Sao Paulo.

Prior to the Event vanishing away most of its population, the city was by far the largest urban center in South America, edging out the nearest concurrent by a few millions that brought its entire population just over the twelve millions mark.

That, in turn, came with the obvious fact that the area it covered was pretty darn big. Miles upon miles of concrete skyscrapers extended as far as the eye could see, left decrepit without anyone to maintain them, broken shells with hollow windows that whistled whenever the wind would blow through the deserted streets. Though it did have its parks, now turned into lush jungles much like those surrounding the city that were slowly starting to gain an edge over the concrete jungle, Sao Paulo had never been known as a particularly green city.

That didn’t help with retaining what survivors reappeared in its territory.

While cities were neat to salvage from, food supplies could only last so long, and after that a city that large might as well be called a desert. Former citizens fled to the outer reaches of the city, all of them now turned into a population mostly made up of Abyssinians and Ornithians. It was just easier to cut down an area of the jungle that surrounded the city than it was to make farmland out of concrete. Which wasn’t helped by the extreme levels of pollution caused by failing factories and leaking storage tanks all over the urban landscape.

Of course there was also the whole problem of the wildlife and some monsters that had appeared all over the place. Then again, someone claimed a cave troll had taken residence inside the cathedral, so it wasn’t like the deep city was safe either.

Few survivors contested its grip on the area, which eventually led the entire population of about three hundred returnees to raise a few farmsteads in the periphery of Sao Paulo, with a hub to link them all together.

That hub was the town of Santos on the isle of Sao Vincente. Because the thing with Sao Paulo was, despite being a coastal city, it wasn’t actually connected to the sea, instead being sheltered from the South Atlantic by a row of jungle-covered hills.

Santos used to be the port that connected the megacity to the rest of the world through the relatively sheltered bay and the inlets that surrounded the island and provided multiple coves for ships to dock at. Now, it served as the trading hub for the relatively isolated farmsteads and communities that had sprouted around the region, allowing them to trade the food and basic goods they produced for salvaged goods and high tech gear obtained by the salvage teams that risked venturing into the deep city.

Neither were particularly safe enterprises.

Most of the activity in Santos centered around Serrat Mountain, a little hill that overlooked the city and provided a vantage point over the bay and the harbor. There, a team consisting of a couple policemen led by a former GATE operative (the local BOPE offshoot, a special operations team) had converted a sanctuary into a clinic for the local population, while taking over that radio station that shared the summit with it to manage affairs and host markets.

They did their best to keep things bearable for the population and ensure their safety. It wasn’t easy, they may have had a radio relay that allowed them to stay in touch with all the farms and the salvage teams in the deep city, but that didn’t make protecting a vast area with a very limited team any easier.

Captain Cordeira may be from GATE, but he was just the one spec ops operative leading what amounted to traffic controllers with guns. Which was how the middle-aged black Abyssinian found himself exchanging a few words with a bedridden, recently wounded colleague. All thanks to that cave troll near the cathedral.

He would make it, but wounded personnel didn’t make his already stretched team’s workload any easier.

And it wasn’t going to get better.

A few days prior, during market hours, a pair of Argentinians – a cat with a bad leg called Espinoza and a centauress by the name of Adriana – had made an appearance among the crowd and caused quite a stir. They didn’t speak Portuguese (and neither did Cordeira speak Spanish), but according to a colleague they had started claiming a great devil was at large in the far south and had killed Espinoza’s shipmates.

Because apparently he was a fisherman.

And a fisherman that had been sooo spooked by whatever he witnessed that he decided to leg – with a broken leg no less- it all the way from Tierra del Fuego to friggin’ Brazil to warn all the survivors he crossed path with.

Of course nobody believed them. Who would?

Cordeira had the troublemakers carted off to the sanctuary where they kindly gave Espinoza some treatment for his bad leg and a polite but firm advice that maybe he should check out further north if people cared about his so-called great devil.

The other cat had protested at first, and the GATE operative had almost been tempted to knock some sense in the fisherman before the centauress he was traveling with (or on rather) got him to leave them alone.

They gave them a map, a Portuguese-to-Spanish dictionary and some medicine; and then the duo was off, out of their sight and out of their mind.

But now the guys at the radio relay reported they were short a trawler. One of the fishing boats they had on hand hadn’t come back from its nightly trip, and it had so far failed to report back on any frequency.

They attempted to hail it on all frequencies they knew of (which wasn’t much, none of them were trained radio operators), but were only met with static. A couple hours later, a storm rolled in and killed any hope of finding their fishermen again.

Outside the windows of the radio relay, the trees shook and bent under the wind, some loose leaves flying off through the air and whipping against outside walls as a market stall collapsed in a mess of corrugated steel.

The sky rumbled above them, flashing once with a bolt of lightning that impacted their radio tower in a shower of spark that immediately shorted out their whole electric installation, grounding or not. Some cries of surprise echoed around the relay, both from the policemen and from the few salvage teams that had taken refuge there for the night.

Cordeira didn’t pay them attention. He had spotted something out in the bay for a brief second when lightning pierced the darkness. He reached for a pair of binoculars they kept hanging from the rafters. Maybe that was their lost trawler…

“Esse não é o nosso barco...” The dark-furred Abyssinian mumbled in realization.

Indeed, that wasn’t a trawler at all. What he was seeing slowly steaming in their bay looked like a warship, and an old one at that, except…

The rust, the sealife, the purplish goop clustered around her midsection… there was something inherently wrong with the damn ship, something that brought on a feeling of deep-seated dread in his gut.

Along with the flaming pony-thing that was looking right at him from the wheelhouse. GATE operative or not, he felt his heart skip a beat when he crossed gaze with the searing embers of the other creature. Even across the distance that separated them and the limits of the binoculars, he swore he saw it smirk and pointed a hoof at…

Four dead bodies laid down in a line on the deck, currently half-swallowed by tendrils of purplish goop.

So that’s where the trawler’s crew was then…

Cordeira gulped.

The flaming pony-thing waved a hoof and the warship’s guns swiveled in his direction, guided by an assortment of the goopish creatures and monsters that made up her crew.

“Todos desçam!” He yelled out as the guns fired.

SMS Karlsruhe may have yet to meet with Charybdis by Cape Horn, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t out for blood.

If there was one thing Dilip knew when he stood up on the day that followed his little speech it was that he couldn’t fault his subordinates for not wanting to put their lives on the line for the sake of complete strangers. As he had expected, the group of sailors he had to work with to deal with the convicts holed up inside the Westin on the other side of town was rather limited.

The veterans were there to help, all four of them.

Which included a rather exhausted Bart. The Belgian Corporal had been on guard duty at the truck stop the night prior when the place came under attack by bandits. Naturally, the small dozen of convicts were quite dismayed when they were greeted at the gates by one of their Piranha APC’s and its .50 cal.

One trashed Cadillac Escalade later and they were on the run -without casualties, just a fright-, though the guards remained on high alert for the rest of the night, which explained why the unicorn that served as their de-facto armorer was nursing an entire jug of coffee between his hooves.

To go with the veterans, he had the recce team under Aleksei’s command, which included Thanasis and Radiant in addition to Scarface. Along with those two teams, he had some more volunteers in the form of Roberto, who had been convinced to join in by Scarface. Along with the Abyssinian came their sole minotaur, Angelo, the Second Engineer, and Nala (technically called Farkas, but everybody called the sphinx lioness by her nickname as of late).

Without counting himself, that left the Captain with a group of ten souls to deal with the bandits. Out of a crew of more than double that number.

“… which is why this isn’t going to be easy.” He explained after getting past the obligatory greetings as he stood in front of the small group gathered inside the ship’s office. “Particularly with the… hostages.”

Mentioning that, he laid down various sketches he had printed of the place earlier in the morning. Satellite pics of the area, a drawing of the place with highlights showing where the leaders and hostages resided, as well as a list of the armaments they had available.

“Corporal, what did your team face when they attacked the truck stop earlier?” The Captain asked the tired unicorn sitting at one end of the table.

“They’re not good.” He stated. “Poorly organized, mostly thugs, but they have decent guns. Not military level, semi-auto, but at a glance their AR’s are a respectable threat. But they’re bad shots. And their armor sucks.”

“So no sniper we should fear?”

“I wouldn’t say that.” He shook his head firmly. “Because there weren’t any good shots with the raiders doesn’t mean they don’t have any at all.”

“But overall they’re just thugs? Correct?” The D-Dog inquired.

“That I can agree with.” Bart nodded after taking a sip of his coffee.

“So how do we go about rescuing the hostages?” Angelo asked, the grey minotaur sitting near Dilip with his bulky arms crossed over the table, pointedly looking towards Artyom.

Their blue dragon of a bosun had yet to speak up ever since they had begun their ‘tactical briefing’. He knew even the Officers implicitly relied on his experience, and maybe a bit on Bart’s. The room turned silent as they all slowly turned their heads towards him as he practically glared a hole into the sketches laid out on the table through his red eyes.

“Penny for your thoughts, bosun?” Dilip asked.

“It’s not being outnumbered that worries me.” Artyom said after working his jaw a few times. “’tis their prisoners. If you told me it was just getting rid of the thugs I’d say...” He shrugged. “… easy job. Just turn up to their hotel with the CV90 and blast ‘em with the Bofors until it’s nothing but rubble, but now we can’t use the big guns. Getting rid of them is one thing, but priority should go to rescuing their prisoners, everyone on that same train of thought I hope?” He told, tapping a claw on the floor Sri said the prisoners were kept at night.

“Of course we agree.” Angelo deadpanned with a very bovine snort.

“Good, just making sure.” The dragon clicked his tongue. “Look, I’ll be frank, hostage situations are the stuff of special forces.”

“Weren’t you…?” Aleksei trailed off.

“Nah, don’t mistake VDV for Spetsnaz, not all paratroopers count as special forces. I did do urban warfare and CQB. Hell, did it in Grozny in ‘94. Hostage rescue though? Never got trained for the stuff.”

“But you do have a plan.” Aleksei remarked.

Artyom nodded and slowly stood up from his seat.

“Look, any of you disagree with what I suggest, you speak up ‘cause I’m no expert. What I can tell is that as far as we know, the prisoners are under surveillance most of the time. Ain’t I right, Sri?”

“They got guards watching them by day when at the convention center...”

“But at night?”

“I spotted maybe… one or two bandits patrolling the floor they’re using to keep them. It’s all in the observation report. What are you getting at?”

“I’ll go and assume if we are to intervene, then we can’t let them use their prisoners as hostages. Swiftness and brutality of the action are key, we can’t let them get enough time to even think and figure out what’s going on.” Artyom stated, confidently adjusting the VDV beret on his head.

“Details?”

The blue dragon rolled his shoulders and let out a puff of smoke from his nostrils.

“One: we gotta insert a team on the prisoner’s floor and eliminate the guards. That prevents them from using them as a shield. That means we’re going to attack at night, which adds to the element of surprise.”

“How do you suggest we go about that? They’re a couple floors up last I heard.” Angelo said.

To that, Scarface and Artyom replied by spreading out their wings.

“Oh… my bad.” The Greek apologized.

“I’m going to lead that part of the assault.” Artyom announced. “From what I’ve tested, dragons like me are resistant to pistol-size rounds, more if I wear body armo-”

“Hold it!” Aleksei raised her talons, the hippogriff cleric suddenly looking quite a bit more concerned. “How did you even test that?”

The entire veteran group suddenly started looking uncharacteristically sheepish, along with Dilip, strangely enough. A detail the newly-made cleric didn’t fail to notice.

“So what do you think of live-fire testing?” Artyom smiled.

“Sir?” Angelo and Aleksei asked in unison as they turned towards their Captain.

“He survived a magic blast from a siren at point blank.” The Indian explained. “How risky could it be?”

His subordinate Engineers just gaped in disbelief.

“It’s not as dumb as it sounds.” Artyom told them.

“How is volunteering to be shot at even remotely considered as -not- dumb?!” Aleksei rounded up on the dragon.

“We got healing potions, the fact I survived a magic blast, and all the Equestrian books we received in Copenhagen point to dragons being, I quote: ‘So resilient to damage thanks to their scales that piercing and blast damage are a futile endeavor’. Tactical Primer, Canterlot Royal Guard. Ain’t I right?” He asked Radiant.

“Well...” The Equestrian pegasus hesitated. “It’s true I guess? Dragons can take a beating. It’s blunt damage you need to bring one down… but I’m pretty sure resistant doesn’t mean invulnerable. It’s just wasteful to use piercing… Get a good mage and they might come up with a spell that’s potent enough.”

“Alright alright, we get it.” Aleksei squawked. “But why didn’t you just, I dunno...” She plucked one of her own feathers. “Remove the scale before shooting it?!”

The room suddenly became very silent for an awkward dozen seconds.

“What was the result anyway? Did you get shot with a rifle?”

“We stopped at the 5.7mm. The armor-piercing rounds caused my scales to shatter on impact, and it’s got like a third of the energy of a 5.56 round. Any other pistol round though? Safe as far as I tested. Can we get back to the rescue?”

Aleksei nodded curtly.

“Okay, so...” Artyom sighed. “As I said, I want to lead the rescue team on the upper floors. I can take a few hits given I put enough kevlar in my flak jacket.” He made a whooshing motion with his arm. “Fly in, smash through the windows, get between the bandits and the prisoners. It’s going to be very close quarters in there, so I want the rest of the vets along for the ride. We can carry Bart in.”

“And how do you get the prisoners out?”

“With the CV90 and the Piranhas. It's going to be a pain in the ass with the communication to coordinate this, but that’s the second prong in the assault. The vehicles need to sit tight and wait until we’re in to avoid alerting the convicts, and then rush in as soon as we radio for backup. We’re going to need the fire support.”

“Don’t we risk harming the hostages?” Roberto spoke up, the Abyssinian having remained silent up until then. “I mean… the Bofors, the .50 cals, they’re big guns.”

“Not if you all study the plans.” Scarface said.

“Do explain then.”

Artyom leaned a bit further over the table and pulled a set of pictures of the building from the pile of documents, along with a picture of the CV90.

“We have an advantage with the ammo we got for the Bofors. Remember the programmable frag rounds? The 3P shells? They have an urban warfare mode. You use that setting, you can set a round to airburst inside a specific room, like a frag grenade but better. I’m not asking you to blast the facade willy-nilly, I’m asking that if we say: frag round, third floor, seventh room from the south side, you can clear the room for us with a single frag round, got it?”

“So you’re going to memorize the floor plan?”

“And we’re going to avoid taking cover in any of the rooms on the front facade so we don’t get blue-on-blue incidents.” Artyom stated. “That, and don’t shoot the prisoners’ floor, but that should be obvious.”

“What about the Piranhas?”

“You got thermals on the optics.” Bart pointed out. “Any fool pokes his head through a window to open fire, you fire back with the .50 cal. Call your targets though, and don’t leave the vehicles. They’re immune to small arms fire, and I really doubt these guys got their hands on RPG’s.”

“So you do the heavy lifting and get the hostages out, we load ‘em up in the vehicles and we’re off?” Roberto checked. “Sounds viable as long as you keep the upper hand in close quarters inside.”

“Don’t worry, we will.” Scarface smiled confidently, the gargoyle igniting his forearms with his magic. “I’ve added enough spells to my arsenal to have us not worry too much about it.”

“Vets on the assault team, the rest with the vehicles. Good, but that leaves the one thing.” Dilip concluded.

“Which is, sir?” Angelo queried.

“The leaders’ quarters. The penthouses.”

“Cutting the head off?” The minotaur quirked his head absently, eliciting a squawk from Aleksei next to him as his large horn bumped the hippogriff cleric in the shoulder from the sudden motion. “Sorry.” He quickly apologized.

“I meant the… the ‘concubines’ they keep in their penthouses.” The Indian made air-quotes at the word. “They’re prisoners too as far as we’re aware.”

Artyom calmly looked over the pictures they had of the convicts’ leaders. Boss and Councilor. There was a lull in the conversation as the assembled group could practically see the gears turn in the dragon’s head, but after a minute he just slumped his shoulders and shook his head resignedly.

“I’m sorry Captain. With just the ten of us I cannot think of a way we can make a tangent by either of the two penthouses. There’s three to four floors between them and the rest of the prisoners, and I must remind you that swiftness is the key to pulling off this rescue. That would take too long.”

“So you’re suggesting...” Aleksei started.

“I’m not suggesting we give up on them!” The Russian glared at the Third Engineer. “I’m only saying that given we’re already doing this with our manpower stretched thin, we can either safely rescue most of the hostages on the detention floor and get them out before the convicts realize what’s happening; or we can risk wasting time and failing because we overstayed our welcome and they had the time to mount defenses.” He said before turning his gaze towards the Captain. “Your call, sir.”

“Very well then. We won’t risk many for the sake of a few. I’m afraid the concubines will have to wait for another rescue op.” Dilip shook his head ruefully. “You people start preparing the gear and memorizing all the intel we have on the place. I want the assault to start at three in the morning, you got the whole day. Dismissed.”

Silently, Captain Skinner watched his subordinates finish fitting the new segmented seal to the bottom of their diving bell. Its yellow paint job heavily clashed with the otherwise pristine white of the original bell, but aesthetics were not what mattered right then.

Evacuating Georgia did. Beside him, McClelland launched into a brief explanation of how they had fashioned some extra rubber seals and clamps to buff up the system’s watertightness and how they only needed to do an air test before they finally could lower the bell.

“And what if the test fails?” The hedgefog interrupted the mare that his Chief Engineer had turned into. “It’s been what… twelve hours since the chopper dropped off the seal? Time is of the essence.”

“We uh...” The Rarity-lookalike unicorn halted. “Look if that sucker ain’t airtight I’m gonna eat my friggin’ bandana ‘cause I inspected those welds and joints myself.”

“Not doubting your skills, just sayin’.” Skinner quirked an eyebrow. “We’re dipping it 600 feet down after all.”

“It will hold.” McClelland insisted confidently. “I don’t make a habit of working my department around the clock, but you can be sure that when I do it like now whatever we’re doing is gonna work.”

Her assertion soon proved correct when the test came back positive, much to the relief of the whole engineering department who was all too glad to pass the relay over to the deck guys and head to their cabins for some well-deserved rest.

That didn’t mean Skinner could do the same however. The Captain moved off the deck just as a griffon flew over to the crane controls to lower the diving bell in the moonpool and begin the process of connecting the umbilical tethers that would supply it with air and power.

In a motion that was starting to become a routine as of late, he made his way to the office where they kept the phone line that linked them with USS Georgia and brought the handset to his ear. A few words were exchanged, but enough to bring audible relief in the voice of whoever it was on the submarine end of the line at the news that they were making another attempt at connecting the diving bell.

The submariner on the other end – which he was pretty sure was Lieutenant Gardner- told him they would begin to get their evacuation in order before hanging up after a minute saying he had to warn the engineering crews and the medics.

With good reason, mind. For one, talks with Doctor Delacroix and Chief Ezra – respectively Rhine’s Doctor and Georgia’s corpsman- had quickly led to the conclusion that priority would be given to the most heavily injured submariners in the evac order so that they could be transferred to Rhine and Fugro’s onboard medical facilities in short order.

For second, and that was something Skinner heard from Georgia’s Chief Engineer herself, the reactor needed to undergo shutdown procedures so that it couldn’t pose a threat to the environment left alone. Shutdown procedures that would involve flooding the core, thus rendering it unable to produce any form of power.

Ignacio had thus clearly stated she would prepare for it, but would only begin the procedure if the diving bell was able to dock successfully.

Something they were soon going to find out as Skinner spotted the bell being lowered in the water through the office’s windows after they were done with the pre-dive checkups. That was the moment of truth, when they finally saw whether or not the whole deal with the prototype in Kings Bay and the segmented seal actually mattered.

Below Fugro Symphony, teams of seapony divers and the vessel’s own pair of ROV’s carefully monitored the bell as it made its second descent into the depths of the Atlantic and slowly approached the submarine’s diver escape trunk under the controls of its operator from the surface. Much like on their first attempt, the dive was slow-going as they had to steer the bell away from the many tethers and umbilicals that had accumulated overtime as the seapony divers set up gear around the grounded sub.

A crowd had gathered inside of Fugro’s control room to watch the proceedings through the ROV’s cameras as Floyd slowly maneuvered the bell into position over the target hatch. The kestrel griffon turned around in his seat once the bell was stable, barely a meter over the hatch, addressing Captain Skinner an expectant look.

“Proceed.” The hedgefog calmly stated from his own seat.

With a nod, the griffon took hold of the joysticks in his talons and squinted at the screen in front of him.

“Beginning docking attempt number...” He sighed. “… two. This time with a segmented seal to account for heeling angle.”

Through the ROV’s cameras, they saw the bell’s little propellers slowly give little bursts of thrust to maneuver it into position. Carefully, Floyd made sure the connection didn’t bump the sub too hard and let the segmented seal adjust itself to the submarine’s resting angle while keeping the whole system pressed against the hull.

“She’s not trying to wrench herself away from the hull… so there’s that. Permission to pressurize the seal?” He queried.

“Approved.”

“Alright...” He flipped a switch. “Air valve open, I’m sending air down the umbilical to vent the seal.”

Like last time, compressors on Fugro started working overtime to send air down the connection, their whine heard throughout the ship as they struggled to overcome the water pressure found at 600 feet below the surf.

Unlike last time though, it didn’t last. In under a minute, the system managed to empty the seal of all seawater through overpressure before Floyd stopped the compressors. Air pressure in the seal dropped abruptly, but unlike last time where water just rushed back in because of a leak, this time the seal acted as it should like a suction cup that held the whole bell in place against the sub.

Floyd had a shit-eating grin on his beak when he released the controls.

“Solid seal Captain, pressure in the connection viable for transfer. We’re good for evacuation.”

Cheers rang out through the whole control room.

In France, an odd sight now broke up the horizon over Trecesson. It was a radio mast that sprouted out of the castle’s roof, higher even than Starswirl’s tower and kept in place by a couple cables that prevented gusts of wind from tipping over the whole thing.

This was another of Emeric’s pet projects, installing a radio post that ran off their recently installed generator and provided them with a station the Frenchman had installed between the rafters in the cellar after he had salvaged enough components from the nearby military academy after a couple trips back and forth to carry the whole thing and all the electronics needed to run it.

Yeah, because with the ever-growing Broceliande in the mix, roads had become so overgrown that using any of the rapidly deteriorating military trucks left on base was a foregone conclusion. The forest had grown so fast that using anything wider than an ATV was now practically impossible, and even those had difficulties getting through the game trails that had now become the most common way of traversing the terrain.

Frankly if Trecesson castle didn’t have wards fending off the vegetation, it would have been turned into a ruin weeks ago. You could certainly still find ruined buildings around, plenty of them, but most were now covered in foliage and saplings that grew so fast that they had easily grown through even the asphalt of the roads that ran throughout the region.

Magic-boosted shrubbery aside, the whole little village that had slowly grown in and around the castle wasn’t wasting their time doing nothing. While the more technically inclined of their two LT’s was busy with getting them in contact with the rest of the world in the castle’s attic, Miles had taken it upon herself to train some more guards to back them up.

Of all the residents in the colony, only her and Emeric had military training and knew how to use firearms, adding to Rockhoof’s admittedly significant fighting prowess.

Seriously, the Earth Pony didn’t mess around with any of the critters that came close to his land. It was only because the Forest Guardian that one time had magic that he couldn’t defeat, because they had seen him wrestle a giant hunchback boar to the ground and buck it straight over the forest’s canopy.

The stallion was the castle’s Lord for a reason.

So while Rockhoof was busy erecting a palisade and fences around Trecesson with his own team, the colony’s sole American had taken it upon herself to select a small group of colonists to become guards.

Problem was that the armory bunker at the military academy was resilient enough to withstand the overgrowth, and given that Emeric and Miles had only been students there, neither knew how to crack it open. That restricted her to giving the guards some makeshift weapons and armor, plus the odd hunting weapon that they could scrounge up if they were lucky whenever they sent out salvage teams.

Blame France for having strict firearm laws for that. Though with locals reputed for being revolt-prone, maybe there was a reason behind not giving them free access to guns…

Not that Miles would ever say that to their faces.

On the other hoof, Broceliande’s status as a hub for medieval and fantasy aficionados made it rather easy to acquire replica armor, so they did manage to scrounge up some chainmail and gambesons to equip the guards to go with what hunting rifles and lever-actions they could find. The end result was… questionable, but good enough for what they needed once Miles got past basic firearm safety and militia levels of tactics.

That and having a castle sprouting a tall radio antenna while the guards were hunting-rifle-toting, chainmail-wearing deer and ponies made for the weirdest sight she’d ever thought she could witness.

It did have its own odd charm of magic and technology cohabitating though. Particularly with the whole Celtic pantheon, Golden Tree gig they had going, with the Arthurian mythos mixed in.

Speaking of that specific deal, Miles had also taken note of the temporary altar Merlin had erected with Martin’s help to appease Cernunnos. The ghost wizard had now taken it upon himself to teach his new apprentice everything from the Celtic practices; druidic rites, wizardry, the whole nine yards.

Miles doubted the fawn fully understood what he was being taught, and even Rockhoof had been rather… skeptic (to put it mildly) about his upcoming fate, but strong as he was, there was little the Earth Pony stallion could do to keep sheltering him.

At least he and Meadowbrook managed to force a balance for Martin and achieve a modicum of normalcy for their adopted child that struck a balance between Merlin/Starswirl’s magic lessons, a bit of potion-making with Meadow, enough free time, and, most surprising of all: actual schooling.

Somewhat at least.

Their last batch of returnees had come with a woman-turned-stallion that had volunteered to become a school teacher for the small number of kids the colony contained. It was haphazard, not all of the kids fell into the same age group and lessons were irregularly given in the castle’s main hall, but for as young a colony as Trecesson was, most of the inhabitants were happy with the milestone it represented.

Though there was that one time they had some doubt on whether or not a returnee colt was an adult as he pretended to be or if he was just a masquerading kid attempting to wriggle his way out of school. That had been… the week’s novelty shouting match that brought yet another problem caused by the transformation effect to light.

As if there weren’t enough of them to begin with… Miles let out an annoyed nicker at the thought. For such a little village-castle, Trecesson was soon turning out to be a rather complicated affair. She made her way up the stairs to the top of the ramparts that overlooked the castle’s moat and the rest of the village.

Out of habit, she nudged a loose bit of masonry with her hoof, revealing a pack of cigarettes she kept stashed there for when she was feeling stressed.

And after spending a whole afternoon training their upcoming guards, the stress was running high. With a flick of her primaries, she struck a match and stuck the first cigarette in her mouth, taking a long drag out of it as she looked over in the distance, hooves propped up on the crenellation. A row of stripped logs and the sound of sawing and hammering indicated where Rockhoof was currently working on their palisade, while a thin plume of smoke a bit further away signaled Sandrine was running another batch of charcoal in the kiln, in a clearing far enough from the habitations that the smell didn’t get to them.

“So how’d that training go with the recruits?” She heard her fellow LT speak up at about the same time she caught the sound of his hooves off to her side.

“Gonna take a while...” She took a drag of her cigarette. “You know I can speak French alright?”

“I started the conversation.” Emeric said, the bronze-furred unicorn propping himself up right next to her. “Feels like the polite thing to have it in your native tongue init?”

“Your call...” She shrugged with her wings. “The recruits… I keep tellin’ myself the weapon training is only the easy part. It’s the mindset I need to insert in them.”

“How so?”

“Look, I know it’s not the first thing you’d think about, but part of why basic is so important is because it rebuilds individuals from the ground up to think the military way and act as a unit. That is probably just as important as combat and guns.”

“So what, you want them to do drill and stuff?”

“Maybe not drill but...” She looked off in the distance. “Rucking would be a start I think?”

“Bit dangerous with the critters.” Emeric pointed out.

“Yeah you’re right...” She deflated. “So what, want me to stick ‘em all in the same quarters and field day the shit out of the place for a whole month?”

“Don’t forget policing the courtyard.” Her colleague chuckled lightly.

“Nah...” Miles shook her head, making her shaggy white mane rustle at the motion. She just didn’t feel like cutting it down to military regs like Emeric. Maybe that was due to her transformation into a mare. “I don’t think the attitude stuff would work. It might if all settlers did it, but here? Regular folks a stone throw away would just undermine the whole thing.”

“Well...” Emeric started. “You know, it’s your pet project, but if you need any help don’t hesitate. God knows I could get away from the tech stuff I dug myself into.”

“Why? It’s that hard?”

“I’m not a techie, Miles. Here I just spent the whole afternoon reading manuals trying to wire up the radio without shorting out the whole colony while trying to keep the antennas from interfering with each other.” He shook his head ruefully. “I wasn’t even trying to go Signals prior to the Event, yet here I am.”

“You going to manage?”

“Eventually.” He huffed. “Mind if I swipe a cig?”

She held up her packet between two primaries.

“Matches are in the stash on your left.” She added.

There was a little minute of silence as the unicorn of the duo lit up a cigarette of his own and let the nicotine flow after a puff or two.

“You know, I actually kinda like the place.” Miles said to break up the building awkwardness.

“You don’t miss the US?”

“Of course I do.” The pegasus snorted. “I miss the wide spaces, I miss being able to use English regularly, I miss the family...” She leaned her head on the crenellation. “But I’m smart enough to realize that it’s both nearly impossible to get back given the circumstances, and that I might not even like what I see if I ever make it back.”

“Preppers saying they were right all along?”

“God I can almost feel the smugness radiating from this side of the Atlantic!” She laughed out loud. “Really though… Do you feel you could stand to see your family home as an overgrown ruin like what we’re seeing around here? An empty ruin? You know you could probably make it home, unlike me.”

“Me making my way home when you’re stuck on the other end of the world doesn’t really feel fair.”

“Life ain’t fair.” Miles snarked.

“Point… but maybe you’re right about the empty destroyed home.” Emeric sighed. “Plus you’re right, this place isn’t so bad. I’d even say it’s worth protecting. Feels like I’m standing next to some big thing that’s about to happen, ya know?”

“I get the feeling.” She replied, throwing a look over her shoulder towards Merlin’s tower. “Something’s a-brewing, and… it’s going to be big.”

“You mean the Golden Tree.”

“That or the Celtic Gods.” She asserted. “I’ve caught how adamant Rock and Merlin are about it, those Elements… they really do believe they’re so powerful. And they’ve convinced those fay ladies too, so it ain’t a lie.”

“Some kind of magic nuke?”

“I wouldn’t say a nuke...” She made a dismissive motion with a wing. “But definitely a game changer that’s on the same level.”

“We should probably keep an ear out for that then.”

“No shit.” Miles snorted again.

There was another lull in the conversation, long enough for the two of them to finish their cigarettes and toss the butts in an ashtray Miles kept by her stash.

“Say I was wondering...” Emeric started.

“The mare thing?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t dwell on it.”

“Really?”

“No. Too hard to ignore.”

“So it’s that different?”

Miles let her gaze droop down into the moat, watching the resident family of mallards that lived between the reeds on the outer edge go about its duckly business.

“I guess it was kind of odd to find out I’m heterosexual?”

“You mean?”

“Into stallions, yes.” She nodded softly.

Another pause.

“Didn’t Merlin say he might be able to turn you male?”

“Yeah. Might. Said it might depend how far human magic changed.” She explained. “With all our resident ghost’s projects and now Martin’s lessons, the altar that needs tending, and the Gods? Gonna take a while.”

“Well there’s hope at least.” Emeric said. “If anything, you don’t look half bad as a mare. Kinda cute.”

“Cute?” She quirked an eyebrow at the bronze stallion.

Wiry of stature as the unicorn was (which wasn’t much of a surprise given his species), he still was quite a bit taller than her.

“You ever seen yourself?” He chuckled. “You puff up your fur whenever you’re flustered. Fluffy chest...”

Distractedly, she caught herself smoothing down her chest fur with a hoof.

“Oh really? Least I don’t look like a piece of caramel. Bronze fur, blonde mane, you look like fuckin’ candy pal.”

“The kind o’candy you could make a snack out of?” He flirted with a grin.

“That a proposal?”

“That whatever you wish it be, sunshine.”

“Corny.” She nickered. “But you know what? I’m feeling curious.”

“Do ya, now?”

“Don’t push your luck. My room, after dinner. You better be good, stud.”

“Yes ma’am!” The other lieutenant laughed out. “Now, ain’t that I dislike the company, but I got my radio wiring to go back to. See ya for dinner.” He said, trotting off the rampart and leaving her once more on her own.

He didn’t see her sneak a glance at his rump. Eh, if Merlin was going to fix her situation eventually, trying out stuff on the feminine side of the equation couldn’t possibly cause any trouble, right?

Author's Notes:

So the guys in Brittany are slowly but surely making a proper village out of that castle.

I hope you guys like that little offside with Sao Paulo. Main point was to show the baddies are still out there of course, but I've been writing some stuff that's not just the main fleet and Brittany as of late. Trying to broaden the picture, see.

Allows me to liven up chapters that would otherwise be dull with the 'main plot' too.