Celestia came to a halt, a microphone blocking her way forward. Human reporters had cut her off. "Pardon."

"If we could have a moment of your time?" asked the hopeful reporter. He held the microphone a bit under her mouth, waiting to catch her words as if they would fall into it. "I've heard that you aren't entirely pleased with the actions of the American military."

Her horn glowed, gently pushing the microphone back. "I'm sorry, are you an immigrant? If so, welcome to Equestria."

"No, no." He waved his free hand. "Just a visitor, with questions. Do you have any opinions?"

"It is not my place to muse over the actions of my allies with random people I don't know, Mister...?" She examined the eager human. "I really should be going."

"Just a moment of your time, if I could."

Guards moved forward, brushing the human back and away. Barring Celestia's way was not an acceptable thing.

"What would you say is your #1 weakness?" The middle-aged man raised his eyes to the applicant, examining them intensely.

That applicant had a glossy fur coat. "#1 weakness, yes, yes, hmm. I get serious serious when people are in trouble. Some are good at being happy serious, but I am very serious serious until the trouble is gone." The otter scratched at his neck. "Good at swimming, rescue. Get job?"

Hiring an otter as a lifesaver promised some advantages, but... "Not quite yet. Do you understand this is a full time position?"

"Forty hours." The hopeful otter bobbed his head. "Every seven days."

"Per week."

"Yes, that. I can do that."

He had a lot of hopeful applicants to sift through, though at least he was down to interviews. He was close to finishing that chore. "Are there days of the week you'd prefer or cannot work?"

Rason leaned forward as another man whispered softly to him. They had ascertained who had been taken and where, but finding them was a whole other trick. While the interior of America had plenty of chances for observation and recording, foreign points of interest were very lacking. There was a report of a native they were supposed to see, that they had not showed up for.

They had a several hour gap where they had vanished in, and about half a city in which it could have happened. It wasn't terribly promising. All the force in the world meant nothing if you didn't know where to direct it.

The bears of the state and community were all contrite and properly upset that something had happened to one of their guests, but offered no clues that led them closer to getting their people back or punishing the people that took them.

It was unfortunate. It was a tragedy. It was also something he really had nothing to do with until the kidnappers did something to tip their hand and give them a hint to work off of.

"Is it any wonder violent crime is on the rise?" The bird clacked her beak, looking across the well-appointed chair at a lizard, a bear, and a pony. "The humans deal with everything with their cannons, so anyone else that thinks they might cross them has to be ready, and then others want to be ready to deal with those, and it ripples on." She fluttered her finger in a wavy motion.

The pony's ears twitched up briefly. "My friend was mugged by someone using them. They were never so frightened for their life. Remember when the worst you had to face was an angry thug with a sword or a dagger? Now we all live one mistake away from our last..."

The lizard tasted the air with a soft hiss. "I prefer to not be accosted at all, but it has become more dangerous than ever to be so. They seem empowered by the weapons, as if they think they can do anything... And the Americans shoot them without hesitation. How do they have any crime?"

"I don't understand that." The bear rubbed behind her head with a large hand. "If they shoot anything they don't like, you'd think they'd run out of things to not like pretty fast, so they'd be peaceful, but I hear they have plenty of crime. Are they not scared of their own weapons? They should know better than anyone else how deadly they are."

"That's the problem." The pony nodded softly. "You can't reform with a hand cannon. Princess Twilight did so much without one. Imagine if she ran around with hand cannons instead? Our history would have played out pretty differently."

The bird suddenly musically trilled. "That would be an interesting, and sad, revision. Old ruler back from the moon? Shoot her until she stops being a problem."

"Luna!" squeaked the pony as if that possible past was about to come to being.

"We did it." All eyes were on a small little bulb. It glowed an off-purple light. It looked like a little LED, but it was not one of those. "Behold!"

Sunburst tilted his head at the light, considering it. "That... is amazing!" And why wasn't it? It was a magic glow, created by electricity. "Human magic." He clopped his hooves softly in approval. "Can you change the color?"

The purple shifted to a red, then an orange and off to yellow, transitioning from one to the next in smooth gradients. "It produces no heat, fairly equivalent to LED lighting, with greater scaling. Imagine if we made a monitor with these..." Appreciative noises came from around the room as folks considered how that would work.

"Did you get the control hardware small enough for that?" asked Sunburst. The display model there didn't show the controls behind it.

"Well, no," admitted the first man with a shrug. "But we will, given time. Still, that's not our problem, exactly. We want magic, that's what we'll keep working on. Next step, levitation. If we can get that going before the end of the year, we'll go down in history."

"Pretty sure that happens even if we don't get it by the end of the year," argued one of their coworkers. "Not that I'm against getting it done today, but I doubt that."

The chairman stepped calmly onto the podium. "Good people, thank you for coming today." He looked over the many representatives gathered. It was almost as large as the summit that had created the coalition he led. The humans were not invited, or their allies. "I am pleased to display some of the things we have been promising."

Eyes were locked on him, when they weren't trying to see past the minotaur. Behind him was a great curtain that promised to hold secrets. Secrets that would soon stop being that.

"As you are all aware, we have led the way in technological innovation, and this hasn't changed. But you don't get to do that without the ability to see a good thing when you encounter one." He gestured to the right where an image of New York city appeared. "America is full of new ideas and ways of thinking, and we have been dutifully incorporating their works, improving them."

He leaned forward, hands gripping the rail of his podium. "While sometimes made with a mad sort of genius, they are all curiously off-kilter. They were not made for this world. It fell on us to fix that. I present, the Paladin!" With a sudden drawing of the curtains to the left and right, a curious craft was revealed. It had three great engines in a triangle with short wings.

It was made of gleaming metal, with bright bold red and purple lines. It was sleek and sculpted to look like it wanted to cut through the air. "At top speed, it can produce a brilliant wash, but it can also not to increase stealth abilities." Polite applause began. While some ponies could go that fast, and some human crafts go fast enough to trigger the prismatic display, the thought of a local craft that could do it? The people looked impressed.

"It produces minimal heat, and its shape creates barely a shadow when looked for automatically." He reached out a hand and the prototype was pushed forward until it bumped gently into his hand. "Fast, subtle, and, best of all, fast to make. But that's before I get to the weapons."

He had their complete attention, just the way it should be. "One fully independent turret." A small pod circled around in a full 360 degrees at the bottom of the craft. "Also equipped with cameras and a suite of sensors, making it capable of intelligence gathering." Their applause was music to his ears. He waited for it to quiet before he pushed on.

"One missile pod, capable of launching prismatic-speed munitions."

With a sharp whistle, the pod near the top of the craft fired on the crowd. The crowd became a mess of panic before it exploded, making a picture of a flexing minotaur over everyone. "Have no fear, we wouldn't harm our honored guests. This is a shared innovation. As members of the initiative, this is our defense."

Uneasy applause began, people recovering from the shock of being fired on, even if it was a harmless pyrotechnical display.

"And that's only the first thing we have to show. Now, I feel I should note, they are not idle." He leaned towards them all, his hands tight. "They are refining their tools for destruction, and if they attack, it will not create whimsical images in the air, I promise. You've all heard how they've treated anyone who they don't agree with."

Every time the humans had rushed into a situation with hostiles, dead bodies had been the result. A lot of dead bodies. Some of them human, most of them not. "And they still outnumber us. It's time to tilt the scales back in our favor. I present personal protection." The prototype plane was pulled back and the curtains closed, only to open a moment later with a long rack of clothing.

"Soft, warm, and stylish; nocreature says you can't look good while staying safe." He suddenly thrust a finger at another minotaur. "Shoot me!"

"Yes, Sir!" He saluted sharply before raising a hand cannon at the chairman and shooting him dead center in the chest.

The chairman staggered back, ears pinning back across the room at the loud bang. "I'm fine, fine... Behold!" He gestured at his chest that was not gushing blood. With a firm shake, a bullet fell free to the ground. "With impact dispersing technology, we take their tiny cannons and make it as if you were hit with a big fast pillow instead."

He held up a finger. "Warning, separate head gear is recommended in dangerous situations. The face of the average creature is too.... intricate for this to work in exactly the same way."

The applause returned, far more heartfelt that time. Defense against the human cannons was almost too good to be true.

Surely their minotaur allies had come through for them.

Perhaps they had a chance, if push came to shove.

"Sir." Rason looked up at who was talking to him. "A foreign agent just called in about the minotaur tech demo."

Rason held out a hand and an envelope was placed in it. "Thank you. Let's see what the cows are mooing about." Minotaurs did not enjoy being called cows. That was their problem. He undid the seal on the envelope and began reading eagerly, but that smile faded a bit.

They had managed that much, so quickly? Still, even if a given defense member could take a few more shots without being incapacitated, there were few scenarios that came to his mind immediately that would make them not have an advantage, still...

If they could get that armor...

Bullet proofed soldiers that were also not weighed down by heavy kevlar plating? Who would complain about that? Certainly not the soldiers.

Author's Notes:

Plenty of foreign shenanigans going on in this chapter. Also hello from Texas!

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