Pie disappeared. Rarity put up a magical shield while Fluttershy turned around and glared at the approaching foot soldiers, who stopped. Must have been some glare.

All at once, Rainbow Dash fell from the sky onto a group of unicorns in the Titan cults signature black cloaks, Twilight blasted the three of them with her horn, Pinky Pie emerged from the other side of the chaos with a large pink cannon that threw them forward in a burst of confetti, and Applejack came in to deliver a kick that knocked one flat. The black glow vanished. "Big Bear, you with us?"

"Yeah." He didn't sound strained.

"Roger. Eyes open Atari, they'll probably try that again." I hit the external speaker. "Thanks Twilight."

Rainbow Dash flew up to us. "Where to next Commander?"

"Now we stop the hydra and demon assault. Any sign of Atlas?"

"No." Rainbow Dash shook her head.

"That won't be good." I gritted my teeth. Celestia and Luna had the city defense. The royal guard and night guard could take care of a unit working up the windy narrow path, and two goddesses were more than a match for a single Titan. I couldn't worry about that now. The equestrian army was taking losses and it was time to take away another cultist toy.

"Omega to Ninja, swap for the atlas."

"Roger."

"Negative Omega, busy!" Reaper called. Busy? He sounded like he was in a convertible, wind whipping past the mouthpiece.

"You coming back Reaper?"

"Busy!" He shouted back.

"Reaper!" No response. Luna watch over you, I thought.

"Atari lance, on me, were going for the hydras."

"Roger!"

"Joining."

We made quick work of the hydra siege with Twilight's guidance. Turns out you can just spear a hydra's heart with lasers, and it's quicker and easier than having to cut all of its heads off. The Tiger became a one man wrecking crew, flitting around the battlefield and lancing hydra's twice as fast as Big Bear and I could kill one.

Fluttershy disappeared halfway through the fight, and then very quickly so did the rest of the hydras. I froze in fear when I glanced down at her and accidentally caught her eye for a moment, then her all encompassing death gaze was gone and the meek yellow pegasus was looking down apologetically. Yeah, that was some glare.

The demon forces had moved forward to assault the path with the remaining army, though it looked like the royal battle casters were holding the line with the royal guard. I was sure we were taking losses now.

"Omega to Reaper, status?"

"Busy!" Reaper screamed. The hum of nuclear reactor, gyroscopes and 100 ton footfalls were in the background. Ahhh shit. He'd gotten back into the atlas.

"Atari lance, back to the mountain, best speed!"

My unit had already turned, having heard what I did. "Rainbow Dash, clear us a path! The hospital is under fire!"

The rainbow pegasus saluted briefly in front of my cockpit then shot off like a rocket toward Canterlot mountain. The shockwave alone pushed several ponies out of the way.

"Damn she's fast," Ninja commented as the Tiger shifted its path to follow the clearing.

"Gonna miss having her around," Big Bear agreed, "Omega, can we hire an aerotech wing?"

"Maybe, I'll shop around." I hadn’t seen the use for one until now.

Two things happened quickly. First the Atlas came up on radar on the ridge, then several large things came up on radar, approaching us quickly from the east across the battlefield.

"Ninja, get eyes on that mass behind us. Reaper, please tell me that's you in the Atlas."

"Yeah Omega. I'm joining defense up here."

"Good luck."

"Omega, demons. Second wave," Ninja added with a bit of fear in his voice.

I flipped to the external speaker. Thing was getting a workout on this mission.

"Twilight Sparkle, demons incoming."

Ninja clarified. "Two stars of demons from the east, three regiments of ponies, no sign of the leader." Ten demons, a few hundred more cultists, and no titans.

"Roger Ninja." I looked around. The path was predictably the site of an actual fight between the two armies, but without titans and their siege equipment they didn't seem to be making much progress. The west was clear, the army was advancing pretty uniformly from their treeline. They didn't seem to have much beyond a funnel of cultists trying to take the pass. "Atari lance on me. We're holding the demons away from the choke point."

"Roger!"

"Rainbow Dash, find us that titan!" The rainbow blur zipped past my cockpit and shot off into the sky. "Twilight Sparkle, stay behind us and hold the line!"

"Okay!"

My two ppc's kept missing my target, but with ten demons to hit I would occasionally nail one anyway. I wished I had all four. Big Bear followed up with his single large laser when I would get a hit. The big winged horned creatures would snarl and hide behind the bubbles of force their spell casters threw up.

"Take em out fast, but save ammo for the two titans."

"With pleasure," Big Bear growled.

The demons advanced, down one, and charged when they got close.

"Targets marked and shared. In order, start with A," Ninja called. Our computers popped up a letter over each demon on our hud. Demon A stepped into range of our rockets and was met with several dozen explosive projectiles. He exploded messily all over his companions. "B," Ninja called, and began pelting C with lasers.

"Hold the line Big Bear," I called. The Kodiak had been inching forward, and took several steps back. We fired again and the second demon exploded as the third found his head without a torso from the Tiger's laser fire.

" D." F charged into range and the Tiger fired again, dropping that one. Big Bear fired again, cannon tearing giant holes in the D demon without my help.

"One star down, keep it up." The second group was almost to us. "Ready Twilight!" A purple dome spread out behind us.

"E." G went down to more lasers as the Tiger roared into the air and moved to drop behind another. My rockets and lasers forced the E demon to stagger. My two remaining ppc's actually hit home and left a crater where the demon had been. J lept into the air on blood red wings after the Tiger and clawed at the steel armor as laser fire cut off an arm.

"H" Ninja called with some strain in his voice. The ponies behind the demons had stopped in horror as we systematically slaughtered their shock troops. Demon H ran up and slashed the Kodiak with a wicked scimitar. Big Bear blocked with an arm, and the horrible metal on metal grating sound rang across the battlefield. Big Bear's cannon rang followed by a laser punch from his good arm, knocking it flat. He reached down and picked up the scimitar in his metal hand and swung it experimentally.

"J, help." The demon and the Tiger landed with a thud, and Big Bear lumbered over and slashed it with his new toy, eliciting an unearthly scream as the sword lit on fire. The Tiger turned and fired all of the small lasers through its head. I fired rockets and lasers at demon I, and Big Bear followed up with a cannon round and it exploded.

I took two steps forward and hit the speaker.

"Run." I fired my two lasers at the ground in front of the shocked cultists. They didn't move and one glanced to the right at nothing.

I fired. The cultists had their warning. In response the SRM’s exploded prematurely, I heard a scream, and my mech twisted to the right suddenly with a deafening clang. The missing titan appeared out of the smoke with burns across his gilded armor and he pulled his gigantic warhammer back for another swing. Warning sirens blared in my ears, someone just got through my armor. He was knocked off balance by a rainbow blur and knocked over by a purple beam. "Go Twilight!" I yelled.

The rainbow swirl started again. The titan looked angrily at me, then saw the ponies and lunged. Too late. The rainbow wrapped him up, lifted into the air, and exploded in confetti and sparkles.

Four.

My mech claimed massive damage to the nose armor. I'd have to stop blocking hits with my face. The cultists looked at us in fear. I hit the throttle and managed two steps forward before they all turned and bolted. That just left the entire regiment at the pass to get through.

"Thanks for the save Dash, can you make us a hole?"

"On it! Twilight, get your brother to move before I go through." Twilight nodded, looking strained, and disappeared. I saw a purple flash by the pass and hoped that was her. Rainbow Dash shot into the air.

"Omega to Reaper, eta three minutes. Hold tight."

"Less ta-"he interrupted himself with the roar of missile fire "-ore running. Stri-" loud bark of the autocannon "-nit with casters and titan." The autocannon fired again followed by the missiles. Reaper was already in combat, and he was still wounded.

The royal guard holding the pass was maneuvering, slowly opening up a hole in their center defense. "Atari lance, charge the pass now, best speed!"

"Through the royal guard?"

"Trust the ambassador, they'll move."

"Through the cultists?" Ninja asked as the Tiger lurched forward.

I glanced up and grinned. The rainbow contrail of Rainbow Dash was looping overhead in a great arch and coming back down fast.

"Charge, follow the hole Rainbow Dash makes."

Ninja must have looked up, because the Tiger sped up. "She's gonna put me out of a job. Cmon idiots, look at the big scary mech." The cultist casters and infantry at the rear of the funnel turned and stared at the approaching titan. Ninja chuckled "hah, suckers." Just as some of their horns started glowing, the rainbow streak shot past us. The rainbow shockwave that came with it rocked us, but slammed into the casters and tossed them to the side as the patented Sonic Rainboom hit. A white glow surrounded the royal guard and protected them. A purple glow surrounded the three of us, and I looked down to see Twilight pushing a shield spell over all of us.

"Don't stop for anything Atari."

"Roger!"

---

We tromped past the command tent. Princess Celestia looked out and took wing. She flew up to my cockpit as several guards and an aide rushed out to protest. "Chris, what's wrong?"

"Reaper is defending the hospital from something, and Atlas has disappeared. I smell our sneak attack."

"Good luck."

"Wish we could get there faster."

Celestia grinned, then dropped down to Twilight. "Twilight, I am going to transport you all to the hospital."

Twilight nodded, and Celestia looked back up at me. "Stop for a moment, Chris."

"Full stop Atari. We're getting a ride." The Tiger roared to a stop with jump jets and had to fly back to us. Celestia closed her eyes as she started to glow as bright as a star. I heard Applejack groan. "Oh not this again."

---

When the flash of light cleared we were standing by the field hospital. There were signs of Reaper's handiwork everywhere, small craters, scorched rocks and parts of ponies in bloody smears. There were giant holes ripped in the tent, wounded ponies cowering from the cloaked unicorns. However the night guard were between the tent and what was left of the cloaked cultist unicorns, sparring occasionally. Atlas himself stood facing off with the goddess of the night. Both looked tired but determined. Our Atlas stood with weapons trained on the titan, and when I looked again Atlas was bleeding and hiding his left arm.

"'Bout damn time," Reaper said.

"Harmony time," I called through the speaker. Rainbow Dash dropped from the sky and joined the other five. The glow began to surround them almost immediately.

"Not again," Atlas growled. For the first time he looked out of control and genuinely angry. He lunged forward at the circle of glowing ponies, but met with a black sphere of force, surrounding a grinning Luna.

"Every time thou willst dare to sully Our kingdom, thou willst be struck down Atlas," Luna called with an echoing bellow.

Atlas lifted his spear. "I killed your mother with this spear, little Luna-" whatever else he was going to say was cut off as Luna screamed and a black ray shot out of her horn at Atlas. Black shields formed around Atlas, but the ray struck the spear. The titan's weapon shattered. Luna yelled with the commanding boom we had heard when we showed up and Celestia had commanded everyone. "No more, Atlas!" The shout echoed off of the mountainside. She landed next to the shield, kicked it with a single hoof and it shattered like glass. She continued with slightly less shouting than before. "Our magic is that which thy forces command. Our realm is that which thou hast twisted to bring thy brothers back time and time again."

"This world is not yours to possess!" Atlas shouted, punching the black bubble surrounding Luna to punctuate, but he bounced off and stumbled. Luna gave his feet a quick blast of magic and knocked him down. She laughed darkly and stepped forward to stare down at Atlas.

Luna stood over the titan, her back to the three of us. There were a lot of ponies, ours and theirs, between us and the tent of wounded. Only Reaper looked like he had clear line of sight without obviously moving to attack. I keyed the radio. "Reaper, you got the shot?"

"If Luna gets hit, he dies."

"It is ours to rule, and thou willst be watching from Tartarus.” Luna lifted her head in a royal proclamation. “Release the elements of harmony."

"No!" Atlas screamed and reached for his neck. He yanked at a chain necklace and disappeared in a flash of light. Twilight and the others began to glow brighter, then faded as the magic stopped. Luna glared at the remaining forces.

"Thy leader hath forsaken thee. Surrender."

Spears dropped almost instantly. Two unicorns began casting a spell and Luna teleported in a black flash and kicked them to the ground. Both toppled and didn't get back up. "Thy method of surrender is foreign to us,” she said with disturbing calm, “wouldst another care to demonstrate it?" The sickly sweet threat flowed off of her tongue. The remaining cultists went from surrender to cowering. The night guard began taking prisoners.

"Damn, that's old school," Big Bear commented appreciatively. I noticed Twilight and company relatively unnerved by her display, but I didn't see any sign of Atlas.

"Shit, where did he go."

"I shoulda fuckin' offed him. He's not doing that again." Reaper sounded mad at himself.

"Later Reaper, you'll get your chance. Head for nav bravo, Atari."

"Roger!"

"Twilight Sparkle, where did Atlas go?"

"I-I don't know Omega!"

Princess Luna floated up to my cockpit, looking pissed. "The gates of Tartarus. That is his fallback plan. Make no mistake, he will unleash all of Tartarus if it means destruction of our kingdom." Her voice still echoed like she was proclaiming things.

"You're sure?"

"That talisman teleported him, and had the smell of Tartarus about it. We are certain." She looked down at the battlefield. "We are no longer needed here. We will stop him. Make haste, Atari lance, make haste for the gates of tartarus." She disappeared into her own shadow.

Twilight looked ready to panic. "No, not again..."

I ignored her for the moment. "Atari lance, back to nav alpha. We're headed east."

Chapter 13: Tartarus

The four of us and the six ponies ran down the pass. I needed to stop at the command tent. If Luna was going rogue to save the kingdom Celestia would want to know. "Atari lance, status report."

"Missile ammo at half, a.c. ammo at half, and a shiny new sword," Big Bear chuckled, "left arm armor is scratched."

"Roger."

The sword was no longer on fire. I filed that away under very important things to ask about later. Rolf was still running fine and that meant we had one assault still ready to tango.

"Both arms damaged armor, scratched everywhere, leg actuators whining about hard landings," Ninja reported.

"Roger. Take it easy on the flying."

"Left arm internals are damaged, five a.c. shots and six srm shots fired. And my left arm hurts."

"You're the best Reaper." Two mostly functional assaults, and my scout at half armor. "Half srm ammo spent, left arm critical and two ppc's dead, center armor critical," I reported, then cut my mic and sighed as i tried to figure out what our next move was.

This fight was going on way too long. The Tiger and the Kodiak were still fairly fresh though. As long as we didn't have to handle many more demon incursions we would be ok. And as long as our support ponies were still running. I keyed the speaker. "Twilight Sparkle, how are you girls holding up?"

Twilight looked up at me and disappeared in a purple flash. An accompanying flash above my cockpit told me what happened.

"I'm scared, Chris,” her voice said clearly. “The last time we saw Princess Luna like that was when we got the elements of harmony in the first place, when Luna was Nightmare Moon. She banished Princess Celestia."

"She showed me in a dream. So far it seems like she's still firmly on our side."

"Yeah," Twilight agreed after a moment of hesitation, "She's just...ruthless."

"Try not to worry about it right now. We have a battle to finish. How is the harmony spell holding up?"

"I don't know if we can do that again. It takes focus, and we are all kinda shaken now."

"Well you've been amazing so far. Tell me if you can't use the spell against Atlas and we will take him out."

Twilight looked conflicted, then nodded uncertainly. "Ok Chris."

"It's Omega until we're done with this."

"Why don't I get a code name?" Twilight asked with a bit of her snark finding its way back into her voice.

"Because you're a legendary hero. I could call you archmage."

"I'm not an archmage." Twilight seemed almost mad that I would suggest it.

"Twilight, you just teleported rather than talk louder. You are the personal errand girl for the princesses in all matters of end-of-the-world calamities. You're an archmage."

"I just studied hard."

"And I'm just a businessman." She looked rather conflicted about that too. "Look, it's just a silly name. Hiro isn't a ninja."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

Powerful, but fragile, I reminded myself. "Sorry this is so rough. We get through it."

"Thanks Omega."

"Any time Archmage."

She grinned at me through my cockpit glass and teleported off of the top of my stalker.

"You really just do that to handle her," Reaper observed.

"No different than keeping you in line."

"Ouch," Ninja butted in.

"I meant all of you."

"Ouch," Reaper mimicked.

---

We marched down the path in formation. The three minute run was nervous. I kept looking over my giant metal shoulders for demons and teleported invisible titans. The battle at the foot of the mountain was winding down. The royal battle casters and the royal guard were mopping up the remnants of the cultists, Shining Armor leading the charge. I saw two demons we had missed and one hydra that might have been coaxed back, but they seemed to have things under control. The siege line was a smoking ruin and their lauded titans were gone.

Princess Luna and Princess Celestia were both fine and at least Celestia was still fresh. Luna...she still seemed to be showing restraint and on the side of the kingdom, old speech and ruthless fighting notwithstanding. I was more worried about her being tired.

The sun was beginning to near the horizon as we got to the bottom of the mountain. The most beautiful sunset over the distant ocean highlighted the clouds. All the more impressive was knowing that Celestia was doing this herself. I glanced back as we got off the path and headed for the road east to the gates of Tartarus, to see the harvest moon beginning to rise. I came to a realization a moment later that it had only been a good seven hours since breakfast. Midnight's clock confirmed my suspicion. This place had an exact twenty four hour day.

"Twilight, what time is it?"

"Just after... noon, why..." she yelled back between breaths. Her expression slowly went to terror as she looked at the sunset.

"Princess Luna!" She began looking around madly, searching for something. Probably the princess of the night. The others caught on and started looking equally panicked.

"What's going on?"

Twilight flashed again. "Princess Luna controls the night, and she can make the moon rise whenever she wants to! She might be turning back into Nightmare Moon!" The words poured out of her rapid fire from the top of Midnight. "She wanted to declare eternal night and rule equestria and she's going to banish Celestia and throw her in a dungeon in the place that she banished her to and then she's going to find US-"

"Twilight!" I interrupted her. She startled and stopped panicking, at least vocally. "The sun is still up. Whatever is going on, Celestia is still here. Probably."

Twilight considered that, then nodded.

"So what does that mean?" I prodded her.

"Well I guess I don't know..."

"But what could it mean?"

She looked down. "The only time that the sun and moon are in equal balance is between sunset and moonrise, or usually known as twilight, so it could mean that the princesses are trying to share power right now."

"Twilight."

"Yeah?"

"No you said that right now is twilight."

"Yes. So?"

I wasn't the magic prodigy, so I didn't speculate further. The name coincidence seemed too big to be chance though. "Let's just get to the princess."

“Okay." She rode Midnight the rest of the way.

Celestia stood outside of her command tent staring wistfully at the sunset.

"Princess Celestia!" Twilight teleported off of Midnight and ran to her mentor, and they shared a heartfelt looking embrace. I didn't catch the short conversation that followed over the sounds of our footfalls. The Elements of Harmony all embraced the princess, who spread her majestic wings over the group. I stopped as close as I dared and keyed my mic.

"Celestia, your sister..."

"She is exercising her power, yes Chris." She looked past us at the sunset again. "This time she has left room for me. But now is not the time to worry about that."

She looked up at me expectantly. I nodded, grinning for a moment. This had to be what clicking felt like. Still, I knew that as an immortal sun god she was probably dumbing herself down for me.

---

I took a breath and went back to business. "Luna believes the next location is the gates of Tartarus. Atlas activated some kind of magical necklace that made him disappear."

"Which means that she was able to identify the target of the spell." Celestia nodded. "Was anypony with him?"

"Maybe a unicorn or two, and we have no idea who is there waiting."

"There is a royal guard detachment stationed at the gates for defensive purposes, but they cannot be expected to handle a titan."

Crap. "Then there's no time to lose. We will march out and meet the demons halfway."

"And leave my sister alone with Atlas? No. We all go. Colonel, you can handle the rest of the fight yourself?"

The colonel smiled and saluted. "Send them back to Tartarus, Princess."

"Yknow Omega, when the contract said 'to hell and back' I didn't think that would be literal," Reaper said.

"Yeah well hazard bonuses and all that."

"You seriously pick th-"

"Shut up." I was trying to limit Reaper’s damage to company morale, but he wasn’t having it.

"Hey guys, remember the time Omega literally got us a mission to go to hell?"

"Yeah, well I only lost an arm. And my soul," Ninja deadpanned.

"Your petty suffering amuses me, mortals!" Big Bear growled with more gusto than usual.

"Good old Rolf the Fleshflayer," Reaper laughed.

"He's really lightened up since he got possessed," Ninja added, still devoid of emotion.

I keyed the external speaker. "Celestia, my group of babies is worried about losing their souls while being driven mad."

Celestia didn't seem as amused. "I did not intend to have your unit help with this. If it is beyond your capabilities, then please hold the line here."

Reaper spoke up after a moment. "I didn't say that."

"I'm sure whatever is there is worse than what we've seen," I said, recalling the balrog we killed.

"Bullshit, can't be worse than three clan dropships unloading over the Draconis Combine capital."

"Orders?" Big Bear asked.

I keyed the external speaker in lieu of responding.

"We are contracted to defeat the titans, and we will Celestia."

The princess nodded. "Prepare yourselves." She spread her wings and began glowing like the setting sun.

Reaper sighed into the mic. "See you all in hell."

---

We found ourselves at the foot of a mountain surrounded by dark forest. The setting sun lit the area in deep red and oranges, making the already fall leaves seem that much redder. In the side if the mountain was a wide gate, still closed. Nightmare Moon stood on a ledge above the gate, staring at the surrounding area.

"Atari lance, we require your scouting expertise," she bellowed.

"You heard the princess, fan out. Ninja, take the mountain."

"Roger!"

"Kay!"

"Moving."

"Rainbow Dash, sky patrol."

"Roger!"

I moved back to the closed gates with Celestia and Luna. "He's not here."

Luna shook her head. "He is. I know not his plan."

"Could it be a feint?"

She shook her head again. "Nay, the guard can stop him, and he would know that. He cannot stay in Canterlot with the spell that Shining Armor has. All intelligence points to Tartarus. He waits for us to make a mistake."

"Like spreading our forces-" I cut myself off and keyed the radio, "Reaper, Bear, fall back, on me!"

"Kay!"

"Joining."

Ninja cut in. "Omega, movement in the grove!”

"Eyes open, might be a feint."

Rainbow Dash dropped from the sky screaming something, slammed into the Tiger, and shot back to the rest of the elements. The Tiger roared into the air from its perch, just as several large boulders from the other side of the mountain slammed into the rocks where he had been standing. Two groups of cultists charged, one from either side of the mountain. A small group of demons charged from the grove of trees. No sign of Atlas.

I began barking orders. "Atari! Demons! Elements! North side! Celestia, Luna, south! Keep them from the gates!"

The Elements of Harmony organized quickly. The six were a formidable force, and not just due to Twilight Sparkle and her preposterously strong magic. The purple bubble over the six marched forward, Applejack and Rainbow Dash keeping away those eager enough to charge in. One or two would slip by to be greeted with a giant pie to the body or the pink party cannon to the face and get thrown back. I stopped worrying about that side for the moment.

The goddesses of the sun and moon simply stood in the path if the group of cultists from the other side of the mountain. They towered over the ponies, horns glowing and wings spread, and the charge stopped. As much animosity as they had for the alicorns, they didn't want to challenge them in open combat.

The line breakers were the force of demons. A couple big ones, a couple small ones, some fliers. They walked into the open, formed ranks, and postured.

"Atari, diamond," I barked.

They were in position, but expecting a disorganized charge from the west. We were in position to defend, but tired and spread thin. This was a standoff for the moment.

"Hit the big guys before they charge."

"Marking and shared, target alpha," Ninja added. The demons popped little letters above their heads. Lasers from the Kodiak and Reaper's atlas fired. I put on a show of firing the ppc's. The lasers seemed to slightly irritate the big demons. My two ppc's hit the demon, throwing it back into the trees. Suddenly they were accurate.

"Lucky shot," Reaper said in awe.

"No kidding."

Two more demons began charging us. I fired and hit again.

"Ok, what the hell,” I blurted out.

"Oh, sure, now they go where you aim," Reaper ranted.

I shook my head. The next few shots I fired went wide, but not as wide as they had been. "Looks like I'm support again."

“‘Bout fuckin’ time,” Reaper added.

"Bravo," Ninja barked. We fired, one of my ppc's hitting with several lasers.

"Keep it up," I called. This was going too well. My attention was drawn to the grove where the rest stood waiting for something.

"Charlie."

"Eyes on the grove, they're hiding something."

As if on cue the trees bent over as two giant hands parted the grove, bending a half dozen trees like blades of grass.

A demon almost twice as tall as Atlas stepped out with a predatory grin. His red and black leathery skin was covered in scars. He was naked but for a sash of skulls he wore across his chest, absolutely nothing hiding his blister-covered manhood.

"New target," I called, "end him."

The Kodiak closed to missile range quickly, ignoring the first demon he crossed and cleaving the second in half with his flaming sword. Reaper's autocannon barked. I expected the anti tank cannon to do great things to the demon. The demon snatched the shell out of the air.

"You aren't from around here," he commented in a rich baritone, full of mirth as he examined the shell. "This might actually be fun."

I fired my two ppc's as Big Bear fired his autocannon and Reaper fired again. This time he ignored the shells and the ppc's missed.

"Die fucker," Reaper called through the speaker. The demon waved his great hand and stood up straight as a wave of magic washed over all four of us. Suddenly I couldn't move. I felt my mouth start moving and I heard myself speak. The four battlemechs stopped running.

"I will not die," I heard myself and my teammates say in unison though the speakers as the demon spoke loud enough to be heard by all, "I will live forever!" The magic left us as he laughed. "The same cannot be said for you."

I still couldn't move. Whether by magic or paralyzed by fear I couldn't tell. None of my teammates moved either. I prayed to Luna in my head. If the ponies were frozen as well, we were truly fucked.

Both the sun and the moon began to shine more brightly. I saw the glowing wings of Celestia dart over the top of us. She landed in front of Big Bear with horn glowing. I felt the fear fade from my mind as rays of the sunset pierced through the scattered clouds and into my cockpit. "Kemmeran the Destroyer, you do not belong to this realm," Celestia bellowed in her soul-voice. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment, then I realized that the demon himself was frozen. "Really Atlas, demon lords? You are desperate indeed," she called to the sky.

The response was a boulder half the size of the Tiger thrown at Celestia. The boulder bounced off of a black sphere. Luna's work, though she was nowhere to be seen. Good. I was able to move the joystick again after what seemed like an eternity. I turned Midnight to watch the sun goddess stride slowly up to the frozen demon.

---

"Really, how did he convince you that this was a good idea this time? I know your name. I rule the day in this realm now. It is you who is powerless." Celestia looked up and around at the unit of demons behind him. "Yet you are here anyway, which means...Luna, are you busy?"

The response was Atlas flying backwards away from the gates, landing and rolling in a limp heap in front of my cockpit. Luna landed gracefully next to him.

"Just a diversion, dear sister, nothing more."

Celestia shook her head. "Kemmeran, how have you fallen so far?" She seems almost genuinely concerned.

"You cost me a seat on the council, Celestia," he spat.

"And you learn from this a lifetime wasted on vengeance. How typical of your kind."

The demon glared powerlessly at Celestia. Atlas twitched as he regained consciousness. This seemed pretty well under control. I glanced back at Twilight Sparkle and company to see the six horrified by the sight.

"Elements of Harmony," Celestia commanded. "Send this lord back home." She spared a moment to glance up at my cockpit and then went back to looking around with haughty boredom.

"Atari, everyone with me?" Now I was getting that funny feeling.

"Reaper, yeah."

"Big Bear, good."

"Ninja, good."

"Eyes open, there's something else going on."

The unit gave a chorus of rogers and I went back to watching.

The swirl of magic around the elements of harmony seemed less like a jetstream and more like a babbling brook. I wondered if that was due to them getting tired or facing a mind controlling demon lord. Eventually the magic lashed out, wrapping the demon up and disappearing in the same way it had before. The demons behind him either looked terrified and froze or fled entirely.

"Yeah you better run," Reaper yelled.

The cultists were milling, frightened at a plan that had fallen so far from how it was supposed to go. Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony looked exhausted and horrified as they walked over to the princesses and the crumpled body of Atlas.

I recovered my breath and finally felt calm again. The demons had left. The titans were routed. The princesses and the elements were in good shape, if tired. The city had held.

"What do we do with the idiot?" Reaper asked over loudspeaker.

Celestia looked up and around at our group, pausing at each of us. "We will banish him. We should take him prisoner for the moment while the elements of harmony recover." She looked back down at Atlas. "I felt as if we are not done somehow."

I looked down at the motionless form of the war leader. He didn't seem in any position of power. However we had been several minutes late in arriving here and I didn't know what he had used the time to do. Celestia seemed to agree with me that there had to be more to his plan.

"Twilight," Celestia asked with all of the gentle grace I had learned she was capable of, "are you able to activate the elements again today?"

Twilight looked scared. "I...don't know princess. We feel tired."

Celestia nodded, and looked at Luna. "The Twilight gambit may be played out, dear sister."

Luna smiled predatorily. "Indeed, sister. It was quite a good move."

"Thank you. All the same, I believe it may be your move."

Luna nodded, though didn't look pleased by this news.

As the ponies stood in shock, the titan twitched. I took a step back. He turned his head, looked until he found me, and grinned.

His army had been routed. Two assassination attempts on me had failed. He was beaten and lying barely conscious at my feet, and still he smiled like he had the upper hand. I aimed my crosshairs at his smug face. I knew one way to make sure the next part of his plan didn't work.

Reaper must have seen what I saw, because the atlas twisted and fired when I fired.

The cultists jumped. The Elements of Harmony gasped as the titan's head exploded from my rocket strike and Reaper’s anti-armor round. They hid from the grisly spectacle of the titan's charred and exploded corpse. Celestia turned and glared at me for a moment, then frowned softly.

I ignored her for the moment. “You saw that too Reaper?”

“Yeah. Smile now, fucker.” I silently agreed.

As much as the chunky smear in a crater made me feel better about how Atlas and his cult had jerked me and my lance around for weeks, Celestia did not seem the type to get angry without reason. I realized I was in no position to be defensive and tried to press her for information. "What’s wrong Celestia?"

Celestia looked contemplative. "You would be counted on to finish the job. He would know that."

"Yes?"

"Killing a titan does not kill them, it merely sends them back to the earth where they may be summoned again," she explained. "This was not an issue during the battle, the summoning takes a lot of preparation and time, and with the cult out of the picture none of them would be accessible."

Shit. That would have been good to know in retrospect. "Unless he had a backup plan in place, counting on my lance being ruthless enough to kill them," I added.

Celestia nodded. "He gauged your reactions early and made plans accordingly. This must have been a possible scenario."

"Which means now he plans on his cultists summoning him."

"Or his brothers,” she added, looking around the battlefield.

"Who are also waiting to be summoned, but where could the cultists be conducting the spell from-" movement made me cut myself off mid thought. Luna looked up in alarm and stared at the gates where the scared remnants of the cultists milled.

Celestia and I looked at each other and came to the same conclusion. "Tartarus!"

Celestia ran to the elements of harmony and Luna stood instantly in front of them.

"Atari lance, prepare for assault from the gate!" I called over the radio.

The gates swung open from inside as if on cue. Luna spread her wings wide. The sun set, and the moon rose over the mountain. Darkness fell.

Kemmeran the Destroyer flew out of the gate at full speed with greatsword drawn and on fire, screaming in rage, barely visible in the moonlight. Two of our killed titans followed him, also yelling, backlit by the fires of Tartarus. The cultists rallied and charged.

Luna laughed, loud and terrible, and absolute blackness covered the area. The flaming sword went flying and impaled itself into the ground. I turned on the thermal vision. Luna stood in the middle of the field, laughing. The two titans hovered in midair. The demon looked around lost.

The demon bellowed, voice echoing in my head. "Where are you Luna!"

Luna's laughter greeted him, disembodied. "Atari, finish this," she commanded with sudden seriousness.

I shrugged, knowing now that killing them wouldn't solve this. "Atari, mark and take them out. Heat vision’s working fine."

Letters popped up over the titans.

"Alpha, demon." Hiro didn’t miss a beat.

Lasers from my three lance mates lit up the demon. I fired the ppc's. They hit the demon's head where I aimed. The body shriveled and imploded in a horrible scream.

"Bravo, titan."

The team fired again, and the ppc's hit home again. The titan went flying limply into the mountainside. "The hell?" Reaper called.

"Charlie, titan." Two more titans charged through the gate, one looking suspiciously like Atlas. I fired again and the ppc's hit home again. The second lifeless titan went flying. "What the hell," now Ninja was questioning my aim.

"Less talky more shooty," I reprimanded. Atlas must have seen Luna somehow because he looked at Luna and charged. I grinned at the giant letter E over Atlas’s head and interrupted Ninja’s target calling. "Echo."

Two more ppc's shots. Atlas went flying limply as the demon lord roared out of the gates again.

"Delta." Ninja took over again.

We fired at the second titan, again the ppcs hit home. A quick glance at my heat gauge told me that Midnight could keep this up all night. There was some serious magic bullshit going on now, but at least it was in my favor. Then the demon lord spread his wings and the world turned white.

“Arrogant mortals,” he bellowed in a voice that echoed in my head, “fear the pit lord of Tartarus!” When the night vision turned down, an army of thousands of demons had amassed on the battlefield appeared, flanking from the left.

"Demons on the right!" Ninja called.

"No, left!" Reaper insisted.

"Right side!" Big Bear called.

I could feel the panic, but fought against it. This was not only impossible, but would have been done earlier if they could. "Fall back Atari, this is magic bullshit." I watched the army approach from the left, and the Tiger and Kodiak fire at nothing on the right as they backpedaled into formation. "Luna!" I yelled into the loudspeaker.

I looked back at the mouth of the mountain where a very pissed off Atlas was emerging again. Luna stood, wings spread, horn glowing but otherwise motionless. There were about five seconds of me trying not to panic as we were assaulted by a partially invisible demon army. Then her spell released.

The demon army disappeared. The world turned black again. The demon lord floated in midair, stretched out like he was on a torture rack. Atlas floated similarly near him, and the gates of Tartarus slammed shut with an echoing clang.

Luna strode calmly up to the two, flinging aside a cultist who ran forward with a thoughtless wing. He slammed into a tree and didn't get back up. "Thy forces have had thy chance," Luna bellowed regally as the echo from the clang faded in the distance, to be replaced by the reverberations from Luna’s voice. "Thy forces are routed and we have bested thee in combat several times." She walked in a slow circle around them. "Surely our exploits must be familiar to thee, yes? We bested our sister twice." She looked at the demon, flapped her wings and hovered effortlessly in front of his face. "Thy rule is important, Kemmeran. Begone, and do not come back, lest we be less generous the next time." Malice dripped off of her words. She flicked a wing at him, and the demon was gone. She floated back to the ground with a single graceful flap, and looked at Atlas with a predatory grin. "Long have we awaited this day."

Atlas strained against his magical bonds, glaring at Luna in the darkness. "Thy last assaults took place before we truly learned our power, Atlas of the Titans. We apologize for not being able to give thee thy deserved welcome until now." Atlas floated down to Luna's eye level. "Welcome. We are grateful for the gift that thy followers delivered to this kingdom. The alien mercenaries were most helpful to us." Mockery dripped off of her sweet words.

Atlas's face contorted in rage. Luna looked faux surprised. "What is that, you say, that you are immortal and that we cannot stop you? Oh, but we have had three thousand years to consider that." She circled the captured titan like a caged tiger, impatient to strike.

"We know not what pact has been arranged to summon thee and thy brothers from thy banishment, or what deal was made to escape from Tartarus. So now we are forced to be content with binding thee. Didst thou enjoy the full fury of Midnight?" She chuckled. "The banishment protection on thy necklace was an insightful touch, but I suspect that thy newest replacement body has not had such protection placed upon it? Or should our mercenary friends force thy resummoning just to make sure?" She walked around the titan to face him again. "Twice thou hast now died. Once for our father, once for our mother. Didst thou enjoy thy trip?"

The magic that wrapped and stretched Atlas loosened and allowed him to open his mouth. "My world, alicorn, not yours! I will not let you destroy it-" he was cut off by the magic tightening again.

"So that thy rule of fear and power may begin again? No." She glared at him. "Perhaps I shall watch as the mercenaries shoot you until you do not feel like leaving Tartarus." Her perfect regal calm slowly gave way to her anger as she talked. "Perhaps I shall have you drawn and quartered over and over again!" Her shout echoed off of the hill. Celestia walked calmly over to her sister and stayed quiet. "Perhaps after a few days of watching you be murdered I shall be sated. Then we can banish you to the sun for ten thousand years."

"Let us banish him now," Celestia suggested.

"So quick to get back to control over your kingdom?" Luna snapped.

"Our kingdom, sister," Celestia reminded her quietly. The black alicorn turned to the white one with an annoyed glare.

I watched in silent horror as the two goddesses began to stare at each other defensively. I didn't like where this was going and wracked my brain for answers. As I watched Luna stretch Atlas and glare at her sister, I remembered her mentioning to me that she knew anger when she saw it. Maybe I could show her the torture she claimed she wanted, maybe it would look worse coming from someone else. I watched her glare turn to a snarl, and guessed that I didn't have much longer until this turned into a fight amongst gods. I gunned the throttle and steered over to the argument.

"Shit, commander's playing hero again," Reaper griped over the radio. I ignored him and flipped on the speaker.

"Princess Luna, do you require backup?"

"No Omega, you may stand down."

"If you need him murdered a few more times just let us know. Maybe slice his arms off and see how long it takes him to die." I fired my lasers at his outstretched arm. He moaned in pain.

Luna glared at me. "Stop!" For a moment I remembered Ponyville in flames around that face again. I took a single breath and continued.

I faked confusion. "Sorry, I thought we were torturing him."

Her expression shifted from a dissatisfied royal to rage. "You will not presume to act for us!"

I maintained the facade. "Are we killing him and murdering his cultists or not?" I took a few threatening steps toward the cowering ponies by the gate. Luna stayed silent. "Wouldn't take long."

Luna said nothing. Celestia looked up at my cockpit with a hopeful smile. This seemed to be working.

The elements of harmony walked up slowly to the scene. Twilight looked distraught. "Princess Luna, please. Stop. We’ll try again."

Luna looked down at the six and slowly calmed down. For a moment she looked smaller and less threatening. Maybe that was just the way her wings folded up. "No. No my friends, this is for me and my sister to deal with." She looked up at me. "Atari lance, guard us."

"Roger." I moved back into formation with my lance.

“You lucky bastard,” Reaper commented. I silently agreed.

Luna looked down at Twilight. "We, my sister and I, are capable of wielding the elements of harmony by ourselves." Celestia strode up to her sister and the titan. "If that is acceptable, of course."

Twilight nodded and the six looked relieved. Celestia and Luna lit their horns, and the six jewels floated up from over their bearers and began to swirl around the princess sisters.

"Begone from our kingdom, Atlas of the Titans," Luna proclaimed, and the rainbow swirl enveloped the titan. It and he disappeared.

Luna turned and looked at the remaining cultists. "Return to thy lives, ponies. Tell the tales of Atlas and the death and devastation he and his brothers brought to our world, and the compassion shown to you by the alicorns."

The strong willed ones turned and bolted, but most of the cultists cowered at the sight of Nightmare Moon commanding her own titans. She nodded slowly with a pleased smile that still managed to come off as disturbing. "Our kingdom is safe."

“Not quite, sister,” Celestia commented. Then she turned to face my lance. “It would appear that Atlas has struck some accord with Tartarus. It would be irresponsible of us to not ensure that everything is in it’s proper place before we return to Canterlot. There should be no danger, but would you accompany us into Tartarus as an honor guard?”

“Of course Your Highness,” I replied automatically. I was curious as to what lay inside the gates of hell, but I wasn’t about to go volunteering. We were all battered and low on ammo, but we still looked plenty menacing.

Celestia nodded, then looked at her sister. “Let us go Luna.” They nodded at each other, then turned toward the gates with glowing horns. A quick spell later, and the gates swung open again revealing darkness and flames within. “Twilight Sparkle, please remain here. We should not be gone long.”

“Ok Princess,” Twilight replied with some uncertainty.

My lance was silent as we marched through the gates of Tartarus. Immediately it became clear that this was less a place of eternal torture and hellfire and more of a prison. Long winding paths led to gated pits that contained various types of creatures. There weren’t as many imprisoned creatures as I had expected. The first order of business for the princesses was tending to a tied up gigantic three headed dog.

Rolf laughed into the radio. “Cerberus. Holy shit.” The rest of the lance was quiet. I stared at the greek legend as it rubbed two of it’s heads against Celestia and wagged it’s tail happily. There were so many legends on this planet. My four metal titans barely registered on the scale of ‘awesome things to be afraid of’, and I began to feel the need to leave as quickly as possible.

However, Celestia and Luna led us forward after petting and hugging the dog and scratching behind all six of its ears, assuring him that he was in fact a good boy. A nearby pit contained bound and gagged ponies and imps. Celestia and Luna greeted them with equal compassion, opening the gate and stepping inside to care for all of them in no particular order. The imps seemed as grateful as the ponies and equally respectful to the princesses. Both forces joined in the march forward.

The two titans we had ‘killed’ several times at this point stood in the path after a good five minutes of walking. They glared menacingly, but it was clear that this had not gone how they had intended it to. Celestia’s horn glowed, two nearby gates to pits swung open, and the two meekly stepped inside. The gates slammed themselves shut, with the imps we had freed scurrying forward to attend to the door and bang on the gates tauntingly.

“Oh I get it,” Reaper said with more thoughtfulness than usual, “this was a jailbreak.”

“In greek mythology, Tartarus is the prison for the titans. Looks like this place has more prisoners,” Rolf added. There were more paths than the one we were on. I wasn’t sure how deep the place went.

The end of the path led us to a larger pit. Atlas lay inside, unconscious. A small group of cultists lay on the ground outside, a couple daring to watch us approach in fear, the others simply cowering with their heads down. “Dost thou surrender?” Luna asked. The group nodded as one.

After the gate to Atlas’ cell had been checked, the princesses led us all back out. The cultists were marched out by the formerly captured royal guards. The imps returned to their duties with bowing. As uneventfully as we entered, we left the gates of hell.

Twilight Sparkle and friends looked relieved to see us emerge from Tartarus unscathed. The cultists we had captured were taken to the others, who hadn’t dared oppose the Elements of Harmony. Luna nodded calmly at her sister. “Thou were correct, of course.”

“We both were, the Midnight gambit was an excellent play, Luna,” Celestia said with a pleased smile. I really needed to ask about that later.

“If it is all the same, this reminds us too much of the past. Dost thou agree that the danger has passed?”

Celestia nodded. Luna strode forward into the clearing outside the gates of Tartarus. She spread her wings wide and her horn glowed. The moon set and the sun rose backwards, back to late afternoon. I could have sworn that she shrank and Celestia grew when that happened, but it might have just been that her armor disappeared.

Luna turned around and looked up at Celestia with fear. "I...I'm sorry." The ancient fearless warrior was gone, and in her place was a princess who had come close to atrocities.

Her older sister took a few quick steps forward and nuzzled her. "You were wonderful, you have nothing to apologize for. Let's go home." I dropped back into my seat and released a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

Chapter 14: Victory

The magic that carried us back to Canterlot mountain faded. The four of us immediately fanned out, but the battle was over. Ponies everywhere were carrying others, sometimes without stretchers. Most of the ones being carried were visibly wounded. Still, the body count looked to be fairly low and the cultist army was completely gone.

Victory. I sighed in relief and collapsed against the back of my seat again. "Status Atari."

"About one quarter ammo left, armor in the yellow, still got a cool sword," Big Bear rumbled, sounding pleased.

"Armor yellow to red, legs still yellow," Ninja answered, sounding less panicked than usual.

"One quarter missile ammo, out of AC ammo, left arm busted, red armor, and a hell of a headache," Reaper complained.

"Right arm skewered, center armor gone, four missile shots left." Once again, the single ton of missiles I bring had been just enough. Sounded like I needed to squeeze another ton of autocannon ammo into the atlas though. "Back to base Atari. Good work."

"So now we get the shit out of here, right?" Reaper asked with no small amount of annoyance. The crowd of ponies made any movement slow.

"Depends on how long it takes to research that spell. I don't want them to rush it, personally."

"Blake. Damn I hate it when you have valid arguments."

"Oh suck it up and get some rest," I replied with a grin, "we're on contract until they get us home. Go enjoy the cafeteria."

"You crafty mother fucker, Omega. I knew I still worked for you for a reason."

I chuckled, but left the mic off. That went really well. No doubt the infantry had taken some losses, but from they way they held the pass it couldn’t have been too bad. Mostly a spellcaster stalemate. The cultist’s siege and titan assault never had a chance to break the line, and the defensive nature of the mountain trail had done it’s job.

My mind whirled replaying formations and movements, trying to find some fault in our work, and I couldn’t really see any. There had been losses, but not a massacre and not a fallen city. Compared to some of my missions this was cause to throw a party. I relaxed into my chair and let Midnight’s swaying walk soothe me. I’d done my job. It was hard to tell whether the paycheck or the success meant more to me.

Shining Armor stepped in front of the Tiger with his perfect captain's glare. "A word, Atari?" I flinched by instinct.

"What do you need, Captain?"

His voice softened considerably, and I entertained the concept that he had a heart. "Thank you for bringing my sister back safely." He even almost smiled.

"I...just doing our jobs, Captain. Happy to help."

"Drinks are on me." He stepped aside and saluted.

The Tiger led us through the scattered soldiers with skill. The ponies gave us a wide berth, but cheered and saluted us as we passed. At one point I heard several things slam into the top of Midnight, only to see the Wonderbolts fly away in formation, laughing as they went.

It took a good half hour to weave our way back to the hangar, and my men were only too happy to head back to our rooms as soon as they were down the ladder. I started automatically looking over my property.

Our machines were a sorry sight. Midnight was going to need a hell of a lot of work. The engine housing appeared to be crunched in by the titan's warhammer. I was lucky that the engine was still purring along. The arm assembly might be able to be fixed, but I guessed that both of the ppc's were going to be scrap. The trident still impaled in the arm would be a cool trophy though.

One of the atlas' arms hung limply and was dented, a victim of a demon hit I didn't see I guessed. Better the arm than the engine though. I mentally crossed a spare large laser off of my inventory. The Kodiak and the Tiger would need general maintenance, and the literal blood and hell fire had marred the pristine steel armor of all four machines. I began counting out the time it would take for my maintenance crew to overhaul our machines before I could agree to a new contract.

"Omega?" A female voice echoed through the hangar. Twilight Sparkle.

"Archmage," I replied as I turned around with a ribbing smile, "You're way more competent in a fight than you let on."

She looked away, embarrassed. "That's not the first despot we've had to fight off."

I shook my head in amused disbelief. "What do you need Twilight?"

"I guess I just wanted to say thanks, and...I'm sorry. I overreacted-"

"Twilight, please, stop. You were right, and I don't want you to think we are the good guys."

"But you helped!"

I nodded. "And we were paid well, and we killed a lot of ponies today."

"Ponies that would...have killed my brother," Twilight commented quietly.

"You are welcome for the help, but...don't change, y'know?" I grinned. "Let us be the monsters."

Twilight nodded and smiled back. "I have to know...how did you know he would be able to run back from Tartarus?" Ah. She was here because she wanted to know about Atlas.

"I didn't." The look on her face shifted from friendly inquiry to horror. "He smiled at me. I figured whatever he had up his sleeve was no good. So did Reaper. I thought that would end the battle, I didn't know that was his fallback plan all along." Twilight nodded silently but didn't interrupt. "Your first impression was pretty close to correct, we are dangerous men with dangerous machines. This world is..." I looked out of the hangar at the setting sun in breathtaking blues, oranges and peach. "...really nice. I'm glad you don't need to solve problems our way most of the time."

"Sometimes we do though. I'm sorry that I got mad at you." Twilight looked up at me with shimmering eyes.

I looked around the hangar, nothing here that wouldn't keep until we left.

"I am glad that your friends made it through this safely, Twilight. Allow me to introduce you to an ancient ritual to put this horrible experience behind you."

She looked up at me as I waved for her to follow. "What's that?" She trotted up beside me.

"It's called 'getting blackout drunk'." I put a hand on her head and messed up her mane.

She looked at me in a new kind of horror. "That's dangerous!"

"Would you rather try to sleep tonight?"

The only sound was our footfalls on the hard packed dirt for a moment.

"I could just read all night instead," she replied weakly. I chuckled.

"I won't force you, but don't spend tonight alone. Besides, your brother owes me a drink, I'm sure he'd buy."

"Shiny doesn't drink," she corrected, confused at the concept. A terrible grin spread slowly across my face.

"Oh. Then you definitely don't want to miss this. You'll learn something new about your brother."

"My Bbbff tells me everything!"

I laughed. "That's what you think."

"He does!"

"If you say so!"

---

I met with my lance that evening, and the steward was kind enough to direct us to the officer’s hall. The four of us were greeted by the lounge with cheers and a clipped yell to military attention. Shining Armor stepped forward and cleared his throat. The smell of a hundred unwashed ponies and alcohol hit me once I breathed in. "Christophe Black, Atari,” Shining armor greeted us stiffly. “The Equestrian army lost twenty-three good soldiers today. We were assaulted by an army of hundreds. Your crazy plans and your terrifying war machines brought almost the entire damn Equestrian army home." His voice was manic. The room was quiet except for the captain's breathing. He raised his glass after taking a moment to compose himself. "To our lost brothers and sisters." An enterprising young unicorn brought the four of us glasses. The room drank with scattered sniffles and 'hear-hear's. "And to Atari, for bringing the rest of us back!" he shouted with the first smile he'd given me. The room cheered and rushed us, bringing hugs and shots of alcohol.

The party devolved into chaos from there, as the young officers tried to deal with the day and the old ones huddled in a corner to avoid the inevitable. I found myself next to the colonel telling him about the events of my young career and buying drinks.

The room went quiet an hour later, over nachos. Everyone looked over to the door. "The hell?" I asked. Nobody had to answer. Twilight Sparkle stood in the doorway looking very lost. At least one mug hit the floor.

"Twily?" I heard Shining Armor ask.

"Chris said I shouldn't spend tonight alone."

"We walkin in," a familiar female country twang asked from behind her, "or we gonna spend the night starin through th' windows?" Applejack unsubtly coaxed Twilight through the doorway. The room was still silent until Pinky Pie walked in.

"Are we gonna hang out with our mouths open all night, or are we gonna PARTY!"

I knew I liked Pinky Pie, but it wasn't until then that I realized that it was because she had good taste and an excellent sense of timing. "Three cheers for the Elements of Harmony!" I yelled, and the room erupted. Poor Fluttershy had to be dragged back in by Rainbow Dash.

I don’t remember most of what happened next. I learned that Shining Armor was an emotional drunk. Foxfire and I drank for a while. The colonel and I shared a shot of something that tasted very expensive. The last thing I remember was learning that the bar stocked sake, and I introduced Twilight Sparkle to sake bombs.

---

Rarity begged Hiro for another concert, which after our near-hero status was a packed house. He played brilliantly as always. He even finished off with a DC victory song that sounded amazing without hundreds of conquered worlds worth of propaganda behind it as subtext.

With the battle won, the peace delegation was sent south to the Forbidden Jungle. Twilight was of course selected, but Celestia asked for my presence as well. It struck me as an odd gesture until the actual negotiations. The country seemed more a collection of villages than a pre-industrial country. The delegates were somewhere between horrified and apologetic about their renegade royalty and the inadvertent support their kingdom had given against such a preposterous idea. Celestia called for some trade inspections but no real damages. We gave back our prisoners of war, which numbered in the hundreds, had a delightful feast, and went home.

In the end, their reactions seemed a bit hollow to me. Celestia simply nodded when I relayed my thoughts. "I thought you might say that, but they seemed to be telling the truth to me." She promised to keep her eyes and ears opened to the prospect of another attack or plot. I wondered if I had done one mission too many for the Capellans.

---

Twilight Sparkle was tasked with researching the spell to send us home again, with Princess Luna's assistance and expertise. Mostly this involved her disappearing entirely into her tree house library. Except for the day that the tree house itself disappeared, but it came back about half an hour later. Hiro busied himself with music. He was really enjoying his local celebrity status. Rolf surprised me by being social and happy, shopping around the districts of Canterlot and returning with a new bag every day or so.

Dan could never seem to take the gratitude offered to him. What I hadn't seen, and what princess Luna and several dozen soldiers related to me after the fact, was that he had crawled out of his hospital bed and convinced the pegasus medic team to take him to his atlas when the cultists showed up. The night guard held the line, but Dan pushed them back and held Atlas off until the princess arrived. This rightfully made him the personal hero of several ponies who tried everything to show the gratitude or make it up to him. Several of them actually tried worshipping the ground he walked on.

He would get up, radio me to ask if we were leaving, then retire to the cafeteria to complain to the head chef about whatever he was making that day. I finally got annoyed enough to ask Celestia to find him a job in the meantime. She suggested drilling the soldiers. Dan was a lot happier after that.

I spent my days in Ponyville reading in the library, or helping out around the Apple family orchard, or helping out in the Sugarcube Corner bakery. I spent a couple weeks in Canterlot debriefing the military on tactics and plans for future battles. I abused my position as foreign military advisor to hang out in the throne room and subtly annoy the nobles that looked like they were getting on Celestia’s nerves.

---

I was sitting in the shade of the Apple family barn drinking apple juice. As picturesque as my dream of a quiet life on a farm was, farm work was hard. Applejack and Big Mac were terrifyingly strong and outclassed me at apple orchard care, so I ended up doing mostly cleanup and repair work. Still, they appreciated the help, and I liked the simplicity of it. Apple trees don’t have political aspirations.

“Hello Chris,” Twilight greeted me from behind.
I spun around and smiled. “Hi Twilight. Too much theoretical magic research for one day?”

She shook her head. “I’ve completed the experiments I had planned for the day. I’m waiting on Princess Luna’s conclusions tonight. I actually came by to talk to you,” she said, losing self confidence mid sentence, “if that’s ok.”

I shrugged. “Sure, what’s on your mind?”

“Well, as you may know, I have been tasked by Princess Celestia to study the Magic of Friendship.”
“I’m aware.”
“I am attempting to write up a report on what I have learned of friendship from the events of the cult of the earth. I find myself...stuck.”
How...grade school. “What are you stuck on?”
“How do you deal with the possibility of losing friends and family in war?” I think my jaw went slack. “Sorry.”
I shook my head and took a drink. “No, it’s a valid question.”

She sat down in the shade. “I’ve been thinking about it since the battle. Academically I understand that sometimes political struggles come down to a show of might, but I don’t know how to deal with the concept personally.”

I nodded. “I don’t know either.”
“Really?”
I shrugged at the pony in my face. “I told you I’m mortal. Or at least implied it heavily at this point. I’ve never really gotten past losing my Commander. She was one of the first people to really show me compassion and help me in life. All I can do is follow her advice.”
Twilight thankfully sat down again. “So...what about your friends?”

“I give them everything I can. I give them the best equipment and the best mechanics we can afford. I find us missions we can succeed at. We train together constantly. After that...you just have to trust each other and trust your training. Maybe someday this will all come crashing down on me.”

“Hmm.”
I stood up. “I’ve got a cart to repair. Dwelling on it just makes things worse, I’ve found. Trust your friends and have their backs, and pray the gods are on your side.” I took a step away, turned and smiled. “Of course, you actually know they are.”

Twilight nodded, lost in thought. “Thanks Omega.”
“Anytime, Archmage.”

---

I buttoned my entire shirt off by one button one morning before I spent the day in Celestia’s court as a military advisor. I knew from the second week of this game that this alone wouldn't be enough to catch the attention of most ponies, so I put on mismatched socks, Celestia’s recommendation. I didn't iron my pants either. After parting my hair several awful ways, I finally settled on half one way, half the other. Uncomfortable, but this appeared to be the price of art.

Busting into the throne room had lost us a dozen points last time I tried it, so I settled on waving and smiling openly as I walked in to my introduction. Celestia glanced at a green earth pony in a flowered hat and almost choked on her tea when the poor mayor stared at me wide eyed. One point. The foreign dignitaries seemed to glance at me and wither huff or do nothing. Close, but I was aiming for not getting a reaction today. Two more points. Pristine Scroll glared at me. Four. I smiled back at him and walked up to the throne.

“Do I have to ask what the Twilight Gambit was,” I asked Celestia over lunch. She smiled at me.

“You probably don’t,” she said, dropping her princessly ways for the moment, “I bet you’ve guessed.

“I just don’t know how it worked.”

She nodded and took a sip of her tea. “Not all magic is directly influenced through the casting of a spell, Chris. The more...primal magics relate to the very nature of what a creature is.” She glanced out the window at the garden. “As I’m sure you’ve figured out, Twilight Sparkle and her friends are at their best when supported by our kingdom when it is in harmony. Changing the time of day to be twilight is simply a visual representation of that fact, but the effect is...shall we say, harmonizing.” She grinned at her own wordplay.

I rolled my eyes. “I get it.”

She nodded and smiled. “Five.” I turned to see two petitioners waiting for lunch to end, one of whom was scowling. I turned back with a satisfied grin as Celestia calmly sipped tea. “The fact that your machine is called Midnight is merely a representation of it’s darkness, though I suspect that you named it for the the terrifying darkness that the time implies.”

“Yeah.”

“Luna setting the sun and bringing the day to midnight was a representation that darkness was empowered. That your machine is named Midnight resonated. Bringing creatures from such a dark place as yours to a land of sunshine resulted in your machine acting strangely, according to Twilight Sparkle.” I nodded again. “Changing the time of day to Midnight represented the acceptance of such darkness. The same harmonizing effect due to your machine being called midnight took effect.” That certainly explained the PPC’s acting funny. I would like to say I suspected something like that, but hearing it explained in reality was mildly unsettling. I nodded. “We seldom manipulate the time of day to our whim, but it can be an effective tool.”

“We are so completely outclassed on this planet,” I commented as I felt the warmth of my teacup with both hands. “I’m glad this mission is over, once the creatures of this planet realized how little we can do with magic, we’d be worthless.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Celestia admonished. “You were instrumental in the protection of this kingdom, and with support could continue to be.” I smiled at that.

“High praise, coming from a sun goddess.”

“It should be. Three.” She gave me another of those unreadable smiles and the Princess Celestia was back for the day.

“Commander Black,” said a dark brown pony with a heavy accent, “I feel that I would be remiss if I did not inform you that in Equestrian culture, it is seen as a sign of good manners to wear matching clothes in the presence of the princesses,” he said with a very snooty and noble air. I nodded and apologized as I ‘noticed’ what I had done. Damn, three. I told her the socks were too much.

---

"The spell itself isn't inherently evil," Twilight blurted out from just behind me. Considering I was walking out to the garden and not aware she was even in the castle, and hadn’t seen her in weeks, I replied with an "ok?"

She trotted up to me. "The cross realm summoning spell-that’s what it is, by the way. The focuses were blood magic based, which is an effective source but destructive by its nature. The focus doesn't have to be blood magic!"

I blinked. "Ok."

"Focus substitution is well documented, thanks to the book Starswirl the Bearded wrote on his research on the subject. A properly channeled spell could use appropriately charged focus gemstones, so now all we have to do is find the right magic gems capable of handling magic for cross realm transportation!" She waited a moment and stared at me blankly. "Isn't that good news?" She asked, confused.

"I still don't understand magic, Twilight." She would do this to me every week or so. I would try to gently remind her that she had dedicated her life to mastery of a subject that didn't exist in my world.

She looked away, embarrassed and saddened. "Sorry."

"It's fine, I guess that means you're closer to finishing the spell?"

"Yeah, we need...magic gems that can teleport ponies."

"Like the elements of harmony?" I asked, confused.

Twilight's face contorted three different times. "Oh my gosh I didn't see that," she said quietly. "Gotta go!" She shouted as she disappeared in a purple flash.

I rubbed my face and walked out to the garden.

---

The last morning started with a knock on my castle suite door. I threw on a shirt and stumbled to the door. A palace guard stood at attention outside. "Her royal highness, Princess Luna." He stepped back out of sight of the doorway and revealed a tired looking princess.

"Good morning Princess, please come in."

"Thank you Commander."

She stepped in, the door closed and we both relaxed and sighed. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"I thought that I would stop by in the flesh. Dream goodbyes never seem real enough." She was still her enigmatic guarded self, but I could tell there was genuine sadness in her eyes.

"Ah, I take it then that the spell is done."

"Indeed." She looked out the window and blinked with tired eyes. "We - I - wanted to thank you personally for your help."

"I am happy to have helped, Princess Luna."

She shook her head with noticeable exhaustion. Twilight had been looking particularly baggy eyed lately, I assumed the two of them had been in constant all night research sessions. "The events of your arrival were not on your terms, yet you have helped this kingdom anyway. Moreover, I want to thank you for helping me to keep...perspective," she said carefully.

Realization dawned on me and I flashed back to the last moments of the battle. "With Atlas." She nodded but stayed quiet. "Keeping a level head about that shit is hard. We try to watch each other. You're welcome."

"You see me as an equal?" She asked with no small amount of amusement.

After having gotten used to being myself to her in my dreams, I didn’t even think of the faux pas I was committing. "I think we're all equal out there. We get pissed off, and that gets you killed. You have to watch out for your lance mates."

It was Luna’s turn to grin. “Then, as one of your lance mates, I would be remiss if I did not caution you against your own anger.”

I grimaced at that. “So you did notice.”

“An executioner’s blow is a hard thing to miss.” She looked at me, studying my expression. “We have something in common, Commander Black,” she said with a brief glance into my eyes and my soul before gazing back out the window at the morning sun and the garden below. “Such anger can consume you.” I didn’t have a good response for that. “I would feel terrible to be saved by a friend, only to have them traverse the same path of darkness that I had.”

“Well, since I can’t use magic, that shouldn’t be a problem,” I joked.

Luna grinned briefly. “It is not magic to which I refer, Commander. The emotion itself is strong enough.” She sighed quietly. “As your lance mate, I implore you to find a way to deal with your emotions, and not shove them aside.”

“How do you manage?” I’m still not sure how serious I was when I asked this question. It felt right, almost placating. The truth behind my words unnerved me.

“I am surrounded by friends and family who truly care. You have much the same in your lance.”

“I suppose I do. I will keep that in mind, Princess.” I tried filing it away along with the other wayward thoughts of how this mission had gone, temporarily more concerned with dealing with Princess Luna.

Luna smiled a tired, real smile. Not the plastered on royal smile. "It has been a pleasure, Commander Black. Good luck to you and your unit in the future."

"It has been a pleasure working with you, Princess Luna. Thank you." I bowed.

She nodded and yawned. "We shall be asleep when you are sent off. Please do not see this as a slight."

"Of course not. Good day, Princess Luna."

She slipped out the door and was gone. The guard stood awkwardly in the hallway at attention.

"Commander. Your unit's presence is requested at ten o'clock in front of the palace."

"Understood. Thank you, dismissed." He saluted and marched off. "Ticket home is ten am, Atari," I radioed.

Dan got on one second later. "Thank fuck."

---

Twilight looked excited as I walked down the castle steps. That was new for me. "We found the intermediary target point! That was why the spell made no sense!"

"Okay?" She reached up to hug me. Surprised, I hugged her back.

"The spell that summoned you reached out to the realm of nothing. I don't know why, but that's where you were. I think we found your boat too, at least I guess that's what that thing is..."

It took me a moment. "Oh, our dropship.” It took me a moment longer than I’d like to admit to come to the next conclusion. “Oh shit, I hope the captain is alive.”

She brushed off both my profanity and concern in her excitement. "Oh yeah, he's fine. But that's how you got here!"

"You're sure?"

"Pretty sure, it must have been a two phase shift-"

"No I mean that the captain and crew are still alive."

"Yes." She looked almost annoyed. "Why?"

"Because they've been trapped in the middle of nowhere with no food for two months."

"Oh. Oh since you left...no, they all seemed pretty alive when I talked to them."

"You...talked-" The number of problems she had just brushed off would take me years to explain.

"Well I had to test the spell to make sure it would work, I'd be a pretty lousy element of magic if I didn't send you to the right place." She rolled her eyes and smiled.

"Ok. Any idea how to get our ship out of the...what, realm of nothing?" I could almost follow her descriptions of spellcraft now.

"Yeah, that's part of the spell," she said, slightly annoyed. I shrugged. "Once we were able to trace the spell back to your ship the whole spell became obvious. I don't know what you were doing when the spell went off, but it turned your ship into a beacon, and we can reverse that to get you back home!"

"Great!"

"It's just a little disappointing that one of the hardest magical challenges I've had to solve will be taking friends away." Her smile faded a little and she looked away.

I glanced over at Rolf and Dan sharing lewd humor with the palace guard. "For the sake of Equestria, it's probably for the best." She laughed awkwardly.

"Yeah...ok." We smiled at each other in the closest approximation of friendly comfort we had since I had arrived. But I knew there was a schedule to keep.

"So do we get our machines and put them in a circle, or..."

Twilight scratched the back of her head and looked away. "Actually first there's a-"

"PARTY!" Pinky Pie screamed as a cannon went off and sprayed streamers over a now - erected gazebo in front of the palace steps.

I mentally facepalmed. I really should have seen that one coming.

"You don't think we'd send war heroes away without a bit of recognition, do you dear?" Rarity chided. Palace staff were bringing tables and food out.

"No, I guess I didn't."

"Alright, palace catered lunch!" Rainbow Dash cheered. She and Dan fistbumped in celebration.

The guys didn't complain at the award ceremony or the lunch that followed. Several soldiers who had distinguished themselves were given medals of honor, then we were as well. It was all pretty standard, but a very nice gesture. The pallets of gold bricks that came out afterwards made me sigh in relief more than I'm willing to admit. The court scribe handed me a sealed scroll. I assumed it was an invoice or a contract and put it into my pack.

"Ok…” Dan said from beside me slowly and quietly, “I know I said that wasn't enough money, but holy shit that's a lot of gold."

"Well. Now I know what that looks like," Hiro said in quiet awe.

"Close your mouth dear, you're drooling," Rarity said quietly to Dan. He did not.

Celestia stood on the steps. "As a reward for performance above and beyond the call of duty, Dan Wilks is awarded all of the gold bars he can carry at once!" Dan's eyes flew open. I caught the hint of a mischievous grin on her face, then it was gone. Another pallet of bricks sat on the steps in front of her.

He jogged over. The first two bricks were lifted easily enough. He tried stacking them in one arm to reach for a third, and did so awkwardly. He struggled for the fourth as the pile started to slip.

"Ok these things are heavy and awkward and that might not have been a good demand in retrospect goddammit Chris don't stand there fuckin help!" In my defense I was too busy laughing. Celestia gave her best offended royalty gasp, and Dan apologized as the gold bars dropped. He went back and tipped six of them into his arms after some effort, and waddled down the steps with strain on his face to laughter and cheers from the crowd.

There was more laughter when he got to the ladder of the Atlas and was met with an obvious problem. He gave the crowd a shit eating grin and dropped the bars, then started climbing.

When the Atlas started up thirty seconds later and walked over to the pallet the laughter stopped, but then everyone cheered when he picked up the rest of the pallet. The speaker on the atlas clicked on. "Ok, let's go."

Princess Celestia laughed and shook her head. "Please come back down, we have a gift for you all," she called up to Dan. The Atlas walked back to the formation and carefully set the pallet down.

Once we were all in person on the steps Twilight and Celestia addressed the crowd.

"My little ponies, it is with mixed feelings that we send these heroes home today. While they were not asked to come, they were instrumental in the defense of Canterlot and all of Equestria. As a token of the thanks of the kingdom, we have provided you a gift. Twilight?"

Twilight's horn lit up, and a small ornate box floated up as she spoke. "We, that is Princess Luna and I, learned something from the research we did on the spell that was used to summon Atlas and yourselves." Four simple jeweled pendant necklaces floated out of the box. "We were able to learn how to cast the spell that enchanted Atlas' necklace. This necklace should protect you in case something goes very wrong. The spell is released when it breaks, so it will only work once. However, it will teleport you to safety." The necklaces were floated simultaneously over our heads.

I stared in awe at the opal embedded in the gold pendant. "Where?"

"Here, of course. Well not 'here' here, since Canterlot is protected against long distance translocation magic, but to the gate of Canterlot. You know...in case riding out of your mech through glass on a rocket before it explodes doesn't work."

I looked at her and smiled, too speechless to say much of anything else.

"Thank you," Hiro said in awe.

"You sure this will work?" Dan asked.

"You ever gonna need it?" Rainbow Dash asked, challenging.

"No."

"Then it doesn't matter."

"Please thank Princess Luna for us," I said. Hiro and Rolf nodded. "You realize you'll be stuck with us if a mission goes badly."

"That's the idea, partner," Applejack said with a grin.

"If there are no other objections then," Celestia said while pausing to look around, then nodded, "please return to your machines. Thank you Commander Black, Atari Lance."

"You are welcome, your majesty. Mount up Atari."

We all climbed back into our mechs. My computer blared warnings about broken parts and missing weapons. I saw Rainbow Dash fly up to the cockpit of the atlas and kick the window. Dan gave some kind of gesture in return, I assumed obscene. The army stood at attention, the officers saluted. The six elements of harmony gathered, started the swirl of magic, and all ten of us disappeared.

---

Vlorp

---

My vision didn't seem to recover until Twilight lit the room up with magic. The six ponies looked around in awe at the battlemech bay of our leopard dropship. I moved to set the radio to the dropship command channel. "Omega to Alex, Omega to Alex, come in." The hangar bay lights came on as my radio broadcast out. I heard the collective gasps of awe from the elements.

"Omega to Alex, you there?"

"Blake's blood Omega, what the hell is going on?"

"We're going back to the inner sphere."

"Right, like the purple unicorn I hallucinated earlier told me about."

"Yeah I know, just get the crew ready for jump."

"Blake, you think he'd never seen a talking pony before," Reaper joked.

"Ok Omega, you're the boss. Hope you got paid ‘cause we're two months behind." I glanced at the two pallets of gold bars in front of us.

"Oh, we got paid."

"Roger." The klaxon and spinning warning lights started up, and the six ponies froze in fear.

"Don't worry Twilight, it's ok,” I called through the speaker. “The captain is just warning the crew to sit down so you can cast your spell."

"Sounds more like we're about to explode," Dash argued with wings spread.

"It wants to be sure it has your attention."

Dash muttered something and stomped a hoof. When the siren stopped Pinky Pie lifted Fluttershy back to her feet and Twilight closed her eyes.

One much less violent Vlorp later, our weight shifted.

There were a good ten seconds of silence, followed by the roar of maneuvering thrusters. Our weight shifted back to up being up.

"Omega! We're in Outreach orbit!" The captain was bordering on hysterical. I wondered how many months of vacation I was going to have to give the crew. I could hear the cheering of the cockpit crew in the background.

"Glad to hear it Captain. Take us home, we've got a lot of work to do."

"Roger Omega."

I keyed the speaker again “It worked Twilight!” I didn't see the ponies when I looked down.

"The fuck did they go?" Reaper asked at about the same time.

"Dunno. Secure mechs for landing. Alex, get me a loading crew here on the double, we have cargo."

"Roger Omega."

I parked Midnight and shut her off, patting the worn command couch as I left the cockpit. As I climbed down, it was obvious that the ponies were gone. Our gold was still on the floor, I still had an ornate trident sticking out of Midnight's arm and an angry griffon glare painted on my crumpled nose. The Kodiak was still holding a sword. My three lance mates stood next to me quietly, staring at some twenty million in gold. Dan fumbled awkwardly at his new necklace before tucking it into his collar.

"They were good folks," Rolf said quietly, "gonna miss 'em." He sighed, then looked at me as stoic as ever. "Orders?"

"Prep for landing. I'll try to soothe over the DC ambassador but that shouldn't be too hard, the jumpship lost a passenger. I'll have a contract from someone in a few months. Bonuses should be in your accounts in a couple days once we get this stuff verified."

"Understood." He turned and strode out of the hangar.

"Fuckin magic ponies," Dan cursed as he walked off. Most of his usual gusto seemed drained.

"He's taking it hard," Hiro commented with some genuine concern once Dan was out of earshot.

I pulled my pocket computer out. "You have no idea." I pulled up the picture of him and Rainbow Dash passed out on each other. Hiro cackled loud enough to echo in the hangar.

We talked about the country we'd worked for and the friends we had made for a few minutes as we looked over the pallets of gold bars. I stayed silent about the emptiness I felt due to their sudden departure, but Hiro seemed to feel it too. The absence of a goodbye was the thing we both refused to acknowledge. The conversation stopped awkwardly, and he gripped the new necklace he wore with primal fear.

"You doing all right?" I asked.

"Yeah. I get to go back." He smiled at me with a faraway look in his eyes as the loading crew walked in and about tripped over their jaws. Then Hiro grinned at me. "Good luck Commander!"

"Thanks." Always Commander when there’s work to be done.

"Commander," the loadmaster called as his team started securing the pallets, "Is this important?" He held another scroll up.

I nodded. "I'll take that. Bonuses for everyone by the way." I smiled and headed to my room to the sound of cheering. I had scrolls to read.

Epilogue

Canterlot castle, the Kingdom of Equestria
From the office of Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia

Dear Christophe,

When you live to be more than a thousand years old, you come to hate long goodbyes. I trust that my send off was not too cold as a result. I shall miss your company. It is too easy for many of these ponies to see me as the infallible sun goddess. In some ways, it is necessary for the kingdom to run that they only see that. It was wonderful to have the luxury of opening up to you for the short time we had.

Know that you and your lance have the personal thanks of myself and my sister for your help in protecting our kingdom. I trust that your payment will be more than adequate now. The request really gave the royal academy a challenge. Gold has not been in demand in that quantity for many years. The look on the head mage's face alone was almost worth the order.

I have no doubt that Atlas will return again. He is too clever to be pushed away forever from the land he calls his. However with Luna prepared and by my side I think we will be better equipped to deal with him in the future.

He mentioned calamities. An old friend over a thousand years ago found out that too much transformational magic would tear the land apart. Creating a kingdom of harmony has been a balancing act between magical peace and reality. Twilight Sparkle's research is proving insightful into concepts that my friend could only scratch the surface of. I have no doubt that she will be able to keep our kingdom peaceful for a long time to come.

I sincerely hope that I do not see you again, for that will mean you have a long and successful career. If we should meet again, you will be welcome in Equestria, but I may not allow you to leave again.

I wish you all the peace and harmony that your career will allow.

Sincerely,
Her Royal Highness
Princess Celestia

---

Dear Commander Christophe Black,

I have written this letter in case the cross null realm mass translocation spell has the side effect that I fear, which is that you will be transported to the right place while my friends and I will be transported back home. The final burst should return you to your 'home', but it may do the same to us as well if I cannot focus the spell well enough. In that case we won't get to say goodbye. I find that while a letter can sometimes be a poor substitute for actually having your friends nearby, it is much better than nothing.

I did not expect to enjoy working with you. However I have come to think that we share the same pleasure in a plan organized and executed correctly. I of course did not enjoy the battle, but as you so bluntly put it, war is hell. I could never see myself in your line of work, but now I think I might understand how you enjoy the planning part of it.

- - -
So, Twilight has been silent for ten minutes so far. What she means is that she dictated a letter while I wrote it. Hi! I just wanted to say thanks for showing me your awesome war machines, and for keeping Twilight, our friends, the Princesses and the Kingdom safe. Good luck with your other missions!

-Spike
- - -
I have learned much about friendship in the past years. I try to learn about friendship from my experiences. My friends here already taught me that those with different outlooks can still be your friends. As much as that seems to be the lesson here, I think there is more to it.

I could not do what you do as a job. However I am very glad that you and your friends were here to help us. Maybe we did not always see eye to eye, but I can now imagine the situation in which I would be relieved to see your company march into town. Is it awful of me to not want to see that situation arise again? Princess Luna told me that you once referred to your machines as rampaging monsters to be unleashed when all other options had been spent. As relieved as I am that you were here to help, I hope we never need you again.

That makes me sound like I would never want to see you again, which is not true now. In our quieter discussions, I could see you as a friend but I could not see past what you called a profession. In the chaotic moments of fighting, I despised the bloodshed but I began to take comfort in your experience and leadership. Perhaps if you had not been summoned by a titan cult the issue of your profession would have never come up. However, I learned to appreciate how being good at your profession was something we could benefit from specifically because of the frankly horrific circumstances of your arrival. I suppose the lesson there is that different situations can bring out different strengths in your friends. I didn't like how we met, but I am still glad we met, and if we had not met that way I might not have liked you. I feel the subject requires more research.

Thank you for helping to save the kingdom. I hope that if we do meet again, we have more time to talk of nuclear physics over tea.

Your friend,
Twilight "Archmage" Sparkle