‘BANG!’

One more wolf-dog fell, sprawling muzzle-down in an alleyway which he had been using to fire at a group of sailors sent to loot a hardware store. His companions immediately ducked back into cover… to little effect. Micha beat her wings a few times to shift her cloud to another position, and at the altitude she was, their cover quickly became useless. It seemed that only the bitches leading their squads and some of the jaguar warriors had radios, so once she made a point of picking them out, the rest fell into disarray.

Crafty creatures those jaguar warriors. It seemed they were meant to be scouts and marksmen, working in pairs which now Micha realized were always composed of one male and one female. The reason she was only then noticing as she was cleaning up the stragglers, was because it was starting to look like that the transformation from regular Abyssinian to jaguar warrior actually reduced the amount of gender dimorphism between the two. Given that in their normal state, the females were already modest in the chest department and that both sported narrow waists and triangular chests…

Yeah. No surprise it was hard to tell. She finished off the squad of wolf-dogs she was busy with and twisted in her cloud to line up her scope on the next target. That was… 550 meters maybe?

‘BANG!’

More like 530. Still, her raptor eyesight made her damn good at ranging shots. The shot hit high on a jaguar warrior that was busy getting down from her perch. She slipped off the ladder and landed six stories below. Micha didn’t bother with a follow-up shot on that one, and the jaguar warrior’s partner didn’t seem eager to check either.

He might have gotten away… if he actually knew where the shots were coming from and didn’t waste time climbing up a fence.

‘BANG!’ A short pause. ‘BANG!’

Micha tore her eyes away from the shooting, long enough to draw one more notch along her FAL’s handguard. Depending on which country you were from, she had already gunned down the equivalent of a small platoon, almost entirely uncontested at that. One or two jaguar warriors had managed to spot her muzzle flash and survived because she missed her ranging shot, but they had only fired back once, so good was her cover. In her ears, the playlist had moved on to other tracks, such that she would bob her head during reloads.

Not entirely professional, that much she was ready to admit, but cartel-cultists hardly called for mercy.

“Hussar. Fleet command here.” She heard Alejandro’s voice crackle in her radio. “Got a request for ya. Over.”

“Hussar here. I hear you. Over.” She replied, scanning the town for enemies. At this point all the fighting was winding down, and the assault on the refinery would probably break off any minute from now.

“Could you maybe let one of them live? Over.”

Wait, was this guy for real?

“Chief you can’t be serious!” She squawked out, momentarily diverting her focus away from all the shooting.

“I absolutely am. Massacre them all you want, they deserved it… but Captain Lorelei suggested we should tail one back to their base, since it seems the militia doesn’t know where they’re coming from. You got that right? Over.”

“Aye chief...” She hissed. “Wilco. Hussar out.”

Didn’t mean she couldn’t have her own interpretation of the stuff. She rid the Earth of one more wolf-dog squad and one jaguar warrior before she finally decided to go on with that idea. Alejandro only said they needed the one survivor, and stragglers killed now were combatants that would not fight them again later.

She was running low on ammunition anyway.

Her prey practically handed itself to her on a silver platter too. She had pushed her little cloud towards the edge of town to catch the runners when a pair of jaguar warriors ran out of the urban landscape in a mad dash.

Range the shot. Adjust sight. Breathe out. ‘BANG!’

The first of the two collapsed in the mud with a gaping hole in his thigh, bleeding profusely. Not what she was aiming for, but she wouldn’t bleed for much longer. That was a hit on the femoral artery with a 7.62 alright, no need to waste one more bullet. The jaguar’s wild struggle was already growing weaker by the second.

She focused on the second. The taller male had turned around in horror at the sight of his injured companion. There he was, standing atop a fallen tree, his yellow spotted fur standing out sharply against the background vegetation and presenting the perfect target.

Now to make sure he believed he was lucky and wasn’t being tailed…

‘BANG!’

Definitely not a killing shot. Micha didn’t want to kill him. The bullet caught his forearm, probably shattering bone and effortlessly cleaving through both leathery vambrace and flesh. He stumbled and fell backward in a shallow ditch that conveniently put him out of sight from the town. His camo cloak caught on a branch and was wrenched off his shoulders in the fall. Excellent. That would only make her job easier.

The warrior looked as though he was struggling to figure out what had happened for a few seconds where he lay in the mud, fur now thoroughly covered in mud and filth. Micha saw him stare numbly at his injured limb before the pain caught on and he slammed a paw on his muzzle.

But like a dutiful cultist, he moved on. He crawled his way along the ditch to put some distance between himself and the town, unaware that the sniper was in the skies and not atop an undefined building… Then, once he had a copse of trees and a few hedges between him and any building, he took off south into the jungle.

Which would have made for decent concealment… except the local landscape didn’t really lend itself to that. See, around Coatzacoalcos, the climate certainly was tropical (hence the monsoon currently battering them), but not every bit of land had the requisites to grow a jungle. Drier and higher land around towns and buildings did allow for small copses to grow (such as around certain sections of the refinery, forestry being more prevalent on the eastern banks of the river), but otherwise the terrain favored the appearance of marshes.

Not to the extent they had seen in Georgia (far from that), but there were two or three kilometers of marshland on either side of the river.

And since Micha’s quarry was on the side of the river with the least forestry, he made it pretty easy to be tracked. The bald eagle griffon slung her rifle over her back, not needing the scope. Her raptor eyesight was more than enough to see the jaguar part reeds and tall grass as he ran through the swamps.

What would have been enough to shake off pursuers confined to the ground was woefully inadequate to slip by a griffon. Micha only needed to beat her wings every so often to steer her little cloud, watching the struggles of the jaguar warrior with the same disinterest of a cat toying with a mouse.

It kept going like that for a while. The wounded jaguar warrior certainly had impressive stamina, because he kept running for five more kilometers deep into the marshes, making bounds from one isolated bit of jungle to another along the river before she saw him pause. Taking a breather now? He had stopped at the edge of a copse that ran alongside a country road, kneeling in a bush.

And then he shrugged off his bandolier and leaned his rifle against a nearby tree. Out of one of his pouches came some primitive kind of medical kit which he used to shave the fur around his wound before applying some greenish healing salve. With how it glowed when it applied it, some kind of magic or potion-making was involved, unsurprisingly. He wrapped the wound tightly in some gauze that looked eerily like palm leaves before he reached for a tree, snapped off a few branches and splinted his injury.

Ah… The wolf-dogs didn’t exhibit that kind of behavior. So maybe in addition to being scouts and sharpshooters, the jaguar warriors also dealt with providing medical assistance? Healers then? From a certain point of view… scouts could certainly recover the requisite medicinal plants and gain the skill set.

Then the jaguar shoved the medical kit back in his bandolier which he put back on. From another pouch came a little flask from which he drank. Potion, obviously. Regular liquor didn’t make you roar to the skies nor did it make your fur stand on its ends. Tail lashing from side to side with renewed vigor, she watched him spit some shiny blue liquid to the side, pick up his rifle and continue his dash back to base.

Approximately ten kilometers away from Coatacoalcos, he settled his pace down to a quick stride, though he kept avoiding roads and towns. She saw him steer well clear of any habitation or farmstead he came in sight of, walking ever deeper into the hinterland. Wounded, covered in mud up to his waist, the feline trudged on, his rifle slung over his shoulder. And he kept going, so far Micha drifted out of radio range from the city and had to turn on her sat phone.

Finally though, her quarry made it to his destination. By that point, all the marshes on the banks of the river had steadily shrunk just as its width decreased, instead being replaced by abandoned meadows and farmland. Micha could see the remains of a few tiny villages and hamlets here and there, most of them already partly reclaimed by vegetation and covered in vines. Stray cattle was visible, their herds dull blotches of color that stood out against the overwhelmingly green landscape.

She frowned. Those were a bit too close together to be natural and… yeah she was right. The jaguar warrior made a beeline for one of the herds before he collapsed in a meadow, what energy his potion had provided now flushed out of his system.

Another pair rushed out of the treeline to meet him. While the reunion was taking place beneath her, she was already surveying the area, looking for landmarks to locate the place on a map. Water tower there… bridge there… She pulled out a compass and jotted down the bearings in her notebook. With how she could see the course of the river, finding the place again should pose little trouble.

It was definitely a hub of activity for them, and well-hidden at that. They had chosen to take residence not in an abandoned village or hacienda, but in the woods next to one. Some trucks and technicals could be seen from the sky, subtly hidden beneath camo nets and layers of vegetation. In other places, she could see what looked like foxholes and firing positions covering the woods and keeping an eye on the nearest village while a group of wolf-dogs occupied another copse of tree, keeping an eye on the main road and a bridge. Smart choice. The nearest alternative to that one was a solid five kilometers downriver.

But save for a couple depots, vehicles, and the jaguar warriors guarding the cattle… Micha couldn’t see habitations. She set her eyes back on her quarry, which had now been laid down on a gurney and was being carried off by a pair of jaguar warriors.

Male and female again. Looks like they really operated in couples… and the female griffon couldn’t blame the reasoning. Hunting with one’s mate was one of the most enjoyable activities she could think of, and the primal instincts in the dark recesses of her mind agreed.

Sharp raptor eyes tracked the trio as the gurney was carried along the treeline and near a small hillock. She took note of several more firing positions and wolf-dog patrols along the muddy path they followed – muddy enough that they almost slipped and dropped the gurney- until they reached… she wasn’t sure. There was a tiny, almost invisible cliff dug in the flank of the hillock. Discarded tools and an excavator had been set aside next to the entrance to some kind of grotto. Or a mine maybe, though she had no idea what kind of minerals you’d find in the region.

More importantly, as she waited and observed, she didn’t see the jaguar warriors come back outside. A pair of heavyset wolf-dog bitches and their respective squads were vigilantly watching the entrance, equipped with a mix of shotguns and assault rifles instead of the SMG’s spotted earlier on the attackers. Paired with rudimentary armor and more of those ceremonial Aztec garments…

She was pretty sure she’d just located their HQ.

Micha spread her wings and took off from her little cloud, keeping above the cloud cover while the rain kept beating down on the countryside beneath. The sun and winds above the clouds dried her damp feathers and she twirled, before she angled her body on a course that would take her back to the refinery.

Unaware of the fighting that was winding down at this point in Mexico, Fugro had carried on with her passage towards Brazil. Slowly, since the red offshore support ship didn’t get anywhere fast, the vessel drew a path along the eastern side of the Lesser Antilles, passing the isles of Martinique, Saint-Vincent and Grenada on her starboard side before she set her bow towards Galleons’ Passage, right between Trinidad and Tobago before Fugro started hugging the South American shoreline.

While not the shortest way to get to their destination, there was a very good reason as to why they were sailing like that.

For one, they needed to stay close so the calls that they were regularly sending over the airwaves would reach further inland and might lead to finding returnees and possibly a colony. They didn’t actually find any, but while they were passing a gas field off the shore they saw that the lifeboats of one platform were gone. Unless whoever used them had perished at sea, then it meant that there were returnees in the area.

Too bad they didn’t find them.

For second, another reason as to why they stuck close to shore was because Skinner had printed some weather charts of the past month and ran some calculations. By then it was pretty much certain that the storm detected somewhere off West Africa was the same one that followed the warship that had attacked Sao Paulo.

The problem there? That warship, while not fast, was still faster than any speed Fugro could achieve without severely damaging her engines. If that warship somehow detected them, there was very little they could do to avoid them.

Luckily, Fugro had a pretty shallow draft and could slip rather deep in an estuary, which the South American coastline had plenty of. If there ever was a sign of the demonic pirates heading in their general direction, Fugro would quickly sail up the nearest river and hide behind a bend in the jungle until such a time that the threat had passed. Cowardly, but even with the recent addition of torpedoes Fugro wasn’t a warship.

It didn’t happen.

Once they were past Galleons’ Passage, the three next days were some straight sailing. Granted, the sea was a bit choppy which wasn’t kind on their latest recruit, but otherwise it wasn’t any kind of rolling that could unsettle sailors worth their salt. They had a steady breeze blowing in from the Atlantic on the port side, the verdant shores on the starboard size, and far ahead… their destination. The shores were sloped smoothly on that part of the continent, light inclines that rose out of the seabed to form beaches and lush coastlines that had at one point been farmland that fed countries like Suriname and Guyana.

No longer. It was a pattern you saw all over the world, magic enhancing plant growth. Different areas were affected to varying levels, and South America appeared to be no exception. What their charts argued to be meadows and fields, their eyes and satellites pictures confirmed as jungles to be, covered in short saplings, shrubs and ferns tall enough to swallow up a car. Already, what infrastructure they could see peeking at the coast through their binoculars was being ground down to nothingness by nature.

Given the difference in infrastructure between the coast and the hinterland, hopes weren’t high for anything more than fifty kilometers inland.

Work carried on onboard. Equipment wore down and was repaired. The everlasting fight against rust continued. Gossip spread and died. The Chief Cook started up wild tales of their daring escape from the fierce Taino people. Emily settled into her position as Intel Officer and started researching various ancient civilizations that might come back into existence. She got into contact with Roberto in Mexico when time allowed.

They even held a line-crossing ceremony for her when they passed the Equator, shortly before they reached the estuary of the Parà river, with a little party and mild hazing to welcome the new recruit into the crew. Skinner liked to think the small crew manning his ship was a family of sorts, strays cut off from their family and clinging to the few people they knew from before a catastrophe turned the world on its head.

Yes. That was about right. Pretty close-knit for a crew hailing from such different backgrounds. And if what he had experienced in Dominica was enough of a tell, then they’d stick together through thick and thin.

Now… as to what would happen in Belem… they were due anytime now. The Scot eyed his computer screen, watching a repeater feed of the ECDIS used up on the bridge. Very close now indeed. And as if on cue, his intercom rang.

“Captain, can you come to the bridge?” There was Mia’s heavily accented voice, the Second Officer.

She was a young reindeer doe in her mid twenties, Norwegian, with icy blue fur… and funnily enough, unlike most of the females you’d see in the maritime industry after the Event, she had been a she prior to waking up with cloven hooves. Why was that funny? In an industry overwhelmingly made up of men and where one third of them had turned into females… she was the odd one out.

But she sounded worried. Or puzzled. Hard to tell with the accent.

“Is something wrong?”

“Det kommer an på… Sorry, I mean that depends how you look at it, and you should * really * have a look.” She insisted.

Skinner frowned.

“Be there in a minute then.”

What had the lass seen that could rub her fur the wrong way like that? He exited his quarters and made his way up to the bridge… and shifted to fog form out of sheer surprise.

Belem, according to intel, had been the first colony set up in the Amazon basin. That fact alone meant that unlike most cities on the continent, it had had more than four hundred years to grow and expand with various quarters adding itself to the settlement overtime, from the warm rusticity of a colonial district, to the shining towers of a budding CBD.

It was a port town that was, in all senses of the term, a tentacular city. For a long time considered the Gateway to the Amazon, a title the larger city of Manaus couldn’t claim despite actually being on the Amazon in the state of Amazon, by virtue of being built that much further inland.

So, a city with a long history.

Didn’t explain the giant trees dotting the horizon. He seriously hoped his eyes were having perspective issues, because it looked like the damn trees were as tall as some of the twenty-stories appartment blocks near the CBD.

“Da fook?” Ah, there was his scottish accent rearing its ugly head. “How does dat even ‘appen?!”

Sitting closely next to Trixie, Starlight examined the interior of the castle’s banquet hall. Whitewashed wall and tapestries under a vaulted ceiling held together by thick rafters was exactly the kind of building she thought would fit the two former Pillars.

Looking into it more closely, it was no surprise Rockhoof and Meadowbrook would rather stay on Earth than go back to Equestria, even with the technology she could see peeking out from beneath carpets here and there. Earth was more in need of rough-but-effective figures like them than Equestria was.

Broceliande was a castle isolated in the middle of an enchanted forest. Most ponies would balk at the prospect of living there, but she wouldn’t be surprised if the likes of Rockhoof actually relished wrestling giant boars to the ground and whacking them with his shovel. He was in the right place there.

Meadowbrook… well, Starlight didn’t know quite as much about the notoriously elusive mare. She had barely known her personally, and she seemed more the type to collect herbs and components for her potion in the wilds and stay on the edge of civilization. Her being Rock’s husband… with how she kept a hoof over the bump on her belly and how close she hung to the large stallion, the combination of ingredients from an enchanted forest and having a family must have made her pretty content. Even that fawn Martin sitting with the two former Pillars on the dais that presided over the banquet hall brought a motherly grin to the blue Earth Pony mare’s muzzle.

A family… Starlight sighed dejectedly. Her eyes trailed away from the happy family, along the long table that was currently occupied by both the castle’s inhabitants and the airship’s crew before settling on her own plate which she’d barely touched.

A lone fork enveloped in the turquoise glow of her magic nudged one of the broccoli soaking in the creamy sauce. It wasn’t the cooking. She just… didn’t feel like eating.

Beside her, Trixie wrapped a hoof over her shoulder and offered her a sympathetic look.

“Do you want Trixie to help you eat? She couldn’t help but notice the absence of a smile on your muzzle.” She offered with a sly grin that didn’t quite match the look in her eyes. She was feeling down too, but the performer knew how to put up a facade. “Here...” Her own fork stabbed at the offending Broccoli and brought it up in front of Starlight’s eyes. “… it’s not cherries like the other time, but you take what you get, right?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. Yeah, that had been some wild evening. Trixie managed to cheer her up for the rest of the evening, and altogether the food was good, the wine too, and the wayward Equestrians had seldom been this cheerful since discovering they couldn’t make it back to Equestria. Captain Moral Compass? The elderly pegasus was chatting with Rockhoof, a content smile adorning his muzzle. He was the quintessential Cloudsdale pegasus, and the chance that he might see the flying city again was enough to soothe the sour mood he’d been sporting for the past two months.

Around him, both his sailors and the Solar Guard detachment accompanying their expedition mirrored the attitude, listening intently to the conversation, one of them speaking up every so often to add a detail about their misadventures in the British Isles.

Starlight and Trixie had a conversation going too. With Miles. Soon after their arrival, the Lieutenant had gone to change out of her armor, coming back to the banquet hall with her shaggy purple fur (partly) brushed and clad in a weird mix of biking shorts with a makeshift hole for her tail and a garish lime green tracksuit vest that covered her barrel and wings, white mane tied up behind her ears with a scrunchie.

“Yeah I know.” Miles rolled her eyes. “Emeric commented on it too, but I’d rather not eat in the same suit of armor I traversed the forest in, and my poncho is in the wash.” She said, brushing a hoof over the garment.

Starlight’s eyes accidentally (or so she would claim) passed over the biking shorts hugging and she blushed. Well… the military pegasus sure was fit. Trixie didn’t miss the display, not with the glint in her eyes and the sly grin.

“Don’t see clothes like that often in Equestria for sure.” Starlight blurted out.

“Yeah… We don’t really have professional seamstresses around here, so we make do with refitted clothes. Armor too, though funnily enough it’s easier to adapt a gambeson for equine body types than a tracksuit. Cloth's thicker, more margin for error.” Miles explained as she sipped from a glass of wine she was balancing over her hoof.

She’d gotten better at handling stuff with hooves. Enough that she didn’t need to resort to using her wings' primaries most of the time. And no she wouldn’t start grabbing stuff in her mouth.

“Eh, thin materials rip easy. No surprise there.” Starlight shrugged. “Say I heard you were...”

“Male, yes.” Miles’ eyes flew up to the ceiling in exasperation. “Why is it always me that gets asked? There’s a third of the population affected, I can’t be the first you come across.”

“You aren’t, but Trixie heard you were trying to turn back. That’s what makes you different from most.” Trixie pointed out, jabbing a hoof in the pegasus’ direction while the other was still wrapped over Starlight. “Is there something wrong with...”

Miles made a cutting motion with her hoof.

“There isn’t. Believe me, I tried the mare side of affairs, and while I can’t deny there’s something pleasant in spreading your hind legs under a stallion, I was born male, and I’m of a mind that’s the way I’m supposed to be. And if honest-to-goodness Merlin is in the vicinity, then I’d think I actually have a chance. Why most would rather not bother… I dunno why. Laziness?”

She paused. There was an instant of silence while her brain processed what she had said and then her eyes widened. Trixie chuckled.

“More honest than you wanted it to come across as?”

“I’m sorry, that was out of plac-”

“It’s fine really.” Starlight reassured after casting her eyes around to make sure nopony was eavesdropping. Still, she put up a ward just in case. “Sometimes it’s good to let the words roll off the tongue, right?” She said, adding a wink.

“Trixie is curious, she’s never been a stallion, so how does it compare?”

Miles blushed so deeply the purple fur on her snout took on a darker tone while she looked down at the table.

“It’s uh… different. The weirdest thing is how my preferences were swapped around and… Let’s be honest, I experienced the male side as a human, not as a stallion, so take what I say with a grain of salt OK? But the gist of it is… you’re a lot less proactive as a mare. You just don’t realize how much of the work the stallion’s putting in believe me.”

“Trixie thinks it’s just you. Puh, not all mares take it like a starfish. Trixie is a performer!” She boasted, thumping a hoof on her chest and throwing her mane to the side.

“What really? I thought you swung the other way.” Miles quipped.

The jab at least had the desired effect. The illusionist across from her folded her ears against her head and blushed deeply, much to her companion’s amusement as Starlight struggled to hold back a fit of laughter.

“Trixie is a complicated mare of many a great talent...” She grumbled.

“Neither of us is a fillyfooler Miles.” Starlight then corrected. “Trixie and I just share a stallion, and we love each other enough to make an exception.” She added with a soft smile.

That made Miles blink in puzzlement.

“Share? What, like the two of you and?”

“There isn’t really a problem with that in Equestria. Sometimes couples pair with one stallion and a mare, sometimes it’s two. There just are too many mares where we’re from, though that depends on the country. Maretonia and the Crystal Empire are more 50-50 on the ratio, and Saddle Arabia is the worst off. I heard mares sometimes had to share a stallion with four others there since they’re so rare.”

Miles opened and closed her mouth a few times, her features blank.

“Oh...” She finally managed to say.

“We get that reaction a lot from foreigners, but it’s alright. Once Starswirl figures it out and Trixie and I get back, Sunburst is in for a treat. We’re gonna have a family. I mean… look at Meadow, look at the smile on her muzzle and how she holds herself.” Starlight said calmly. “I wanna feel that. I wanna be like that. To see little foals. That’s the whole point of life, no?”

“Life’s whatever you make it out to be.” Miles replied just as calmly. “But I get your point. Personally though? I know I’m meant to be a father, not a mother. Experimenting with the mare side of things is great, but I’m not here to stay.” She paused to sip from her wine. “It’s funny you know. You two and I, we’re both stuck in our plans waiting for Starswirl to solve our problems.” She raised her glass then. “To our resident wizard of legend finding a solution?”

Starlight snorted, but both she and Trixie lifted their glasses.

“To Starswirl!”

Past that point, the conversation died down and Starlight dropped her ward when Emeric, Miles’ fellow Lieutenant, came down from his radio station stuck between the rafters in the attic and they started some general chat about the region and Trecesson, the projects they had and what it was like being a guard there.

Then, when they started picking up the plates and cleaning up, Miles stood up and decided to show their visitors to their quarters, leading Trixie and Starlight to one of the usual medieval bedrooms the castle had: thick walls, plenty of cloth in the form of tapestries and carpets to retain heat, a large oaken four-poster bed, basic furniture, and a bathroom down the hallway she pointed out to them.

She didn’t linger. She had to maintain her gear, organize the night watch, and the lustful looks the two unicorn mares were trading implied

Roncevaux Pass was being blown in a whirlwind of chaos the likes of which it hadn’t seen since the battle that made it famous. Not even the minor Napoleonic skirmish waged there could compare to the fight Rodrigo was witnessing.

On one side was the Frankish rear guard. Well-organized, professional, they had assembled to form a defensive position along the line of wagons that were blocking the pass, each laden with archers, bows strung and arrows nocked. Just ahead of them, the infantry had lined up. A core of heavily-armored elite in the very center of the pass wearing a mix of chainmail and scale armor, tightly packed around the paladin leading them whose sword Rodrigo needed to steal. He had his bodyguards around him, plus a retinue of nobles ready to fight to their last breath. They had their round shields overlapped over head other, spears at the ready, shortswords kept sheathed for now.

The militia covering the flanks didn’t look so fierce. They lacked the armor of their elite peers, save for their Captains who were from the same elite guarding the center of the formation. Instead, the lucky ones could afford conical helmets and leather jerkins to go with their spear and shield. And only that. Most lacked backup weapons, and the few that did have one, were limited to mere hunting knives. A useful tool, yet a poor weapon for a field battle. Their performance would entirely be down to the Captains keeping them in line.

That fact would have meant the Frankish army’s flanks were brittle, were it not for the archers covering them from the wagons behind, and the cavalry on the outer edges of the pass. Now, these were not late-medieval knights. Frankish cavalry didn’t have stirrups and couldn’t do crouched spear charges or the like. Instead, a better comparison might have been dragoons. Cavaliers that used their horses mostly for mobility and to run off stragglers, but that otherwise fought on foot, hence why their equipment so closely resembled that of the elite in the center of the pass.

Their use would be limited in the relatively narrow pass, but the ability to flank around and back up the militia was not to be underestimated. In the mountain wind and under the glow of green magic that permeated the plateau and kept Rodrigo trapped there, they looked fierce, banners billowing in the wind, but...

Facing them was a veritable horde of angry Basques, their numbers beyond counting.

While not to the level of Frankish troops in training or equipment, the Basques were local folks. They knew the terrain, they were rough people acclimated to the hilly mountainous region… which the Frankish troops had just pillaged on their way back from Charlemagne’s iberian campaign.

And they were very angry, their shades’ ethereal forms thrumming with an angry red sheen, rearing to recreate the fight that had avenged their charred homeland eons before.

Of the several thousands present on the battlefield, only a few sported actual armor, leather at best, the others either eschewing it entirely in favor of simple tunics, or having patched together makeshift protection: artisans’ aprons turned into leather jerkins, hunting clothes with extra padding, maybe even a few pots used as helmets. They were a disorganized bunch, only held together by a few chiefs holding curtains-turned-standards to direct their troops.

Even their weapons were far worse than their foes: spears shared the battle line with forks and other tools like farming flails, axes and scythes. Accompanying that, hammers and knives were common in adorning the warriors’ belts, and there was even a bunch of hunters in the back line with their bows strung. In the front rows, javelins were held at the ready, little more than sharpened sticks in most cases.

And yet… even Rodrigo knew that: quantity has a quality all its own. The Franks were few. They were tired from a long campaign.

The Basques had their chances at revenge, and they knew it. So they charged. One huge ethereal wave of angry shades looking to swallow them up.

It was about when the first line of Basques ran up to the Franks and started throwing javelins that Rodrigo realized the danger of his predicament. Up until then he’d been staring dumbfounded at them, stuck between the two armies… until a Frankish arrow glanced off his one remaining pauldron.

Had anyone not a shade seen him at the time, the way his eyes widened in realization would have been rather comical as a particularly drawn-out string of swear words filtered through his mind. He was in danger, and his goal of acquiring the paladin’s sword had just become that much harder.

As javelins and arrows alike started filling the air, Rodrigo burst into movement, tired muscles aching, yet the adrenaline was already giving the unicorn the second wind he needed. He quickly galloped away from the center of the battlefield, winding up on a flank where the Frankish cavalry was hard at work preventing gangs of Basque huntsmen from assailing the main line.

Ghastly howls started filling the air, bursts and pops of green magic that would occur whenever one of the shades was killed. The cavalry’s horses would neigh loudly, a mix of pain and fright as some were injured, falling to never rise again, their shades popping after a few seconds, leaving nothing behind but bright sparks.

Rodrigo… only now fully realized how much height he had lost when the Event changed him from human to unicorn form. The tall bipeds loomed above him as he slalomed between their legs, trying to make a dash and get behind the line of wagons to better sneak up on the paladin.

Unfortunately, the shades wouldn’t have it that way. Most were all too happy to hack away and stab at each other… but not all. More than a few times, groups of them would twist their heads and glare at him through hollow eye sockets before grouping up to attack the only living being of the battlefield.

‘BANG-BANG-BANG!’

And he would fight them off with his CETME… up until the old battle rifle saved him from being cleaved in half by a frankish cavalier’s axe. Held in his telekinesis, the rifle that had been keeping him alive (and steadily running out of ammunition between double-feeds) resisted at first, blocking the relentless assaults as Rodrigo used it to parry while he tried to unsheathe his knives.

Then, with a roar from the cavalier as he brandished the axe above his shoulders, the already bent weapon was shattered, finally giving out, its furnishings chipped and cracked and the chamber almost cut open. Rodrigo’s telekinetic grasp failed in a bright flash. He threw himself backwards just in time for the axe to miss gelding him, and the knives finally came free.

Both pieces of metal whistled through the air like giant arrows, and Rodrigo’s mind guided them to the shade’s unprotected neck. It was like taking giant scissors to flesh, and the head was cut clean off. It didn’t bleed. The Frank’s body just collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut off before disappearing in a pop.

Rodrigo sighed in relief. His K9 armor could withstand some stuff, but that axe would have had enough force behind it to break bone. That, and the leather and kevlar were showing wear. He was pretty sure that weight between his shoulders was the tip of a javelin, and he was probably bruised all over already.

No time to dwell on it however. Three Basque spearmen came to fill the cavalier’s place, and the fighting resumed.

Being small and fighting largely using telekinesis gave him quite the edge, and the armor softened most blows, so he managed to slay a great many foes over the course of the battle, though not without being worn down himself. Fatigue came and slowed his blows. Enemy attacks would slip past and graze him, nicking his armor and causing minor injuries, but he kept going.

He kept going when his knives shattered and he had to pick up ghostly weapons to fight back – which for some odd reason didn’t disappear when their wielders died-.

He kept going when a stray arrow hit him in the flank and pierced the armor, immobilizing one of his hind legs and forcing him to hop around on three limbs.

And steadily, Rodrigo drew ever closer to the line of wagons barring Roncevaux Pass and the main frontline where the paladin was fighting with the elite, a veritable ironclad whirlwind of metal that spelled the death of any Basque coming in range.

Unbeknownst to the equine Spaniard, the tide of battle was shifting too. The frankish line was buckling already. The cavalry covering for the militia had been massacred to the last man, each group isolated from the main army and then picked off, allowing archers and javeliners to pepper the main line with projectiles. The archers in the wagons had run out of ammunition. Some ran off into the mountains, others decided to join the main fight alongside the militia that, itself, was starting to waver.

Banners toppled and fell whenever one of their Captains died to the basque onslaught, and wherever that happened, disorganized militia shades would attempt to fight back only to be mowed down and massacred.

Still, in the center of the pass, proud as ever, though tired, the elite held, a homogeneous shield wall that moved like a well-oiled machine to fend off the Basques. They were slaying scores upon scores of them, but for every basque slain, four mores would take his place, and they were being whittled down.

Rodrigo finally reached the wagons. Exhausted. Injured. He rolled under one of them to take a brief pause, accidentally resting some weight on the arrow in his rump, which made him cry out in pain before he twisted himself and snapped the projectile at its base with his teeth.

He wasn’t dumb enough to rip it out. That would wait for later.

A drop of blood trickled from his injured horn to his eye. He wiped it with his forehoof, his telekinesis still holding onto a pair of shortswords retrieved mid-battle.

He had gotten far… but he wasn’t there just yet. Still needed to get the paladin’s sword, and he doubted he’d willingly part from it.

Off the edge of the battlefield, a green silhouette watched, a lone equine looking down at the fighters perched on a rocky protrusion.

All things accounted for… Rodrigo actually knew very little of what was going on.

Author's Notes:

So have I ever commented on how hard it is to find a title for a chapter at times? 'cause it's one of those alright.

Otherwise... well, I can say I hope my rendition of Trixie, Starlight and Sunburst ain't pissing anyone off. I've seen enough interpretations of the trio on this site to know results tend to vary wildly.

To commit to the pun: it's a ship fic. And by saying that, the Pun Police have now put a warrant on my head.