My Little Pony: Slaves to Celestia

A story of  GRIEF and  INJUSTICE

Chapter 1 - The Good, the Bad... The Colonists

Captain Tombs and his merry band of volunteers

“This can’t be happening to me!”

I was pacing nervously around the Canterlot Police barracks changing room of my district of Manehatten, mildly panicking over my new orders, I could not believe my atrociously bad luck, CP command had screwed me over.

The sealed orders they sent were as following:

“Captain Tombs,

You have been reassigned from your post at the Manhatten Precinct 2 to conduct a special mission. You are to escort a group of 6 colonists through the frontier and past the secured border, we will monitor your progress and give you instruction as needed along the way.

Report to the Vanhoover Colonist Allocation & Transferring complex on Friday, May 25th at 1100 for briefing on your assigned group. The ship leaves for Shellbeach Prison in the frontier at 1200.

Disclosure of this mission and any related details to non-CP officials is considered an act of treason.

Failure to comply is grounds for immediate dismissal from Civil Protection and is viewed as direct defiance to CP doctrine and a crime against the Royal Equestrian Kingdom.”

Defiance, meant that I’d be arrested and sent to the frontier as a prisoner anyway.

I know CP, they care just as little for their own force as they do for the criminals they seize, go against CP and you’ll soon find yourself on the same boat as the ponies you yourself arrested the day prior.

These instructions didn’t make any sense, I am a CAPTAIN of CIVIL PROTECTION, not some lowly babysitting guard, I lead operations and missions here in the mainland. Why were they sending ME overseas?

Hell, why were they sending a civil protection officer to the frontier in the first place?

They don’t ever send CP agents to the continent, it’s entirely under the jurisdiction and control of Overwatch, why didn’t they just contact Overwatch and have them deal with this?

And why was CP command being so short on details? To have me go blindly towards, what we all imagine is pony hell, like that without even telling me WHY makes absolutely no sense.

Still, I wasn’t inclined to decline the mission, it’s not like I actually have a choice.

I sat down on a nearby bench on which I left my prepared gear on and sighed deeply.

“You really got yourself in a mess now, Tombs...” I muttered wearily to myself, as if I was expecting to find solace by thinking out loud.

I picked up my helmet and examined it closely, it was heavy and made almost entirely out of metal coated with a layer of grayish white paint which had started to peel off after years of abuse, I noticed a small crack on the back of the helmet.

I remembered where I got it from, it was during a violent riot a couple of years back when a mob of over twenty thousand Luna supporters marched through Manehatten demanding Luna’s release from her imprisonment on the moon, I was a sergeant back then, in charge of a lowly squad of five.

At first we had managed to contain and surround the mob to a certain downtown area of the city, it had seemed as if they were beginning to quiet down and disperse, but then out of nowhere some of the rioters began totting molotovs and stolen CP pistols and SMG’s. We had been forced to gas the entire downtown area and charge the mob.

And that's when it happened, I had been in the thick of it and had just leaned down to apprehend one of the rioters when I heard a loud PLOINK and felt my head violently tilt forward, turning around I had seen a frightened young mare, couldn’t have been more than 15 years old, aiming a pistol at me, I had... stared at her... and she had dropped her pistol in panic and fled the fight.

It turned into a massacre, both sides ended up taking heavy losses and hundreds of wounded, the streets that had seen the worst of the action ran red with blood, that's how bad the riot had gotten.

I flipped the helmet and poked at the bulge on the inside with my hoof.

It hadn’t been a particularly deep crack, but I could feel that it was there, a little deeper and I would have been a goner.

Thankfully the bullet had hit from an angle instead of directly head on, it had been a close brush with death, to close to forget about it.

I couldn't recall why I didn't have the helmet replaced, perhaps I had kept it as a memento, or maybe I just never cared enough to do anything about it. It was just a stupid helmet anyway.

Another officer entered the barracks coming back from patrol duty, wearing his full uniform, I couldn’t tell who it was since all CP officers look the same when in their full uniform.

“*Oh hey Tombs,*” the officer greeted me.

I recognized the voice through his vocoder, it was Shank, one of the men under my command.

I didn’t care much for protocol, I preferred to have my men address me and each other by their CP nickname rather than rank.

I had been given the name “Tombs”, because I had apparently proven to be good at intercepting and apprehending suspects, the name “Tombs” was a reference to the pegasus bounty hunter “Toombs” which lived nearly four hundred years ago, Toombs had been widely known as the best ponyhunter in all of Equestria and had often been sent to the Zebra and Griffon kingdoms to capture and bring back target ponies. It was said that Toombs perished in the cold wastelands of the Frozen North attempting to seek out one of his targets.

I considered this name of be a gross over exaggeration of my skills, but everypony who worked with me insisted on calling me that, so it stuck with me over the years.

Shank had gotten his name for his habit of bringing a small switchblade with him on his missions, he didn’t get the name until one particular mission where we had to root out a member of the resistance in an abandoned apartment complex, we had been forced to split up to cover all the exits and Shank had found the target first, but it turned out that the rebel was armed with a pistol and opened fire on first sight of Shank when the two met in a doorway, through sheer leprechaun luck the first bullet had hit his stun baton.

On the other hand, the shot completely broke his baton, forcing him to improvise, and that's where the switchblade came in handy. Before the rebel had managed to fire off another shot Shank had already managed to pull out his switchblade and stab the rebel once in the chest.

By the time the rest of us managed to regroup with him he had already incapacitated the rebel and restrained him.

That had been the source of much comedy in the following weeks and eventually we began calling him Shank.

I smiled, thinking back at the mission.

“Hey Shank...”

“*Something wrong? You seem a bit down.*”

“Command has reassigned me. I wont be leading you guys anymore.”

“*Aw, I’m sorry to hear. Where are they assigning you? I hope for you that it isn’t Fillydelphia, that whole city is hell right now.*”

“It’s worse...”

“*Worse than Fillydelphia? They sending you to Dodge City?*”

“They are sending me to the frontier.”

“*The frontier!?*”

“The frontier.”

“*But why!? We don’t even have any operations in the frontier! I mean, as far as I know.*"

“Apparently we do now. I can’t say much about it, in part because it’s classified and in part because I don’t know much about it, I am supposed to get more instruction as I travel through the frontier.”

“*What do you mean ‘through the frontier’?*”

“My mission takes me beyond the secured borders of the frontier.”

“*B-beyond the borders? But that’s...*”

“Pony hell? Yeah. I know.”

“*You must have really pissed somepony off to get sent to the ass end of the world like that, I am... sorry, I wish there was something I could do.*”

“No need to be sorry, Shank. These things happen.”

Shank sat down on a bench opposite to me and removed his helmet, there was nothing really remarkable about him or his face, he was an earth pony as most of the CP rank and file were, brown coat, dull orange eyes and short cropped crimson mane. He seemed sad.

“You are just going to take it like that?” he asked me.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t seem to be very upset over it, if I had been sent to a place like that I would have gone completely apeshit over it, nopony wants to go to the frontier, let alone beyond it.”

I took a deep breath.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am feeling pretty fucking miserable over this, I doubt I’ll ever come home from this mission. I can probably count my days already and safely say that I’ll likely be dead within a month.”

“But there is simply nothing I can do about it Shank, I might as well just give up and face the reality, I’ll do what is asked of me and if I live I live if not, then at least I had a good run here. But honestly? My life is over, this is the end for me.”

“...”

“Then all I can do then is wish you good luck... and hope you’ll make it back alive.”

“Will you at least come hang out with the squad one last time? Make your farewells?”

“No. I need to take the night train to Vanhoover, I need to report by 11AM tomorrow morning.”

“Oh...”

“You could tell them, if you want. But don’t make a big deal out of it, shit happens, I just got the short end of the stick, it could happen to any of us.”

Shank undressed, stored his gear in one of the lockers and made for the door.

Before leaving the room he turned around.

“Then this is it. Goodbye Captain Tombs, it was an honor serving under you. You’ve been a good leader.”

“Goodbye Shank.”

Then he left.

I guess all I have to do now is finish preparing my gear.

I looked over at what I had.

The standard issue Civil Protection armor, composed of a full body suit protected by kevlar plates, the helmet and the black saddle bag and pouches.

One first aid kit, one tin box containing 6 Psycho chem’s, 6 cans of beans, two bottles of water and two bottles of Everfree Dandelion vodka (completely undrinkable, but a sip is enough to feel the effect and it can also be used to sterilize wounds if absolutely necessary), and of course my stun baton, my issued WH MLP (Warhorse Mouth Loaded Pistol, a recent design which allows the shooter to reload the pistol using his mouth should the need arise, it sounds weird and unhygienic, but it works well, as long as you clean the pistol after extended use), small energy cells for the baton and five 18 round mags of standard 9mm calibre bullets.

It wasn’t much, considering where I was headed, but I could probably obtain more supplies in the outposts and settlements along the way, or maybe something would be arranged once we got there.

I don’t know how big the frontier actually is or how far it is to the border, but I doubt I’d be able to carry enough to make it there anyway so it seems very likely.

What was the time again? I checked the wall mounted clock in the changing room, 12:44 PM.

Might be best if I get going, I had a long train ride ahead of me.

I put my armor and gear on, fastened my helmet and left the building.

As soon as I left through the main entrance I was met with a cold gust of wind which swept newspapers, trash and dust down the street, there was probably a storm planned for tonight.

It was dark and lonely outside, the street was lit with the orange lights of old lamp posts lining the sides of the street. Opposite from the precinct was a large park surrounded by tall 40 story apartment buildings, the park wasn’t lit at night so the entire area in front of the precinct looked like a pitch black void, dotted by the occasional lit window or balcony.

It seemed really desolate.

But that was normal, nopony was out this time of the night as curfews were in effect in the residential and industrial areas of the city after 8PM.

The only areas open for free travel at night were the downtown commercial areas which were always bustling with life, even in this dark age ponies would still party on, ‘Nothing can stop the wubs!’ they say.

But it wasn't just wubs, I had been there occasionally, the decadent parties some of the ponies threw tended to spiral way out of control, at times they turned into massive orgies, sometimes large scale fighting would occur, it wasn't unusual for a couple of ponies to die in falling accidents and overdoses during the wilder nights.

The Manehatten central station wasn’t far from this districts barracks, it was just a couple of blocks away, so I began to slowly walk down the street.

I didn’t meet anypony during the slow twenty minute walk, there hadn’t even been a parked car or carriage, just empty dusty streets. I was approaching the central station by now, this area had more activity as it was constantly used by civilians and Civil Protection alike deep into the heart of the night.

It was a big old structure built well over a century ago, despite the regular maintenance and upkeep the big brown stone building looked like it would fall apart.

Ignoring the bustling traffic of incoming and outgoing ponies I went inside the station and went straight for the CP controlled offices, there were a few officers inside minding their own business and guarding various doors and passages.

Technically they didn’t actually have to be in the station, the entire place was under the constant watchful surveillance of security cameras and listening systems, but it was preferable for CP to have a presence in public areas to keep the peace and intimidate the populace.

I went up to a scanner by a steel door, it flashed twice at me and then the voice of a bored old mare spoke to me.

“*ID.*” she demanded.

“*Captain Tombs of Civil Protection, district 2.*”

“*Ok, come in.*”

The steel door opened and I went inside.

This was CP’s own area of the Manehatten Central Station, this is where CP officers would come through on their business to check in before transferring to another city, no one ever really stayed in there for more than they had to, so it was pretty much empty.

I went down two long dull gray corridors until I got to a small waiting room of sorts, there was no one here, behind a small window opposite to the entrance sat a bored looking middle aged mare with a light gray coat and silvery gray hair tied in a knot, she seemed to be typing something on a computer.

I approached the window and she looked up.

“Yes? Can I help you?” she said with a monotone voice, a testament to how incredibly boring she must have felt her job was.

“*Command has requested me over at Vanhoover, I just need clearing to board the next train there.*”

She sighed, for whatever reason.

“Okay... name and precinct?”

“*Captain Tombs, precinct 2.*”

She typed this in and checked through her records for a few minutes.

“Your precinct is listed as ‘none’.”

“*But my ID was clear when I was buzzed in here?*”

“Yeah, Marianne doesn’t really go through the records, she pretty much just lets people drabbed in that armor of yours in at sight.”

“*Uh, okay.*”

“I still need a precinct, sir.”

“*What?*”

“I said, I need a precinct to enter into the system, or it wont allow me to clear you through.”

“*Precinct 2 of Manehatten IS my home precinct.*”

“It doesn’t list it as such.”

"*LISTEN to me, precinct 2 of Manhatten, the precinct just down the street twenty minutes from here is the place I have worked at for a good three years now. It IS my home precinct. Check your systems again.*"

“Look sir, I need a precinct or the system won't recognize you as a legitimate officer.”

This shit was beginning to give me a headache.

I pulled out the orders I had received from command.

“*Command is sending me on a mission beyond the frontier. They must have removed my listing under precinct 2. Here is proof.*”

I handed the orders to her and she read through them.

“It also says that you shouldn’t disclose it to anypony...”

“*And Marianne is supposed to check the ID of all personnel entering the offices. Should we go tell command together or can I please just be cleared through under ‘Special Task’ and be on my way?*”

“I... guess I can do that...” she directed her attention back to her computer and after a few minutes she was done.

“Done. You are cleared for passage to Vanhoover.”

“*Thank you. That wasn't so hard, now was it?*”

"Hey that attitude is completely uncalled for."

"*No, it isn't. I have a lot on my mind right now as it is, I don't need to take crap from some bitchy pencil pusher. Not today of all days.*"

"*Now please, give me back my orders so I can get out of here.*"

She handed me my orders back and I was just about to leave.

“Wait...”

“*What is it?*", I said turning back around.

"I'm sorry."

"*You are... sorry?*" this was unexpected.

“Yeah I... eh... I normally don't really admit it or anything, but I guess you are right... I really could have been nicer about it.”

“I see where you are heading to and... you deserve better than this, so I just wanted to... apologize.”

I could tell that this was hard for her to say.

I sighed.

Maybe I had been a bit hard on her, she was probably having a bad day and was likely under a lot of stress.

“*It’s okay... I understand.*”

“You do?”

“*We can all get off on the wrong hoof sometimes without really meaning it, and I am sorry if I reacted harshly.*"

"*I know that a lot of officers come through here every day and that not all of them are the nicest of ponies, but I believe that it would help and make your job a little less unpleasant if you did your best to smile and be as nice as you can.*”

"*You don't have to like it, but it would really help you in the long run and avoid situations like these.*"

She thoughtfully leaned back in her chair.

“You know, I think you’re right. I’ll try that from now on.”

“That's good advice. Not the kind you'd expect from a CP officer.”

"*We are not all bad ponies, but our job doesn't give us many opportunities to show for it.*"

"Understandably."

"What did you do before becoming a CP officer? You don't seem like the rest of the officers who pass through."

I thought about it and felt immediately gloom, there was no way I could look back at my past and not get torn up over it.

I bowed my head down and closed my eyes shut trying to contain the feeling.

“*I’d... rather not talk about it.*”

“Oh, sensitive past huh? I’m sorry then, we don’t have to discuss it.”

“I guess that’s it then, have a nice trip to Vanhoover sir and... good luck on your mission.”

“*Thank you. Goodnight ma’am.*”

I made way for the station platform, leaving through the back exit of the transferring offices.

If I hadn’t been cleared first they would have picked up a “miscount” on the train and listed me as a defector of Civil Protection, which leads to an arrest and no trial.

It wasn’t a very forgiving system and caused a great deal of problems for CP’s own when it was first introduced.

It was cold out on the station platform, my train would arrive in about twenty minutes over at track 15, which was way out in the open.

All the benches on this platform were occupied by the dozen of other ponies who were waiting for the same train, a few CP officers, some citizens and one fully geared Infantry soldier who sat shivering on a bench next to a big bag of gear clutching to her pulse rifle.

I approached her and she looked up directly at me through the single red cyclopic eye of her helmet.

“*Hello.*” I greeted.

“*What do you want, officer?*” she warily replied.

“*Just waiting for the train, just like you, and the other benches are all occupied so... mind if I take a seat?*”

She waited with her response, looking around to see if the other benches were really occupied.

I guess she really didn't want share the bench with me.

I turned around to leave when she spoke.

“*Okay, have a seat.*”, she grabbed her bag and dropped it in front of her by her hooves.

I sat down next to her, it was a small bench and the bulk of our armors forced us to sit close enough for our flanks and elbows to touch.

We sat quietly for a few minutes, the Infantry mare toyed with her rifle for a while but quickly lost interest for it.

“*So where are you headed to?*” I asked, trying to make conversation.

She didn't respond at first.

“*Why do you care?*”

“*Just trying to pass the time, that’s all.*”

She leaned forward and put down her rifle by the bag.

“*I’m being relocated to the frontier, overseas. Command has requested that some of our forces help in securing the border in order to improve our relations with Overwatch.*”

“*The frontier?*”

“*Yeah. Terrible, isn’t it?*” she didn’t sound too happy about it.

“*More like a terrible coincidence.*”

“*How so?*”

“*Command has tasked me with a mission which takes me beyond the frontier borders.*”

“*Really? I didn’t even know that CP ran operations overseas, I mean aside from the coastal embarks.*”

“*My mission is ‘special’.*”

“*Black ops?*”

“*I’m just a regular CP Captain, I don’t know anything about any ‘black ops’.*”

“*I see.*”

“*Guess we are just two unlucky ponies, heading to a place where death could happen any day.*”

“*Sure looks like it.*”

“*What’s your name, officer?*” the soldier mare asked.

I wasn’t keen on introducing myself by my real name, I felt that as long as I wore my uniform, I would never be associated with my real self and who I am without it. It was a badge of shame to me, my parents wouldn’t have been proud of my work had they still been alive (Luna bless their souls).

“*Tombs*”

“*That’s it? Your name is ‘Tombs’?*”

“*Thats what they call me, it stuck over the years so it has kinda replaced my original name.*” I lied.

“*What about you?*”

“*My name is... actually wait, do you promise not to laugh?*”

“*Why would I laugh?*”

“*Because my name is completely unfitting my job as an Infantry soldier, they always laugh when I introduce myself wearing this thing.*”

“*It can’t be that bad.*”

“*My name is Cake Frosting.*”

Cake Frosting? What kind of a fucking name is Cake Frosting?

Even for ponies, who have generally silly names ‘Cake Frosting’ comes off as absurd.

“*Your name. Is Cake Frosting?*”

“*Cake Frosting. As in the cake frosting you put on cakes, yes.*”

I paused.

“*....why?*”

“*My fathers family name was ‘Cake’ as he came from a line of bakers, my mother was a weatherpony, who specialized in blizzards and snow falls. When I was born they couldn’t agree on a name, my father wanted to name me Arriane Cake and my mother Winter Frost. After some minor fighting they eventually agreed on naming me Cake Frosting, Frosting because it incorporated the word ‘frost’ which my mother wanted to pass down from her own name. Technically my last names are Cake and Frost, making my full name into Cake Frosting Cake Frost.*”

This explanation didn’t make any sense at all.

“*That is just absurd. Cake Frosting Cake Frost? Seriously?*”

“*Seriously. My name is the laughing stock of my entire company.*”

“*It sounds like your parents were clueless on how to properly name ponies. How come they didn’t change your name once they found out how strange it came out?*”

“*I don’t know. My best guess is that they couldn’t agree on a new name, or maybe they insisted on having their own last names as part of my first name. I’d ask them myself but they are both up there in pony heaven laughing at my name.*”

“*And why haven’t you changed your name then?*”

“*I’ve thought about it several times really, but I’ve had this name for over 20 years now and at this point I have just gotten used to it. Besides, it gives a bit of comic relief and has always been a fun source of conversation.*”

“*So you actually like your name?*”

“*Never said I didn’t. Silly and clumsy? Yes. But bad to the point where I have to change it? Nah.*”

“*How about your name? Got any story behind it?*”

“*My name isn’t funny. I doubt you’d like to know how I got it.*”

“*Hey I told you about mine!*”

"*I am serious, there is nothing funny or nice about it.*"

"*Tell me anyway.*"

“*If you say so, don't say I didn't warn you.*”

“*So basically I have been with Civil Protection for a long time now, started of as a regular officer just like everypony else, followed orders without question and did my job. There was nothing outstanding about me save for one thing, my ability to apprehend and capture target ponies. Sometimes suspects and criminals get away when Civil Protection comes knocking on their door or even show themselves in the same block as them, but that never happened when I was part of the squad tasked with arresting somepony. This skill of mine got the attention of CP superiors which promoted me to Sergeant and then directly to Captain.*"

*"The name ‘Tombs’ is a reference to the pegasus bounty hunter ‘Toombs’ spelled with two o’s who lived over a hundred years ago and was known for his ability to capture and retrieve ponies. The officers I worked with felt like it was a fitting nickname and so I’ve stuck with, since my work with Civil Protection takes up most of my time I took on to introducing and calling myself ‘Tombs’ even when off duty, replacing my original name with my nickname. That’s pretty much it.*”

I was met with silence.

“*You are right. It wasn’t very funny. That’s actually pretty terrible considering where the ponies you arrest are often sent to. Hell, ‘Tombs’ might as well mean ‘Death’ as the ponies you send to the frontier are sent to their tomb.*”

Now that she mentions it, that is exactly what I do and is just as good of an explanation for my nickname as the real one. That was terrible.

“*That’s... a pretty grim way to view my nickname... I hadn’t thought about it that way.*”

“*If you don’t mind me asking, why did you sign up with Civil Protection? How can you do the things you do and sleep well at night?*”

I thought about it for a while.

But before I could give an answer the train arrived.

“*I could give you an explanation on the train if you don’t mind us sharing seats?*”

I could tell that she wanted to get away from me, I revealed the reasoning behind my name, my work with Civil Protection and the great evil and harm I put others through indirectly through my work.

I imagined that I was nothing but a soulless bastard to Cake Frosting by now.

She paused before answer.

“*I would... rather not.*" there we had it.

*"But I am curious to know. So fine, I’ll share a seat with you and after your explanation I’ll decide whether to sit with you for the rest of the trip or if I should find somewhere else to sit.*”

What a prissy mare.

We boarded the train, I offered to take her bag of gear for her but she insisted on grabbing the bag and her assault rifle, she had to do some complex moves to get both up on her back without my help seeing as neither of us could grab anything with our mouths due to the helmets but she did it, and quickly.

The train was of modern design, it didn’t reflect the gray and decayed state of the rest of society, the inside was of a perfect room temperature and brightly lit.

The corridors and floors of the train were covered by clean red carpets, the walls and interiors were of a clean sterling white and the black seats were large and comfortably looking, arranged in 6 pairs of 4 seats and 1 table per wagon.

Overall the wagon we had picked seemed roomy and rather nice, only one other pony shared the wagon with us, a civilian stallion who sat at the back of the wagon leaning on the window trying to sleep.

Cake stored her gear on the baggage shelf above us and we took our seats opposite to each other.

As the train started moving Cake unfastened her helmet and took it off, she shook her head to let her long wavy brown mane fall down. Her coat was cyan blue and her eyes were light gray.

She appeared to have a bright and young face, she caught me staring at her and gave me an expression of absolute indifference and patience.

It took me a moment to realize that she expected me to take my helmet off, I hadn’t really planned on removing it but knew that it would be rude not to.

So I removed my own helmet and placed it on the seat next to me, she smiled.

“How old are you exactly, Tombs?” she asked me with a clear voice.

“How old do you think I am?”

“Hmm...”

“Ffffffoou... Thirty... nine?”

“Not even close. I’m 32.”

“Why? Do I seem that old to you?”

“Nooo... noo... I was just guessing.” she tried to hide her lie with an awkward and forced smile.

“It’s my mane and coat isn’t it?”

“Not at all, I think it suits you.”

“It’s gray. And charcoal. I feel old just looking at myself in the mirror sometimes, all I am missing from becoming an old Canterlot chap is a monocle, top hat, white moustache and a cigar..”

Cake laughed.

“Age looks good on stallions, Tombs. It makes them look wise and seasoned.”

“‘Seasoned’ is not really what I am aiming for Cake.”

“What about you then? How old are you?”

“Eh, I’m 29. But that's not important, you were about to explain why you work Civil Protection to me.”

“Yes... yes I was.”

I was thinking whether to give her the short moot explanation or the more serious closer to heart one, I did have my reasons to join CP, but I wasn’t disposed to discuss it with just anypony, not that there was anypony who wanted to know, it wasn’t a very commonly brought up subject.

“If you don’t mind, I will be leaving out my past, its much too sensitive of a thing for me to just bring up casually like this. I hope you understand.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“I just said that I don’t want to bring it up, and if you ask about it again I am going to have to ask you to leave." I berated.

"Have I been perfectly clear on this?"

She frowned.

“Yes. Crystal.”

“After I... lost touch... with my parents I gave up hope and began roaming the downtown areas of Manehatten as a criminal and a thug, I signed up with an underground group of revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow Celestia for the ‘crime’ she supposedly committed against Equestria (you know, ‘the incident’ which we all know well about) and who wanted to give Princess Luna the crown. They went by the name of ‘The New Lunar Republic front’. There weren’t very many of them back then, we had been fifty ponies at most, and there was nothing righteous and good about us. We were all criminals who robbed ponies and used the profits to buy weapons, food and drugs. We had some of the worst of the worst in our little gang, murderers, saboteurs, there was one of everypony it seemed. We even had a few of the worst rapists in Equestrian criminal history too."

I paused, thinking how to proceed.

"Do you want to know one of their sick ideas of a laugh?"

"Aeeh... sure?"

"They would often go out on what they called a ‘Mareathon’, it was a game where the objective was to violate as many mares in one night as possible, they had bets and rewards for the ‘winner’.”

This painted an expression of pure shock on her.

“That’s horrible!”

“And it gets worse, we even had a fillyphile (as we call them in CP), a sick fuck who got off on little kids, on young underage fillies, can you imagine that?”

"I... oh my goddess..."

“All those years I just minded my own business, ignoring what the other members of my gang did with their time, until one day, the day Celestia declared herself Queen of Equestria.”

“The New Lunar Republic front threw a fit over that and began to openly recruit anypony who despised Celestia to the point of wanting a revolt, the numbers swelled but the criminality stayed. I tired of their sick games and debauchery and left the NLR. I lived in an apartment down in the downtown slums, living off the occasional job I could get, until another big thing occurred. Luna’s banishment to the moon.”

“NLR recruitment numbers had an exploding bloom of an increase, it was no longer a gang of scum, thugs and rapists, it became an actual freedom fighting organization. Or at least, that is how they portrayed themselves. They were nothing but terrorists and crime increased to an all time high in Equestria, the police being unable to contain it anymore.”

“Rumor was that a paramilitary organization had been founded by Celestia, a sort of police alternative, and that this organization was recruiting. I looked into it and discovered Civil Protection, a police force which promised to clean Equestria of its filth and defend the populace. I signed on immediately and was accepted as soon as the day after signing up. Well in CP I spoke to the higher ups and disclosed the location of my old gang's hideout as I remembered it, and within a day some of the NLR top leaders were arrested and brought in for interrogation, my old gang mates, the fillyphile amongst them. For this I was commended and promoted to Corporal, on my second day at work.”

“In the years that passed Civil Protection gradually phased out the Equestrian Police Force and lowered crime as much as ponilly possible, no one really knew where the ponies we arrested went, we had no major penitentiary facilities that I knew of, they were just apprehended by other officers and ‘disappeared’.

As I eventually came to know, the ponies were being sent as a forced labor force, slaves, overseas to colonize the new land there no matter the cost. But reliable news never made it to Equestria, all we would hear about it was the occasional rumor of how much of a hell the frontier was and this was from soldiers on leave.”

“At that point I was already a Sergeant and had friends, good decent friends, a fat pay and an okay life cut out for me so I simply decided to stick around, despite the bad things I knew we were doing.

And you have to understand, that while I certainly don’t agree with our methods and don’t justify me arresting ponies and sending them to their deaths with the same ‘I do it for the good of Equestria!’ happy horseshit, that most other CP officers would give you. I do firmly believe that CP has done it’s part in lowering crime and restoring the state of Equestria, the economy has recovered, even if it has come at the great cost of some of our freedoms.”

“I don’t know about that...” Cake seemed reluctant, but I was sure that I was well on my way to sway her over to my point of view, I pressed on.

“You don’t know about what? What is the worst of the two scenarios? A free equestria with regular crime, anarchy and a depression on it’s hooves, or a safe, stable equestria ruled under the iron hoof of Civil Protection?”

She looked like she was about to protest to that last bit, I was losing her again.

“Ponies” I resumed before she could say anything, “Speak so fondly of ‘the good old days’ of Equestria, ‘before those bastard CP officers ruined everything’ but that is just a load of shit, things were terrible before Civil Protection sorted things out, I was there, I know, the real ‘good old days’ were way back during the mid-Golden Age, when we still had resources to spare and land to exploit. When we ran out of those and thousands of ponies became unemployed due to the economy failing it all turned to shit, and you know that.”

Cake didn’t respond, she was thinking.

“But was it really worth it?” Cake calmly said.

“All those ponies, forcibly shipped overseas to do forced labor... ponies die there Tombs, ponies die there all the time, they are suffering because of Civil Protection.”

“For Luna’s sake, Cake! They are criminals! SCUM. They harmed the Equestrian Kingdom and her society, other ponies, and now they are paying the price for it!”

“That’s very naive of you Tombs.”

Naive?

“How so?”

“Not all ponies arrested by you are criminals. Not all of them are rapists and thugs.”

“And how would you know? We follow up on reports filed by citizens and other officers alike, we see everything, we know who does what.”

“But you really don’t, you make mistakes, arrest the wrong ponies, your organization is not perfect.”

“We never fail.”

“You never investigate or perform trials either. How many ponies have paid the price just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or for attracting the jealousy of hate of others?”

“Elaborate.”

“My cousin, Gemmy. She is... or was... the sweetest unicorn mare you’d ever meet, she wouldn’t harm a fly and was a model citizen. She owned a jewelry store and had a successful, if limited, business. She came to me one day very upset over a mishap with a customer, she had accidentally switched two orders around and given a diamond necklace to the wrong customer, she had tried to contact the customer but never managed to get ahold of it. The stallion, to which the diamond necklace belonged, was furious with her and said that he’d make her ‘pay’ for it if she didn’t get it back by the end of the week. We searched and searched for the other customer but never found it, and by the end of the week Civil Protection came and arrested Gemmy. Apparently 37 ponies had filed a report of murder on her. There had been no investigation, no questioning, they simply came and took her. I never saw Gemmy again.”

That’s horrible. Was this really true?

Was it really that easy to abuse and exploit CP like that?

“I am sorry about your cousin...”

“Why should you be? You seem very convinced that Civil Protection is a shining beacon of light and justice, if you say all they do is arrest legitimate criminals then she clearly must have secretly been a murderer.

Heh, maybe she led a secret life as a serial killer when she wasn’t at home taking care of her father or hanging out with her friends.” she said with a heavy undertone of sarcasm.

“I didn’t know, I didn’t think that CP would go to such lengths.”

“You didn’t know or you didn’t want to know?”

“What? What are you implying?”

“You have led a successful career as an officer who specializes in capture and arrest, what are the odds that 100% of the ponies you arrested were true criminals? How many of them looked like criminals? How many of them did you arrest in the cleaner areas of the city? Think about it Tombs.”

This was true. Not all of my arrests had been made in the slums of Manehatten, thinking back I recalled a few benign and harmless looking ponies.

Cake was right, they hadn’t all been criminals, they couldn’t have been.

I sunk my head in shame.

“You always knew didn’t you? You never acknowledged it, but you knew that not all of them were crooks.”

“Don’t push it Cake,” I debarred, “You don’t have the right to criticize me like that, you don’t know me. Sending criminals to the frontier is a necessity, all I did was follow orders, it is my job, I never intended for innocent ponies to suffer for it.”

“I know you well enough to make that assertion. I know that you did it because it is what you thought was right, you felt that Civil Protection was the right kind of solution to Equestria’s problems. But guess what? It’s FASCIST, Tombs. It sounds real great on paper but in reality your organization is just as criminal as the New Lunar Republic front you described, you are no better than them.”

What!?

How dares she make that kind of comparison with me?!

I gritted my teeth, but before I could give her my heated response to that she continued talking.

“You are not a bad pony Tombs, don’t mistake my dislike for Civil Protection as direct hatred for you, I do believe you when you say that you never intended to harm the innocent.”

“You aren’t forced to change because of what I say, if you want to continue working for those fiends under the misguided guise that you are doing it for the good of Equestria then that is fine, it is your own moral choice. But don’t go around claiming that it is for ‘good’ or that it is the ‘right’ solution to our problems.”

It was hard to face, but she was right.

Or at least she sounded as if she was right, what proof did she bring to the table?

She was but a stranger to me, how could I really be sure that what she said was true?

But then, she was hard to argue against, everything she had said made sense.

Maybe I had wrongfully arrested a few innocent citizens, but I had followed my orders and nothing else, it wasn’t my fault.

But why would CP do that? It would have been the perfect solution if all we did was arrest criminals, but this was not the case according to Cake. There must be some angle on this, some sort of justifiable reason to send the innocent to work as slaves to Equestria, there had to be something.

“Do you think CP knows?” I asked.

“They can’t not know about it, this has been going on for years.”

“But why? Why would CP enslave the innocent?”

“Who knows? I got my theory however.”

“Let’s hear it then.”

“My best guess is that Civil Protection is running out of criminals to arrest, and that in order to supplement the declining workforce they intentionally bend the law and their system in their favor.”

“What? By arresting innocent citizens just like that?”

“I’m sorry, but that just sounds like the same kind of bullshit those anti-celestian conspiracy theorists tell you over drinks at the pub. I can get and understand that there may be mishaps and overlooking which leads to some innocents being wrongfully arrested and sent overseas, but that is just... way too far fetched to be true.”

“So, prove me wrong.”

“That’s not how it works! You are the one who should bring proof to back up your crazy theory!”

“Gemmy is proof enough.”

“Your story about your cousin Gemmy would only prove that CP isn’t perfect and that they do mistakes (which I admit would be easily avoided if they looked into it more) and I can submit to that idea. But it doesn’t prove that CP would supplement a declining criminal workforce with civilians such as Gemmy.

For gods sake, what about Gemmy would make her a better worker than some of the lower outcasts of society I see daily down in the slums?”

Cake remained silent.

“Let us look at the facts, I’ll be going a bit on assumption here and assume that your cousin Gemmy isn’t the kind of super buff and strong unicorn mare fit for heavy lifting and physical labor, correct?”

“I guess...” she answered hesitantly.

“So that rules out CP targeting her because of her physique.”

“Next, you mentioned that Gemmy owned a jewelry store.”

“Yes.”

“So she must clearly have been a pony of some wealth to run that kind of business, this gives another point in her favor.”

“A point in her favor for what?”

“For not being a realistic target for CP’s arrest should your insane theory be true.”

“Lastly, did Gemmy have a family and a circle of friends who cared about her?”

Cake didn’t respond.

“You don’t have to go into detail, just answer the question: Did Gemmy have ponies who cared about her and who would mourn her disappearance? Aside from you?”

“Yes...”

“Third point in her favor.”

“So, Gemmy, an upstanding and wealthy citizen, an ordinary unicorn mare with no outstanding physique or magical skills to speak of and who also had a number of other ponies who genuinely cared for her would according to you be a more lucrative target for Civil Protection to target and arrest than some generic burly junkie stallion with no friends and family living in the slums of the city?”

“I’m sorry Cake, but your theory doesn’t sound very plausible to me. If it were, then CP would have cleaned the cities of all junkies and scum living in the slums ages ago, they would never be targeting honest and innocent citizens, that is counter productive, it goes entirely against their whole objective.”

“But what if they are just targeting citizens at random?”

“What? I just told you that it wouldn’t make sense to target good equestrian citizens and now you suggest that they target them at random?”

“What if they don’t care about the backgrounds of the ponies they arrest?”

That was actually not a bad argument, CP would be targeting ponies at random without looking at their background.

But for what scope? What purpose?

They were building a new country, colonizing a dangerous new land, building new settlements and cities from scratch.

Why would they need jewelers?

“Fair enough,” I said, “but why would they need random citizens with random skillsets? They are colonizing a new land overseas, I am guessing that scrawny old ponies and jewelers are only going to drag their efforts down, wouldn’t they rather have strong and clever ponies better suited for the harsh physical labor needed to tame the lands?”

Cake leaned back in her seat and thought for a while.

“I... I guess you are right, it does sound a bit far fetched now that you mention it. I am not sure where I am going with this, it was a stupid theory.” she said with some resignation.

“You are just going to let it go like that?”

I was surprised, I was under the impression that she wanted to push the idea of Civil Protection being part of a massive conspiracy until I gave up, and now she was the one  giving up.

It couldn’t possibly be my arguing, the way I had so poorly defended myself and what I worked for, did she come to some sort of self realization?

“You make a good point, why would CP target random ponies unfit for heavy labor?”

“Maybe you are right, and those arrests are nothing but mistakes and overlooks. I really don’t know.”

“Should we just leave it at that?” I suggested.

I wanted to end our little talk about CP, I had heard enough and between me being sent to a literal hell, and hearing about innocents being subjected to the same fate, I was already thinking about leaving CP whenever the next chance came up.

But before I could do that I would have to survive the mission, and the chances for that seemed very slim to me.

Cake’s response was interrupted by the train suddenly rocking hard, sending both of us forward into a violent headbutt, the train wheels screeched loudly as they braked against the rail below.

The train soon slowed down to a halt, simultaneous loud CLICKS were heard from the two doors and windows of the carriage, we had been locked in.

There was a miscount on the train, a Civil Protection quick reaction force was on it’s way, to this carriage.

A loudspeaker beeped loudly twice, the electronic sounding voice of a mare spoke.

“WARNING, MISCOUNT DETECTED. EVERYPONY KEEP SEATED, CIVIL PROTECTION DELEGATES ARE ON THE WAY TO BOARD THE TRAIN.”

I looked up at Cake Frosting, rubbing my forehead.

There was a small bump where our heads had collided, she had gotten away with just a small bruise.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah...” she touched the bruise, “Ouch.”

“A miscount has been detected in our carriage, but it isn’t me. Did you clear in before transferring?”

“Of course I did.”

We both stood up and peeked over the row of seats at the stallion in the back, he had had a rough awakening and was breathing hard, either out of shock or out of the realization that he was the miscount.

“Sir?” I called out to him.

He looked over at me with an expression of deep panic which worsened the moment he saw our uniforms.

“N-NO!! T-THERE’S BEEN A MISTAKE! I CHECKED IN! I SWEAR I DID!” he stammered.

“Sir, I am sure we can clear this up, stay calm.” I was lying, I wasn’t sure why I was attempting to give him false hope, there was nothing I could do about this.

CP was very harsh on miscounts, harsher than it should have been.

The door clicked down on our end of the wagon, three Civil Protection agents wearing the black and yellow uniforms of CP Border Patrol (the branch of CP responsible for the safeguarding and patrolling of city outskirts, the countryside and sea borders), two of them were helmetless and were wielding stun batons and one holding a pistol with his right hoof, walking awkwardly on three hooves.

The two with stun batons rushed past us, the officer with the pistol stopped by us for a moment noticing our uniforms and the captain insignia I had on my shoulder.

He saluted me with the hoof he held the pistol in.

“*Captain, sir. We apologize for the inconvenience.*”

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked sheepishly, I already knew, but I didn’t want to try to just bluntly ask for the stallions release.

“*Well, er, there has been a miscount. That civilian didn’t clear in with us before boarding the train.*”

“*He broke the law, and we are arresting him.*”

“He broke the law by forgetting to buy a ticket?” Cake Frosting interjected.

The officer looked at her and then back at me, unsure of how to respond to the infantry mare.

“Allow me to introduce my friend, Cake Frosting.” I said, with a hard emphasis on ‘friend’.

“She is with Infantry of the Equestrian Army. You will show her the same respect as any officer of CP.”

“*O-of course sir.*” the officer turned to Cake.

“*Those are the laws, ma’am. I didn’t write them, I am just following orders.*”

“Can’t you just look the other way just this once?”

“*CP doesn’t work like that. We can’t just let ponies go and make exceptions. We have to bring him in.*”

“What will you do to him?” she asked, I saw where she was going with this.

She was testing the officer.

“Sir? We got the miscount.” one of his underlings informed him.

They had the stallion restrained, he hadn’t said a word in protest as they had cuffed him, he seemed to be hoping I would do something about it.

The officer fleetingly looked at the stallion.

“*Uh, yes. Hang on a second.*” he looked back at Cake.

“*We... will probably ask him a few questions, give him a fine and let him go...*” the officer didn’t seem very sure of his answer.

“And who will be asking the questions? Someone at your precinct or will he be taken elsewhere?”

The officer looked at me, probably giving me a troubled expression from beneath his mask.

I smirked.

“Well, sergeant? The mare asked you a question, why don’t you answer it?”

“*Sir?*”

“Yes?”

“*I don’t know the answer.*”

"What do you mean 'you don't know the answer'?"

"*I... don't really know where they take the suspects after we bring them in.*"

We hadn’t said anything since then, about three hours had passed, three long hours of silently staring out of the window into the dark night shrouded countryside, dotted by the occasional lights coming from a smaller city or village somewhere.

At some point it had started to rain heavily, and it had poured down for quite a while now, the scheduled storm must have spanned for most of eastern Equestria.

Cake hadn’t left me, she must have been satisfied with the answers I gave her about Civil Protection, I was glad to have some company with me.

I felt in the mood for some coffee, it would be a long trip, but I didn’t feel like going to sleep just yet.

“Cake?”

“Yes?” she replied slowly.

“I am going to get some coffee, want something?”

“I’m offering.” I added.

She thought about it for a moment.

“I guess I could go for some coffee as well.”

“Alright. I’ll be right back.”

I got up and trotted down the carriage, passing by two or three passenger wagons hosting a few sleeping or tired looking citizens before reaching the restaurant wagon.

The restaurant was closed, but there were two active vending machines at the end of the wagon which served coffee, hot milk, beverages and various snacks, among the choices was a delicious looking daisy and radish sandwich, the last one left. I was almost leaning between the sandwich or some Parasprite and Dandelion flavored snickers chocolate, but I decided to opt for the coffee I had came to get, I figured I needed the coffee more than I needed some cheap soda.

Getting the coffee back had been a bit problematic, I had been forced to hold one cup in my mouth and another with my hoof, and the cups weren’t as ergonomically fit for hooves as I had hoped for, but after about ten minutes I had managed to get them back to our seats without spilling as much as a drop on the way.

“Thanks.” Cake said as she claimed her cup, it was still steaming hot, she gently blew into it to cool it down before taking a short sip.

“No problem.” I took my seat.

My teeth felt stale after holding my own cup so awkwardly.

We just sat there, I felt like we were getting distant again so I tried to get some conversation going.

“So Cake, if you don’t mind me asking... why did you sign up with Infantry?”

She seemed a bit reluctant to tell, but I had told her about my work, so it would only be fair if she told me about hers.

“I signed up for the money and benefits.” she took a long sip before continuing.

“I come from a very poor family who couldn’t really support me, and I have a daughter to worry about. I heard that Infantry was recruiting and were offering a very high pay for those who pulled through their training, so I figured, heck, why not at least give it a shot?”

"And how did that go?"

“Let us put it this way."

"Out of 50 ponies, I was one of the 13 that passed.”

"Oh."

“I don’t get to see my daughter very often these days, Infantry keeps me busy most of the week and I rarely get leave, but with the fifty thousand bits I make a month I have plenty to send to my ma and pa with whom I’ve left my little girl. Even managed to get her into one of the better schools, that school for gifted unicorns. She is turning out to have quite a talent for magic, but still hasn’t gotten her cutiemark though, all the others have gotten theirs, I know that some get theirs later and someone has to be the last. But I can't help but feel a bit concerned for her.”

Fifty thousand bits?

Now that was an impressive salary.

My own pay as a captain of CP barely amounted up to 25000.

“How old is your daughter?”

“Five years old. Named her Cupcake.”

Cupcake.

Cake Frosting.

Of course she’d name her kid something like that.

“Cupcake?”

“Cupcake." sip.

"What? Surprised? Figured I might as well keep the family naming as a running gag, maybe one day she will name her kids after pastry as well. Who knows?”

“So she’s an unicorn? Was her father an unicorn?”

Cake laughed.

“No no, her father was a pegasus.”

Wait what?

“I am not following... how can your daughter be an unicorn then?”

“I am not sure... I think my great, great, great grandmother was an unicorn. Or maybe my great, great grandfather's grandmother was the unicorn... I don’t quite remember, but there is some unicorn running in the family I am sure.”

“Right...” I’d rather leave that behind, thinking about it was making my head spin, “And how is that working out, you know, with her being an unicorn and all?”

“She has been... quite a hoof-full, that's for sure. She discovered her magical ability as soon as her second month, and has been nothing but trouble since then. We had to keep her crib in an empty room so that she wouldn’t bring out a bunch of toys after bedtime. And not to speak of the cookies, can’t keep a jar of cookies around if you have unicorn children I’ll tell you that much.”

“Don’t you miss your daughter? Is working in the Infantry really worth it, with you not being able to be with your daughter as much?”

“Of course I miss my daughter, any mother would miss her child. And as bad as I feel about leaving my daughter like this we still need to get the money somewhere, and with her father not being around anymore that job is left entirely to me. I am thankful that my job in the Infantry pays for two salaries and that I have such helpful ponies as my parents to take care of her while I am gone.”

“What happened to her father.”

Her expression turned cross.

“He left us.”

“He just left?”

“He couldn’t handle the stress of an unicorn child and expressed that he felt that he was too young for children, so he just grabbed his things and left one day when I was outside treating our daughter with fast food. All he left was a note plastered on the fridge, that was his goodbye to his daughter and wife, a fucking note.”

“What happened to him? Where did he go?”

“From what I’ve heard he took on some new fling and joined Air Force. Haven’t really heard anything about him after that, didn’t care.”

Perhaps I should change the subject, this was a bit too touchy and sensitive to discuss casually like this.

“So...What's the Infantry like?”

“Incredibly tough, even for earth pony standards.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

“It might be easier to explain if I just fill in the gaps for you. What do you know about Infantry?”

“Not much, I’ve heard that it is an earth pony dominated fighting force and that they supposedly field the best ground infantry force in the known world. I’ve heard mention of some hard entrance requirement but aside from that I don’t really know anything.”

“Right. Those are all true. Infantry is composed of around... pssht... 88% (?) earth ponies and the remaining percentage of unicorns and pegasi combined?”

“Why is that? Is there some sort of favoritism for earth ponies?”

“Not at all. On the contrary, the requirements are equal for everyone, regardless of age, sex and race. Anypony is welcome to apply for Infantry. Problem is, that the requirements are tough, incredibly tough. And the only race of pony strong enough to endure it are earth ponies, we have a natural toughness, strength and endurance of which the other two races can’t even compare to. So it’s mostly just earth ponies who pass the test, but there are the occasional unicorn and pegasus who pass as well, Infantry keeps those real close due to their special talents and resilience.”

“Why doesn’t Infantry lower the entrance requirements?”

“There have been talks about it, but Infantry command generally agrees that it is safer and better if only the best of the best are allowed in, we have the lowest rate of casualties and the best trained and equipped soldiers of all the branches and organizations in Equestria. Command reasons that if the entrance requirements were lowered then there would be more room for weakness in the army, and that weakness could potentially put other ponies at risk. They believe that it is better to have a small but elite force, over a large and weak one.”

“And what do you think about it?”

“Think about what?”

“It sounds to me like they have a prejudiced view against the ponies who are ‘unfit’ to work with them, they don’t seem to put any faith in ponies ability to improve and grow stronger. You say that they aim for equality and that the entrance requirements are the same for that very reason, but in reality the requirements only seem to be testing the strengths of earth ponies, strength, toughness, endurance, and not those of the pegasi and unicorns, who are obviously at a serious disadvantage when applying.

I wouldn’t go as far as calling it racist, but the line between it is very slim based on what you tell me.”

“Well if you put it that way then Infantry would still be the least racist and prejudiced of the three branches.”

“Is that so?”

“Air Force only accepts pegasi. Armor only allows unicorns to pilot their vehicles and become officers, but do otherwise allow entry and lower ranked positions for pegasi and earth ponies.”

“Infantry allows anypony to sign up, and earn any rank within the organization.”

“What about Overwatch? And Civil Protection? When compared to those you hardly rank as the least prejudiced.”

“You suddenly seem to know a lot about army recruitment and organization.”

“I work with Civil Protection, and many of the ponies I’ve worked with have left CP to join Overwatch. I’ve heard that Overwatch accepts anypony, as long as they can pass a basic physical and mental exam and don’t have a dirty criminal record (anything more serious than shoplifting). So many officers who considered joining have been rejected for that.”

"Rejected?"

"Many within Civil Protection are former criminals. On average one out of five officers may be murderers."

Cake gasped.

“You allow criminals to work within Civil Protection?”

“Well of course. They recruit any civilian who would volunteer to work for them. It is dirty and sometimes dangerous work like I’ve mentioned. It gives criminals a chance to redeem themselves.”

“Funny organization, the more you tell me about it the more I fear for Equestria’s safety."

"I am not sure I'll be able to safely trust an officer like you with the safety of my daughter once I get off this train. There could be a murderer or pedophile hiding under the mask.”

“You shouldn’t be trusting CP officers in the first place.” I said gravely.

"Why... not?"

"I said that we have former criminals in our ranks, not that they have stopped being criminals."

"Stay away from them, especially at night."

Her eyes widened.

“Are you SERIOUS?”

I stared at her with as a serious expression as I could conjure up for the longest time, but her shock was just too funny to keep the mask up, I broke out into a chuckle.

“Thank god! You were joking!” she said with relief.

Cake was one of the earth pony mares who had passed the requirements for Equestrias toughest and meanest fighting force, yet she still had the ladylike sense of fear and shock which you expect all mares to have, as sexist as it sounds.

But no. I was not joking.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have laughed. I am really serious about this, you should trust me on this."

“If you are caught alone in the street with no security cameras, other officers or citizens around, run, do not remain alone with an officer at any given time. They can’t all be trusted.”

Cake turned pale.

“A-are you still joking...?” she asked hesitantly.

“No.” I leaned forward, grabbing hold of the cup of coffee which I had completely forgotten about.

“I am dead serious. Tell your daughter, and spread the advice to everypony you know. There are some real rotten eggs in Civil Protection who abuse their position of power, CP command is running investigations to root out the worst of it, but it is hard to pinpoint exactly who is abusing their power and uniform. It could be anypony, any agent wearing this mask.”

I pulled up my helmet and showed it to Cake for effect, the look on her face made it seem like I had shown her the skull of the grim reaper pony himself, I struggled not to smile or laugh, it was important that she knew that I was absolutely serious about what I said.

Once the effect had had its toll I put the helmet back down and took a sip from my coffee, it was tepid and tasted horrible.

I had forgotten to add sugar and milk, and it was too late to go get some.

I calmly sipped my coffee staring deep down the cup, when I looked up I found Cake giving me the most intense and startling stare of mistrust I had ever seen.

I spat some of my coffee back in the cup at the sight, this liquid piss of a drink was now undrinkable.

“Luna almighty, Cake! What is wrong with you!”

“How can I trust you after what you just told me? Oh god, I even told you about my daughter...!”

“I can’t believe you would actually think about me like that! I told you because I want you to know about it, to keep you and your family safe! For fucking sake, Cake, get a grip on yourself.”

This relation of ours wasn't going very well, I doubted I would ever hear from her again once we got off the train, but then, maybe it would be for the best.

If I had let her on on these things more gracefully and discretely maybe she wouldn’t have reacted so strongly.

“No Cake, I am not that kind of criminal. The worst things I’ve done was robbery, and even then all I did was threaten a stallion to give me a few bits for a bus ride home, I let him keep everything else.”

She glared at me.

I gave myself an inner facehoof.

What the hell was I doing?

I sure as hell wasn’t going to win any support by telling her of my past crimes!

“I am not a bad pony.” I stressed.

She stared at me for a while and eventually calmed down, drinking the last of her coffee.

“You are really risking it, Tombs.”

"That talk we had about CP before was bad enough, but this..."

I shrugged.

“I am sorry. My ‘let strangers know about my past life and dirty work within CP’ skills are a bit rusty.”

"You don't HAVE to sit here with me if you don't want to, I understand if you just want to go. No one is stopping you."

She smiled and shook her head.

"What are you smiling about, Cake?"

"Nothing, just forget about it."

“Where were we? Before you... uh...” she apparently wanted to just leave the topic behind us, just like that.

I could live with that.

“You were telling me... about Infantry’s racist prejudice compared to Overwatch and Civil Protection.” I filled in, wanting to continue our talk about Infantry.

“Infantry is not racist.”

“They sound pretty racist to me.”

“And everything I know about Infantry comes from you.” I prodded.

She looked annoyed.

“I’m sorry.”

“But tell me why Infantry’s earth pony biased entrance requirements aren’t prejudiced? Don’t get cross with me, but if they were really aiming for equality, shouldn’t the requirements aim for a balance between say, earth pony toughness, unicorn finesse and pegasus agility?”

“But that is not what the requirements aim for, they don’t specifically use earth pony strengths as their requirements, they use the strengths needed for an effective infantry unit, they want tough, strong soldiers who can take a lot of hits and dish out a lot of damage. They want the ultimate infantrypony. And to get that pony they need certain traits which are more inherent in earth ponies.”

“I know it sounds a bit angled, but it is entirely a genetic thing and has nothing to do with race. Earth ponies are simply more fit for work within Infantry than Pegasi and Unicorns.”

I sighed deeply.

This didn't convince me.

It was true that those were traits which were preferable to have as a soldier, but the more critical part of me still believed that Infantry command was prejudiced and simply favored earth ponies over the other races and that it was why the requirements were better suited for earth ponies than unicorns and pegasi.

“Very well then. I won’t argue any further about it. Another question however.”

“Shoot.”

“How are the unicorn and pegasus soldiers within Infantry treated? You said that Infantry command keeps them close, due to their abilities, what does that mean exactly?”

“Command keeps them close just for that, their abilities and their differences from earth ponies. Unicorns make good engineers, bomb technicians, pilots, anything that has to do with finesse and precision which you know, our mouths and hooves lack. Pegasi are kept for their agility and mobility, they have special armor and often have positions as scouts, snipers, marksmen and similar. Much of the doctrine and training within Infantry focuses on how to deal with flying enemies, such as pegasi, but Infantry recognizes the value and advantage of having fliers on their side.”

“Some unicorns and pegasi are groomed for command due to some inherent differences in thinking and reasoning between the three races, sometimes three ponies of different race may come to a different conclusion on how to best deal with an enigma on the battlefield, an earth pony may for instance, craft an elaborate frontal assault plan which involves smoke covering and suppressing fire, but a pegasus might prefer to take an indirect route by flanking the enemy on either side, unicorns may be even more unorthodox and go with strategies which demoralizes or confuses the enemy, perhaps with magic, or with flash and discord grenades.”

“It isn’t a very well known thing, and is kept as a close secret to few, but Infantry has one of the most varied chains of commands of any known fighting force. Aside from earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi, we also have minotaurs and a select few alicorn officers as well. There is a faint rumor that there may even be a rabbit commanding us as well.”

Earth Pony, Unicorn, Pegasus... Minotaur, Alicorn... …rabbit?

“A rabbit?” I repeated in disbelief.

“A rabbit. But I don’t know for sure, that may just be a rumor. I wouldn't even know how they are supposed to communicate with it.”

“The point anyway, is that with all these races in command, Infantry has an abundance of tactics which differ from mission to mission. Where a force like Air Force might have a hundred, we have ten thousand for just one scenario.”

“But they can’t hardly all be sound tactics. What happens when multiple commanders can’t agree on a tactic or if a chosen strategy is deemed to be risky or dangerous?”

“Then the commanders in charge of the mission or assault vote on which strategy to choose. First they have a discussion and pick the suggested strategies which seem most certain to offer success, then they vote and the strategy which gets the most votes is used. Fewer commanders means fewer choices. If the commanders can’t agree on a single strategy the decision is passed down to the men partaking in the mission, the same process is done, a select few strategies are chosen, and the men are asked to vote on one of them. Again, if no choice can be agreed on the choice with the least votes is removed until only one choice remains.”

“That sounds like a really ineffective way to lead. As far as I know the military is all about quick decisions and has always been run in an authoritarian manner with one officer ranking over the next making all the big decisions about strategy, from general to sergeant. This sounds more like a democracy to me.”

“The entire chain of command isn’t a democracy, only the commanding officers of one mission or operation get to choose and discuss the operations. It is a slightly more open and broad variation of the more traditional way of strategizing. It still weighs heavily on discussion.”

“I guess Infantry isn’t as prejudiced as I thought it was then. Aside from the entrance requirements it really sounds like your organization is big on equality and variation. At least when it comes to leadership.”

“It is."

"How did you pass the requirements? Uh, don't take it the wrong way, I am just asking, what did you do before Infantry that allowed you to sign up with them?"

"I was a builderpony, a construction worker. Had been for a good 20 years before Infantry."

"You became a construction worker as a kid?"

"Yes. I worked with my father, he taught me everything he knew about it and then offered me a job for a half decent pay. It was in that line of work that I earned my cutiemark."

Her name was Cake Frosting and her special talent was construction and she worked as a soldier.

Interesting combination.

"What does your cutiemark look like?"

"Ah it's nothing special. Just three gray steel beams being pulled upwards by a cord. Typical skyscraper construction motif."

I was inclined to ask about the story of how she got it, but I expected that it wouldn't be all that special, she probably got it helping her father early on.

"How about yours?"

How about my what?

"Hmm?"

"Your cutiemark."

My cutiemark.

No.

That was my secret, my past.

"I am not going to tell you about it."

"Why not? I tol-"

"You told me about yours, I know. But this is mine, and I have my own reasons for not telling you."

"What kind of reasons?"

"Cake..."

"Hey, not asking about your cutiemark."

"The kind of reasons where bad trauma happened and I am forced to carry my mark around as a constant reminder."

"Okay then... I wont dig any deeper then if you don't want to."

"Thanks for understanding."

I was beginning to feel tired, I didn’t get to drink much of the coffee I had bought, and what remained tasted like liquified cold piss.

I could get more but that would only keep me awake, and for what purpose really?

There wasn’t anything I really wanted to talk to her about, our discussions had only been kept going for the sake of passing the time and filling the silence.

Admittedly, they had given me some insight on a few things, especially the elusive Infantry I had heard about.

I believe it is good time to call it a night and get some sleep.

I stood up and grabbed my helmet with my mouth.

“Where are you going?” Cake wondered with a hint of concern in her voice.

I felt flattered that she still wanted me around after our discussions and arguing.

“Ahhm goinhm toh hiht teh hayh.” what I had intended to come out as ‘I am going to hit the hay’ with an accent and all only came out as a garbled mess with the helmet still in my mouth. I bowed my head down and put it down on the table.

“What I was saying is: I believe it is time to call it a night. I am feeling really tired and I got a long day ahead of me tomorrow...”

“Yeah... me too...”

“But uh, before you go... you wouldn't mind telling me which room will you be sleeping in?”

“I don’t know. I was planing on looking for an empty room, or at least one with a free cot.”

“Why?”

“Could you leave a note outside with your name on it?”

“...why?” I answered slowly.

“I am thinking about something.”

“About what?”

“You’ll see.”

What was she going to do?

What was it that I was going to see?

She could tell that I wasn’t satisfied with the answer.

“Don’t worry about it, don’t get any dark ideas about it.” then she fleetingly looked over me.

“And don’t get any funny ideas either.” she added.

Oh you.

“No offense about the ‘funny idea’ part, but you are not my kind of mare.”

“Ha, really? And what is your kind of mare?”

“The kind that doesn’t have the ability to break my spine with a strong kick when she gets upset.”

She smirked.

Alright fine, I’ll take this gamble.

What is the worst thing that could happen anyway?

“Fine, I’ll try and post a note on the door to my room, for whatever devious thing you have in mind.”

“We'll see. I think you'll like it, maybe.”

“Goodnight miss Cake Frosting Cake Frost. It was good making your acquaintance. If we don’t meet again tomorrow morning, then, well, best of luck in the frontier.”

“You too, Captain Tombs.”

I picked up my helmet and went down the moving train, past the restaurant wagon into one of the sleeping cars.

Most seemed occupied, or half full, but I managed to find one that was empty.

It was a cozy little room with black curtains and a single light by the window, there were two bunk beds on either side of the room, each with two neatly tucked cots just waiting to give the first best pony the best damn sleep the Equestrian railroad could offer.

I undressed and placed all my gear under one of the lower cots, hidden from the unsuspecting eye.

I was about to creep in under the covers when I remembered the note I was supposed to post on the door.

I quickly went down to the restaurant and scribbled my name on a paper napkin, fortunately the restaurant had some tape by the cash register behind the counter, I returned plastered it to the door, went inside, tucked myself in, turned off the light and took a deep breath of relief in comfort of my cot.

The last good nights sleep I would have in months to come, possibly the rest of my life, I was sure.

ZzzzZZzzz

Somepony knocked on the door to my room, I went up to open it and was met by a train conductor holding a scarf against his muzzle.

“Sir, the train has arrived at it’s destination, Vanhoover Central.” the stallion said in a muffled voice.

“Why are you holding a scarf to your face?” I asked.

“You... have... pony aids?” he responded, in a tone that implied me asking about something really obvious.

Perplexed I looked at the train conductor for a moment and ripped the scarf from his face.

“The hell I have. What gave you this fucking idea?”

The conductor quickly covered his nose with his right hoof and pointed to the sign on my door.

I peeked around the door.

The note with my name was gone, in it’s place was another paper napkin, which said “PONY AIDS, DO NOT ENTER”.

Whaaaaat the actual fuck?

...

Cake Frosting.

It must have been her.

Real mature Cake.

At least it was just a harmless prank, it could have been worse.

I ripped the note off and waved the conductor off.

When I turned back to the room I noticed a small transparent bag containing red pills of some kind laying next to the lamp by the window.

I grabbed the bag and looked at it closely.

The pills were marked by various symbols and phrases, all of which were different.

A butterfly, a swan, the letter and number ‘A1’, a question mark, two interjecting C’s, a pair of lips with the word ‘KISS’ in between, three small balloons, a baby alligator with no teeth, a rock crossed over with an X, the phrase ‘FoR yOu’ and... What... What the fuck was that? Was that... it was, wasn’t it?

One of the pills had a small icon of the tip of a penis.

What the hell was this? Did Cake leave these here?

There was a small bit of paper plastered on the back of the bag.

It was written in tiny letters but was very clearly written by mouth, the sheer thought that Cake had managed to write this tiny message using her mouth was odd to say the least, it was hard enough to write a regularly sized message the way we earth ponies had to hold the pen, but to write a message this small...

I found myself getting so hung up over the size of the message that I forgot to actually read it.

The message said:

Close your eyes,

count to three,

You'll be tripping hard,

on ecstasy.

-With love, Cake

She gave me, ecstasy?

She must have left the note on the door so that nopony would come in and find the bag.

That tricky mare was clearly not as innocent and just as she had let on.

I laughed.

“Cake Frosting, you terrible terrible mother.” I said to myself.

I had used this time to wander about Vanhoover and asking for directions, I had never been to Vanhoover before, but the city seemed to be just as dull and gray as Manehatten.

It was smaller in scale, but despite this most of the city looked like a mirror copy of any regular part of Manehatten: gray, boring and filled with a variety of unhappy or blissfully gleeful ponies.

This morning had been sunny and clear, warm golden rays of sunlight bathed the gray city in warmth, the sky was of a perfect blue and there wasn’t a cloud in sight, the western coast lay calm as far as the eye could see, it would likely be even warmer as the day progressed.

Ponies were enjoying the sunny day, walking around chatting, laughing and smiling, wearing large sun hats and summer dresses, or dripping melancholy under parasols, bridges and under the shade.

Seeing everything like this gave me a strong feeling of near nauseous optimism that everything was going to work out somehow, but optimism didn’t bite well with my realistic self, and the feeling soon died away as I approached the dark gray Colonist Allocation & Transferring complex main building in the distance.

It was located at the foot of a long pier surrounded by two massive docked cruise ships on either side which cast large dark shadows over the complex, one of the ships was painted of a rust red, but the ship had clearly begun to rust and large swaths of paint had peeled off revealing rust underneath.

The ship’s name, ‘S.S Sea Killer’, was painted in large black letters on the ship’s stern.

The other ship was of a more modern design, being painted in a pristine white and fresh sea blue, this ship was not marked with a name however and carried the serial code ‘V952’, also in black, on the ship’s bow.

There was a squad of regular CP officers carrying submachine guns sitting in a circle of flipped over boxes by the entrance, they looked over at me as I approached but saw my uniform and rank and ignored me, letting me pass unhindered.

Inside was a reception hall of some sort, it was gray and dull, having nothing but a metal desk and eight chairs in the room. There was a plastic plant in one of the corners that had somehow died, despite being made of plastic (you’d have to be there to understand, it just sounds silly otherwise).

Nopony else was in the room aside from me and an elderly looking light gray stallion wearing glasses sitting behind the desk.

I walked up to him.

He didn’t look up.

He seemed busy going through some papers marked with the CP insignia, reports I reckoned, probably pertaining to the transfer of arrested ponies to the transferring complex.

I waited patiently for a couple of minutes but it didn’t seem like he was going to stop anytime soon.

“*Sir.*” I said, getting his attention.

He squinted his eyes at me, looking at my shoulder and gave me a warm smile.

“I should be the one calling you ‘sir’, Captain.” he shuffled the papers aside.

“What can I do for you?”

I pulled out my orders and handed them to him.

“*I was called here by command to be briefed on a group of ponies I am to escort.*”

He looked closely at the paper and read through it slowly.

“Yes. Yes. You must be Captain Tombs.”

“Lieutenant Bob is waiting for you in observation room 2.”

“It’s eh... the... third door to the left down the hallway, it should be labeled, can’t miss it.”

“*Thank you.*”

I proceeded past the door behind the old pony and down the hallway, before opening the door to observation room 2 I paused for a moment, taking a deep breath.

It was here that I would meet the unlucky ponies I were to share the same fate with.

I opened the door and stepped inside the dark room beyond.

Lieutenant Bob was a mare, wearing the yellow and black uniform of border patrol.

She rose up from her chair in the observation room and shook a hoof to greet me.

“*Captain Tombs, welcome.*”

“*I am Lieutenant Bob, your briefing officer. I’ll be telling you a bit about the ponies you will be escorting on your mission.*” she pointed a hoof at the window showing the attached holding cell.

The room was big and white, it looked very sterile and empty aside from the benches fixed on the walls surrounding the whole room.

The six ponies of my assignment were all there, three stallions and two mares, one young colt.

Five earth ponies and one unicorn.

They were a strange bunch.

Two of the ponies looked like nervous wrecks, and the other four looked calm and reserved, aside from their generally angry or distant looking expressions, they were quite clearly not happy to be here.

Bob assured me that they had all been informed of their mission and destination, which pretty much meant that they all knew that they were going to die.

I made a mental note to keep an eye on the two nervous wrecks, to make sure they didn’t attempt anything stupid, like fleeing into the wilderness at first sight of danger.

She began with the first stallion, Brook Cotton, one of the calm and reserved earth ponies, sitting relatively close to the calm earth pony mare.

He had a cutiemark of a cotton flower, his coat was of a dull dark gray, his short mane and tail were white, his eyes are of an ordinary looking orange, possibly amber, color.

He had been working a cotton picking farm when he was seized into custody for bucking a filly in the face with his rear hooves, permanently damaging the filly’s brain and blinding the right eye, rendering the filly crippled for life.

No one knows why he did it, there were no witnesses and he refused to mention anything about it.

The second stallions name was Rainbow Sea, another calm and reserved earth pony who had been working on an oil rig just off the western coasts of Equestria, a couple of miles from Vanhoover.

His cutiemark was an oil rig, spraying some kind of rainbow substance instead of oil however.

His coat was of a sickly green color and his mane and tail were of a bright and acid green and cut to a length similar to that of Brook Cotton’s, his eyes had a watery looking aqua like color.

He was one of the younger stallions in his group and had been arrested for sabotaging the oil rig he had been working on, he had denied the act, claiming that it had been an accident, but no one believed him and there was no proof supporting neither claims.

The third stallion (or buck really, he had just barely come of age) was Blizzard Candy, a nervous wreck of an young earth pony, he was shaking uncontrollably, almost certainly related to what he had heard about the mission.

His cutiemark was a snowball with some kind of syrup enveloped by a paper cone, his coat was of an icy light blue and his straight medium-length mane and tail were cobalt blue, his eyes were of a bright azure.

Blizzard Candy had been working at an ice cream factory at the time of his custody and had been arrested as a murder suspect related to the death of one of his co-workers who had fallen into an ice cream mixing vat and, well, had mixed a batch of vanilla ice cream into a lovely irony tasting paste of red, Blizzard Candy who was in charge of the vat at the time but had no idea what flavor was being mixed had thought that everything had been in order and hadn’t suspected anything.

When the factory inspectors arrived that very same day to make flavor tests for a marketing survey they had been given the vanilla blood ice cream to taste and had noted the strange irony taste, it was first when one of the inspectors had found a mashed eyeball in his ice cream cone that things began to fall in place.

The factory had been shut down completely and a massive investigation was launched, five ponies were arrested as suspects for the murder/disappearance of their co-worker, the earth pony mare Vanilla Ice.

It was eventually just written off as a workplace accident, but the arrests had already been made and the five arrested ponies were still held responsible by the factory inspectors.

His case was morbid, yet it seemed like he had been framed and arrested for a mere accident, which arguably was on his hooves, but was still an accident nonetheless.

From what Bob told me, Blizzard Candy didn’t murder anypony, and had committed no crimes deserving deportation from Equestria.

The fourth pony’s name was Strawberry Feather (aptly named so for his cutiemark of a red feather, but it wasn’t made clear if he got his name before or after his cutiemark), also an earth pony, he was still a mere colt, around 6 years old.

He appeared to be very calm, it was possible that he didn't understand what was going on or what the frontier even was.

Bob explained to me that Strawberry Feather had been given a job as a strawberry farmer on his uncle's farm on account of the uncle having a bad back, a job which he ended up excelling at, despite his age.

This poor colt had been arrested for accidentally running over a strawberry thief with one of the new strawberry combine machines (essentially a combine harvester that through magic can run over fields of strawberry bushes and still leave the strawberry bushed undamaged, unfortunately this magic doesn’t extend to ponies).

Despite trespassing on private property the accident had still counted as a murder and Strawberry Feather had been unjustly arrested for it, his purple coat, pink mane and fluffy tail coupled with his very small frame (for a pony of his age), very fragile and vulnerable looking appearance and large honest green eyes gave him the air of being completely innocent and incapable of harming as much as a fly.

He was quite obviously not a murderer.

The fifth pony, the unicorn mare was Nurse Swirly Star, she looked visibly shaken and completely out of place, her lively brown eyes twitching back and forth over the room looking confused and frightened, she clearly didn’t belong here.

She had a cutiemark of a red medical cross, her coat was white, a characteristic trait for ponies with a speciality for patient treatment that has still not been fully understood and her curly mane and tail were caramel brown.

She had been a nurse at Ponyville, she was incredibly altruist and loved helping other ponies, her crime was short and simple.

She accidentally swapped blood packs for two ponies, causing them to reject their own blood and dying to acute lack of oxygen, it was an accident that could have happened to anypony, the victims relatives didn’t care however and did everything in their power to have her arrested and deported.

She had been a complete wreck ever since.

I was beginning to see the truth in Cake Frosting’s words in real example.

Brook Cotton and probably Rainbow Sea belonged in here for sure, if it really was true that their charges were assault and sabotage.

But Blizzard Candy, Strawberry Feather and Nurse Swirly had all ended up here on account of workplace accidents, accidents aren’t criminal, they aren’t planned murders, they just happen.

They shouldn't have been there.

Before Bob could continue on to the mysterious black earth pony mare someone in the room began to talk, we stopped briefly to listen, I mainly did to hear what they sounded like and to get a general idea of what they were like.

It was the nervous unicorn mare sitting next to the mysterious black mare with her forelegs crossed who had begun talking.

“H-how could t-this happen? I-i shouldn’t e-even be here!” she sobbed.

The mare sitting next to her seemed unfazed by the unicorn’s plea.

“CP thinks otherwise.” the black earth pony mare muttered, with a raspy voice.

“That's fucking CP for ya,” Rainbow Sea had called out, “Bunch of rotten fuckers deporting us to our deaths for what? Unfortunate accidents?”

Oil rig sabotage. Unfortunate accident indeed.

“I mean shit, really? How could Strawberry Feather be guilty of running over that thief? How could he have known that someone was hiding in the fields?”

Strawberry Feather remained silent, just staring at the ground.

Out of the six ponies inside the young colt appeared to be the most calm and passive about his situation.

The group had apparently already gotten acquainted, or at least enough to have an idea of why they were brought in.

“And Blizzard Candy? Fucking seriously? HE is responsible for the foolish accident of some idiot who slipped up and killed herself in a damn ice cream factory? Could you only IMAGINE how many ‘volunteers’ these assholes must get from the butcheries?”

I subconsciously pictured the scenario, a pony slipping on a puddle of blood and falling into one of the gruesome grinding machines, ending up mixed in with the rest of the meat and served as a hamburger to hundreds of hungry ponies in fast food chains all over Equestria.

I felt sick.

I damned myself for even thinking about it, I tried to think about puppies and kittens, but that only made it worse as the two thoughts intertwined in some form of twisted nightmare.

That last bit had been really uncalled for and had completely killed the kind of motivation he had attempted to draw, I hadn’t been the only pony who had wildly drawn up a scenario like that.

The two mares and the two stallions almost instantly turned into a discolored shade of green, the black earth pony mare had closed her eyes and was making a strange twisted expression, the word ‘cute’ fleetingly came to mind as I observed her but passed on when I started thinking about what Rainbow Sea had said.

Strangely, Strawberry Sea hadn't reacted to it.

By miracle they all had managed not to hurl their lunch.

Rainbow Sea realized his mistake and stayed quiet, backing off to sit on one of the benches in silence.

Shortly after the group recovered from the mental image, the unicorn mare asked another question.

“A-are... are we really going to d-die there?” she stuttered, almost in tears.

“Very likely” the black earth pony mare answered, causing the unicorn to quietly begin crying for herself.

“Really Manie? Was that really necessary?” Blizzard Candy looked at her with a stern expression.

“What?” she seemed genuinely surprised.

“Things are bad enough as it is, she doesn’t deserve you bullying her into feeling worse.”

Manie looked slightly ashamed, but didn’t respond or apologize to Swirly Star.

Strawberry Feather went up to the crying unicorn mare and sat down beside her, wrapping his short forelegs around her to hug her.

“It’s okay Swirly Star, everything is going to be okay.” the colt consoled her, she calmed down slightly and returned the hug.

Manie, I assumed, was the colder pony of the group.

“That...” Bob resumed, was a mysterious mare known as ‘Manie Manie’, there was something clearly odd about her, not just in her distant behavior but in her appearance too.

Her coat, mane and tail were all completely pitch black, as in blacker than the blackest black, shadows couldn’t be cast on her coat by how black it was, her eyes were of the strangest deepest red purple you had ever seen and surrounding her entirely was a very strange white “border” or “edge” that outlined her entire body and features, it wasn’t natural.

She was wearing a cowboy hat sporting the same strange properties as her.

Her cutiemark was an orange laser designation icon of the kind used by the military to mark mechanical targets for laser guided weapon precision strikes, I recognized from some old military documentary about laser guidance I had watched and almost forgotten all about ages ago.

But there was something about her.

The more I observed her the more... drawn to her I became.

Her pitch black coat and strange white outlines of hers really... outlined her body, following her very sleek and feminine figure.

I couldn’t help but eyeing her body, taking in her every feature slowly, very slowly, there was something very mesmerizing about her... I began to feel slightly hot in my uniform.

She appeared to blush, somehow knowing that someone was looking her up, her passive and ashamed expression turned into a very angry frown, her stare becoming as hard and burning as concentrated acid, but she couldn’t control her blushing.

The combination made her seem incredibly cute and angry at the same time, I contained a muffled snicker, and she turned her head slowly and looked directly into my eyes through the exact point of the glass that I was looking through.

That scare made me take a full step back from the glass.

The other ponies in the room noticed her furious blushing expression and asked her what was going on looking confusingly into the mirrored glass trying to call out for us.

“*Celestia fucking damned, how the hell did she do that?!*”

“*She does that a lot.*” Bob reassured me. “*She has a kind of 6th sense.*”

“*6th sense?*”

“*She sometimes knows when others are watching her, even through walls, between floors, and extreme distances. That is how she got away all these years, how she escaped us.*”

“*Escaped? Escaped from what?*”

“*She used to be a Major in the army, commandeering her own tank.*”

“*That’s impossible, I’ve heard that Armor only allows unicorns to attain higher ranks.*” I pointed out, remembering what Cake had told me about the army.

“*Manie is a special case.*”

“*She had one of the finest tank gunners to ever serve in her little crew of three, which believe it or not, was a pegasus.*”

“*An earth pony commandeering an Armor tank with a pegasus gunner?*”

“*That sounds like a crock of shit to me.*”

Bob stared at me for the longest time.

“*You better believe it. They were pretty big within the army, before everything about them was hushed after Manie Manie’s betrayal.*”

“*What betrayal?*”

“*If you stop interrupting me every five seconds you might just find out.*”

I let it slide.

After a moment Bob continued.

“*She helped develop the technology used for laser guided precision weapons, she was one of the lead technicians responsible for the project. They designed a system capable of marking a target, any target, be it a jet plane, a tank, a building or even a rat far in the distance, they wanted it to keep the lock on the marked target so that it was unavoidable, regardless of what countermeasures were being used against it.*”

“*I am guessing that the project was a success.*”

“*It was.*” Bob sighed, “*Manie proved it far too well.*”

“*What happened?*”

“*During a training exercise involving an Armor tank platoon working in conjunction with an Air Force helicopter wing to test combined operations against laser guided targets on the field, she had used the tank laser guidance station to deliberately mark Air Force’s choppers. The tank commanders and gunners didn’t know what they were supposed to expect seeing as the exercise was a surprise improv involving flying drone targets and dummy attacks at random.*”

“*So they opened fire on the helicopter platoon, utterly decimating the entire force one by one.*”

“*The attacks had been swift, just as expected of Armor, and before anypony realized the grave mistake all but one chopper had been destroyed by the barrage.*”

“*They had been too effective for their own good.*”

“*What happened next?*”

“*They zapped her tank with an EMP blast and stormed the knocked out tank on foot, her crew was found to have been knocked unconscious, Manie was found crying in her seat. The crews dragged her out of the tank and asked her why she had done it, they hadn’t been out for blood, they just wanted to know what was going on.*”

“*But her only response was a repeated garbled ‘I had to do it, it was the only way to be sure’.

She never explained what it meant or what had happened, no matter how pressed she was or who spoke to her.*”

“*She lost all respect from everpony, she wasn’t put under arrest or executed for the sole reason that the details around the incident weren’t very clear and because she was involved in the creation of the laser guidance systems. A huge investigation was launched by Armor and Air Force officials to figure out what had happened.*”

“*But ponies started giving her cold looks, they began talking behind her back, they began to hate her for what she had done. They abused her, beat her up. This kept going for a few months until the investigation started coming up with clear evidence, somehow Manie found out and deserted the army. That desertion made her vulnerable to us, and she has been on the Civil Protection watchlist since.*”

“*We have been hunting her for two long years. And thanks to you, that hunt has ended.*”

I was puzzled.

Thanks to... me? What had I done?

“*Thanks to me?*”

"*Don't you recognize her? You arrested her two days ago. You even stayed with her and made sure she got the care she needed to pull through.*"

The junkie with the red eyes.

“*But maybe it's not so surprising after all, she was battered and discolored at the time, bleeding heavily from her nose, constricted pupils... she looked like any ordinary junkie about to overdose. She looked nothing like she does now.*”

“*What kind of drug was she OD’ing on?*”

“*Hmm? Psycho stimulants.*”

“*The military combat drug? The drug that increases aggression level and numbs pain?*”

Bob looked at me.

“*Yes.*”

“*You seem to know a lot about Psycho. What gives?”* she asked suspiciously.

“*They teach us that in CP basic.*” I said dismissively.

“*I am just surprised that she would overdose on that drug, what was he looking to do? Die angry?*”

“*Tombs*” Bob said in a concerned tone.

“*Are you using Psycho?*”

I looked at her.

I did.

But what would she know about it?

I am pretty sure that I hadn’t said anything to give away my occasional use.

I stared at Bob for a few minutes.

“*No, Lieutenant Bob. Drugs are illegal within Civil Protection.*”

“*They don’t make you captain if you break CP law.*”

“*I guess not.*" she looked away, "*Sorry for suspecting you then.*”

“*Bob.*”

“*Yes captain?*”

“*Why me?*"

"*Why was I chosen for this mission?*”

“*That is not important, command gave strict orders to keep you on a need to know basis.*”

“*It is important. And you are going to tell me.*”

“*No, no I am not.*”

I lost my patience.

This was the wrong time for Bob to play coy with me.

I went up and tripped Bob, she was caught by surprise.

I leaned over and twisted her right foreleg, she yelped in pain and tried to get out off my grip, but I was stronger than her.

“*WHO choose me for this mission, and WHY?*”

“*TOMBS, WHAT THE FUCK!! YOU ARE HURTING ME!!*”

“*WHO IS OUT TO KILL ME!?*”

“*NOPONY IS” I twisted her leg some more, “*I SWEAAAAAAAGHH!!*”

“*I AM THE WRONG OFFICER TO BE SCREWING AROUND WITH BOB.*”

Bob began to cry, I could hear her muffled sobbing under her mask.

“*I-I SWEAR I DON’T KNOW TOMBS! PLEASE, LET ME GO!*”

I twisted her leg a bit more to the point of almost snapping the bone, sending a wave of excruciating pain through her body. Bob let out a loud scream of pain that nopony could hear in the soundproof room we were in.

“*S-STOP, I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T KNOW!!*”

“Somepony is being tortured in there.” I heard Manie Manie say in the cell.

I turned my head to look inside the cell and she was pointing directly at me and the briefing officer in my grip, the group looked querying at her.

I froze.

“What do ya mean?” Brook Cotton asked her, standing up.

“Right there,” she stood up and walked up to the glass, pointing at us, “The creep of a CP officer that was checking me out before, locking the foreleg of another CP officer.”

“Ya can SEE through the glass?!”, Brook Cotton seemed impressed.

“No.”

“Then how the hell do you know?”

“I... I just know.”

“What do ya mean ya can’t explain?”

“She is just fucking with you, Brook.” Rainbow Sea called out.

Brook stared at Manie for a few moments, she remained silent, unable to come up with a more convincing response to explain her ability.

Brook gave her a blank stare, then slowly muttered.

“Yeah... Yeah, I guess she is.”, Brook then went back to his seat.

Manie still stood by the glass, a mere meter from us, her eyes looked really big and intense this up close. She seemed neutral and passive now, having calmed down a bit from before.

I realized that I was still holding Bob in a near crippling lock and immediately released my grip on her leg.

I was sure that she didn’t know anything, she was probably kept on the same need to know basis as me.

“*I... am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.*”

“*The hell you weren't!*"

"*I am fucking reporting you for this!*” Bob yelled at me, she sounded very upset and hurt.

“*Yes, please do. That way I won’t have to make the long trip past the frontier border. With any luck I might be able to live the rest of my short life out in the relative safety of the secured frontier, farming rocks or cutting trees.*” I challenged.

I knew I was right about it, being arrested and sent overseas as a slave worker would probably be the best thing that could happen to me right now.

She didn’t say anything in response, all she did was glare at me for a few moments.

“*Come with me.*”

“*What for?*”

“*There is a special piece of equipment waiting for you, for your mission.*”

I didn’t move or say anything.

“*You are already going to the worst place on earth, I can’t fucking believe your luck, but getting you arrested is only going to improve your situation. I hope you die a painful death at the hands of those savages.*”

I smirked under my mask, of course she would.

I followed her out.

Bob led me through some long white sterile looking cement corridors to the complex armory, it shared the same sterile cement design of the rest of the building and had lockers and benches lining the room, a skylight let dull gray sunlight in.

It was full of CP officers dressing and undressing from and to their uniforms and civilian clothes.

They didn’t talk to each other and seemed in a hurry to get away from here.

Bob opened a secure locker and grabbed a black briefcase marked with the yellow letters “CP” and the word “EXPERIMENTAL”, she then lead me into an unused side interrogation room featuring a chair and a steel table in the center highlighted by a strong white light.

She put the briefcase on the table and opened it, pulling out some kind of gray looking bodysuit made of some sort of silky looking smooth material.

I said nothing and simply watched her pull the suit over herself and her armor, enveloping herself in the silky gray suit.

Not a very impressive piece of gear I thought at first, but then I saw the gray sheet “activate” in a shimmering blue light beginning to generate a confusing mix of different earth pony features, both male and female, the head alone having six different generated features at a time, none of them ever matching.

Bob became a sort of blurred mess of ponies, it was hard to focus on a specific feature.

“This,” Bob began to explain, his helmet static and original voice now completely masked by the suits voice scrambling feature “is a scramble suit.”

“*Scramble suit*” I repeated like an idiot.

She ignored me and continued.

“This suit is the latest within CP developed tech, having been designed to completely mask the wearer's identity and features. The suit uses a variety of shapes, colors and forms of over a million and a half stallions, mares, colts and fillies found in CP's database. It is intended to be used in interrogations and as a way to allow safe involvement of ponies subject under outside threats in certain investigations and cases where a witness must participate in a court trial. Such as in gang feuds in which the enemy gang usually scares the victim or witness into submission by threatening a relative or friend.”

“The scramble suit,” she continued, “will work as a ‘second skin’ when pulled over a bare body, allowing you to eat, drink, sleep and go about your business (yes, it will shape that way depending on the gender of the suits wearer) without you having to take off the suit. You can effectively wear it at all times, also since it is by unicorn design the suit is also immune to the damage of water, wear and malfunctioning.”

“There is only one thing to worry about, and that is losing the suit. Remember that this suit is incredibly expensive to create and will likely be THE only suit you will ever see or have access to ever again.”

Charming.

“*And why exactly do I need this where I am going?*”

“Your mission isn’t only ‘get to beyond the frontier and found an outpost’,”

‘Found an outpost’ that alone was more than I knew about my mission, she knew something after all, the bitch.

“...you are responsible for the supervision and safekeeping of these six ponies. They won’t know for sure that you are a CP officer, but they will know (obviously due to the scramble suit) that we have had some form of contact between each other. How you handle interaction from there is up to you, I will tell you that it will likely help if you get them to trust you and that you absolutely do not under any circumstances reveal yourself as a full fledged CP officer or they would probably murder you at first opportunity.”

It made sense.

I hadn’t thought of how I’d supervise all six of them 24/7 alone.

With nopony to change shifts with prisoner supervision would become problematic...

“Also, this will prevent them from becoming attached to you, should you for whatever reason try to become good friends with them. Command doesn’t want you getting friends and lovers for this mission, keep it on a professional level. You are not there to have fun.”

The briefing officer removed the scramble suit folding it gently and putting it on the table.

I was about to grab it to put it on right away when she said,

“*By the way, you have to hand in your uniform and CP issued weapons and gear.*”

I froze completely, concerned that she would find the drugs in my pack.

“*Why?*”

“*Well OBVIOUSLY we can’t let you keep your armor, weapons and badge, that would be a fucking obvious giveaway to your identity.*”

“*We will allow you to do so yourself, we trust that our agents know what is best for their task.

What they then decide to bring in their pack, be it legal or illegal, *” she paused momentarily on that word, “*is entirely up to them...*”

“*But again, I warn you that anything that would somehow tie your person as a CP officer will jeopardize the mission and... your personal safety.*” she spat on the last words.

“*That is all. Dress up and leave your CP gear on the table, a squad is waiting by the cell we were just at to escort you and group onboard the ship.*”

“*Hold on a moment. Why are you giving me a scramble suit?*”

She interrupted me.

“*I told you, beca-*”

“*Not that. No one has seen what I look like under my armor aside from a few CP officers. Wouldn’t I less suspicious if I was sent along without the scrambler suit?*”

“*No.*” she sternly said.

“*No? Why not?*”

“*You are required to wear the suit at all times.*”

“*So I can’t EVER take the suit off?*”

“*Never. I told you that you are not supposed to get a personal connection with them, you have to wear the suit and that is final.*”

I let out a deep sigh.

“*That is going to complicate things with them, they will know that something is off about me if I just wander in there like some casual parkstroller.*”

“*That is your problem.*”

Fuck you Bob.

But I can’t just go in there with the suit, it just wouldn’t work.

I had to be one of them to earn their trust.

“*I have an idea.*” I said.

“*Lets hear it.*”

“*Could you escort me as a prisoner to the group?*”

“*What do you mean ‘as a prisoner’?*”

“*I’ll wear the scramble suit. But I have to be introduced to them as a fellow prisoner, you need to throw me into the cell with them.*”

“*Hmm...*” Bob was having her doubts.

“*It won't work otherwise, I would be way too suspicious and they’d turn on me anyway.*”

Bob nodded slowly, seeing what I meant, she didn’t seem very convinced though.

 “*I guess... but what will you do when you are contacted by mission command or come into contact with other officers?*”

I hadn’t thought of that. Shit.

But wait...

“*That would be a problem regardless. But I know how to deal with it.*”

“*What are you going to do?*”

“*Why do you care? You just want me to die.*”

“*Curiosity.*”

Might as well tell humor her.

“*I will pretend to be a CP officer.*”

I let that sink in for her.

“*But you- ...what?*”

“*I could pretend to be a CP officer, no one can tell who is under the scramble suit, and the group doesn’t know that I am actually a CP officer, they would think that I was tricking our own when it really is us tricking them, you follow?*” I elaborated.

“*Yeah...*”

“*And, with the scramble suit, I am easy to recognize by our own.*”

Bob nodded in approval.

“*Creative disguise, you are a crafty pony. I may have actually liked you, if you didn’t try to break my fucking leg before.*”

“*Tough break, get over it.*”

She grunted.

“*I’ll update command on your little scheme and be back to get you in fifteen. Suit up and leave your gear on the table.*”

Then she left the room, allowing me to prepare.

I leaned on the steel table for a while, taking deep breaths.

I was nervous as fuck. I could really go for a psycho fix right now, but I couldn’t risk it in a CP interrogation room, drinking would probably be safe, but I needed to be clear and lucid for later.

I took off my CP uniform, I could see my dull gray coated body reflect in the mirrored window.

I glanced at it for a few moments, there I was, a pretty generic normal looking earth pony stallion.

Dull gray coat, charcoal mane. Yellow eyes. Such a boring color scheme, but hey, at least I wasn’t flamingo pink.

I really look like a damned nopony, there is nothing about me that distinguishes me from the rest.

But this wasn’t the time for self pity, I had about ten minutes left to prepare.

I grabbed the scramble suit, it seemed so small, yet I had seen Bob stretch it over her armor before as if it were an incredible elastic of some sort.

I pulled it over my right foreleg, it was of a smooth comfortable silky material, it almost had the same dull gray color scheme as my coat I thought as I pulled it over me.

At first I couldn’t see anything, it was and felt more like a blanket than a suit, but then I could feel the suit activate, a surge of magical power went through my body, was the suit scanning me?

The same blue shimmering light I had seen before flickered the suits function to life, I felt it fit tighter, then I didn’t feel it at all. It was a rather uncomfortable sensation, feeling the suit ‘merge’ with me like that.

Then I could see through the mask, I saw a small white word over a small blue strip flash in the top right corner of my view a few times before fading away, it had said “LIVE”.

Everything seemed to have a very faint blue-gray tint to it but not so much that I couldn’t distinguish the flickering mess of colors that I now saw reflected in the mirrored window of the room.

Goddess, was that really me?

I looked unidentifiable in the scramble suit yet I couldn’t feel it at all.

Wait, maybe it had really merged with me!

I panicked and quickly grabbed my neck with my right front hoof and pulled.

The mask slid off effortlessly, revealing my very bland dull gray face and dilated yellow eyes.

No, it was just a suit after all. A magical suit.

At least now I knew that I could take it off.

I stood there dumbstruck observing the blurry mess of ponies reflecting on the window until I heard knocking on the door.

Right... the mission...

This was it I thought, the definite ‘it’, there was no going back now.

I opened the door and was greeted by Bob.

We silently walked down the sterile gray corridors until we were just outside the cell holding the six ponies assigned to me.

I reached for the door handle when suddenly and without warning Bob bucked me right in the stomach, with no protection barding me anymore I took the full force of the kick and fell over.

I retched and felt on the verge of vomiting.

I cringed and look up pathetically at him from the floor, a squad of officers were now surrounding us, these were the officers who were to escort us aboard the cruiser ship. They watched me silently.

“W-what the f-fuck-” I tried to say. She bucked me again, making me squirm in excruciating pain.

“*That was for what you did before, asshole.*” Bob said, looking down at me.

“Go to he-”, HMNGG OHFUCKTHATHURTS.

I tasted an acid bile in my mouth.

“*Shut the fuck up, maggot.*” Bob said, scornfully.

One of the officers slid open the cell door, I could feel the surprised stares of the six ponies I was responsible of all turn to the pathetic looking blurry mess of a pony just outside the cell.

Bob peeked into the cell from where she stood, intently observing the six ponies for several long silent seconds.

“*This,*” she said, talking to the six, “*Is your newest addition to the group.*”

Two officers dragged my winded self into the center of the cell, Bob walked up to me and bucked me one more time, this time hitting my left shoulder, it felt like it cracked under the kick from her steel tipped boot.

She was taking the part about bringing me in as ‘one of them’ way too literally, I should have seen this coming. I wanted to kill her, to tear her eyes out, break her every bone. But I was too weak to move.

“*Fucking lowlife scum.*” she said as she slowly walked towards the door.

I gathered strength and called out a weak “Fuck you” after her.

She froze and stood completely still by the open cell door.

Then she turned her head back towards me and pulled out her electric baton, it flickered to life in a quick BZZZT!, I could see Rainbow Sea cringe in the corner of my view.

She turned around at me, I could feel deep hatred burn through her mask.

She slowly walked up to me and swung the baton as hard as she possibly could right at my forehead.

I saw a bright flash of light and the world went black, I fell unconscious.

This had just been made personal. Bob was a DEAD fucking pony.

I woke up feeling the floor rocking and swaying...

Where was I? What happened?

Ouch. My head was hurting pretty bad, I reached out my right hoof and touched the sore area on my forehead, the small bulge I had before felt like it had busted open, but... a bandage had been wrapped around it.

Things were becoming clearer, I was lying on my back in a sort of steel holding cell, the floor felt coarse and the ceiling looked very rusted, everything was swaying left and right. The ship ‘Sea Killer’ came to mind.

The ship. The ship!

I had been brought onboard the cruiser ship ‘Sea Killer’ while I was unconscious and we were now at sea, on the way to the new continent as slaves to Celestia.

“Your shifting protege is waking up.” I heard somepony say.

I recognized that voice. It was Manie Manie.

“Oh my.”, I heard Nurse Swirly Star say while moving up and kneeling beside me.

“You certainly took a beating. You’ve been knocked out cold for a couple of days now.”

A couple of DAYS?

“What gives? We weren’t abused nearly as badly.” Brook Cotton could be heard asking.

“You really must have pissed off that officer,” Rainbow Sea said, “You were bleeding all over the floor of the holding cell and was still bleeding when they dragged us in here hours after that.”

“You are lucky that one of the officers took pity and left us with some bandages.”

“What pity?” Manie said, “Of course that officer gave us bandages, a dead pony makes for a really poor slave worker don’t you think?”

Had it been that bad? Had I really been bleeding out?

This group had saved my life.

“Yes yes, lets not worry him with that right now. It hurts the patient's rate of recovery. You just needs to rest for now.” Nurse Swirly reassured me.

“Really” Manie could be heard saying, slightly baffled.

“Nopony is going to ask about the shape shifting suit? Where he got it from? Or even who he is?”

I tilted my head towards her voice, she was sitting on a bench turned directly at me, forelegs crossed and cowboy hat tilted back, revealing more her pitch black and outlined hair.

Godess she had some gorgeous curves.

I was looking at her from a very awkward angle, she hadn’t expected me to tilt my head in that specific angle from where I was laid out in the center of room.

She blushed deeply red and looked noticeably angry and embarrassed.

“CREEP!” she scorned me, I looked away from her.

Introductions of with a good start! I thought.

Tombs the Pervert! Undercover CP officer posing as a slave worker and a criminal.

What kind of criminal would I be? A rapist, I imagined them guessing...

I hoped we weren’t going to make me being caught staring at her features a habit in the future, it had already happened two out of two times.

Fuck her 6th sense.

I shook my head slightly.

“I’m sorry...!” I said weakly.

I looked at Nurse Swirly, who was still kneeling beside me.

“How... uh... how are you feeling?” she asked me.

“I am fine, thank you for saving my life miss...”

Swirly lit up with the brightest smile ever.

“Swirly Star,” she introduced herself, “Nurse Swirly Star”

“Well, thank you Swirlystar Nurseswirlystar...” I jokingly said as I got up on my legs with her help.

“Her name is not ‘Swirlystar Nurseswirlystar’, it’s-” Strawberry Feather timidly spoke up.

“Thank you little one, I was merely joking.” I calmed him, giving him a gentle smile, the suit must have twisted my expression because the little colt looked spooked when I smiled at him.

“I am...” I began, but then I realized that I hadn’t prepared a name with which to introduce myself as.

‘Captain Tombs of Civil Protection’ was way out of the question and I wasn’t going to just casually use my real name either. I lingered for as long as I could before giving out my new name.

“Promise not to laugh, but my name is Sweet Heaven...”, the only two names I had managed to think up in the few seconds I could safely spare were Kitten Surf and Sweet Heaven (for some reason unbeknownst to me).

“Your name is Sweet Heaven?” Rainbow Sea could barely contain his scoffing.

“Yes.” I sighed, “It’s my ma that decided on it. My sis was named ‘Little Angel’ and I became Sweet Heaven...” I lied. My real name remaining a secret known only to me and the higher ups of CP.

“That’s pretty funny.” Blizzard Candy said.

“More like fucking hilarious” Rainbow Sea responded, unable to restrain himself.

“Well, Sweet Heaven, we tried to make out what you looked like but there is something wrong with your skin. Not ‘Manie Manie wrong’ but-” Brook Cotton tried to say, but was interrupted.

“Hey there is nothing wrong with my skin!” Manie snapped at him, having calmed down, I looked back at her, she had turned her legs away from me. She gave me a glare when she caught me looking towards her again.

“Oh hun,” Brook began, “In case ya haven’t noticed your entire body and every feature is highlighted by white outlines. I ain’t ever seen nopony with outlines like that before. Well, not until mister shapeshifter here was nearly beaten to death and put under our care.” he looked sort of triumphant at her, feeling that he had made his point.

“Now, as I was saying. Your skin appears to be... shifting under our eyes. Why is that?”

“Are you magical?” Blizzard Candy asked.

“Are you sick?” Strawberry Feather questioned.

“Is it contagious?” Everypony looked at Rainbow Sea. “What? I am just asking if we will all look like shapeshifting weirdos like him or not.” Everypony ignored him.

Wow, these ponies had no idea about the scramble suits, they thought I was some kind of magical being or that I had a rare skin condition even, maybe this would be eas-

“Ha, ha, ha. You little naive ponies.” everyone directed their attention at Manie Manie.

“HE is clearly wearing a scramble suit AND he is likely under CP employ!”

Waaaaaait... what!?

How-

“You can TELL by the way his voice is altered by the suit!” Manie added.

Well okay, I guess it didn’t really take a 6th sense to figure this one out.

Everypony were looking at me, pushing for definite answers. I sighed.

“The... elusive mare is... correct... I am indeed wearing a scramble suit of CP design...”

There were murmurs among the five who hadn’t yet picked a side to believe on.

“But.” I began bringing the attention back to me.

“This isn’t by my choice, they arrested me, just like they arrested you and they offered me a deal.”

“Lead a group of six ponies to found an outpost beyond the frontier border. Or die.” what I said wasn’t that far from the truth anyway. It was either ‘die horribly as a CP officer’ or ‘die horribly as a CP victim’, the options had been pretty limited at the time.

“And what do you guys think I choose?”

“But the scramble suit...” Manie Manie began.

“The scramble suit wasn’t a choice, they forced me to wear this thing, I can’t take it off without CP unicorns disabling the suit firsthand.”

“The scramble suit, IS my skin now. It is part of me for as long as CP wills it, which may very well be forever...”

I was making a gamble here, I knew that the suit wasn’t really that hard to take off on my own and that somepony would probably attempt to pull it off of me while I’d fall asleep.

I felt an uncomfortable tingle and realized just now that I hadn’t had a good piss in two days, I excused myself and went to the cramped bathroom attached to the holding cell we were in.

...

There was a dirty mirror over the sink, I stood in front of it staring at the shifting figure that was me.

The blurry movement was making me feel sick, so I tried tugging the mask away.

No.

I tried again, this time pulling a bit harder.

No!

I grabbed my neck with both my forehooves and pulled as hard as I could get a grip of.

Nonononononono!

The suit had really been sewn on or merged with my skin!

Those bastards had screwed with my suit before taking me onboard the ship!

So what I had just said in the next room wasn’t a complete lie after all, I really couldn’t take the suit off without CP’s help, Bob had tricked me, fucking Bob! I was going to KILL that pony, if I ever got back alive!

I AM the scramble suit now.

I leaned over the sink and looked myself in the mirror.

The scramble suit, I remembered from Bob’s description was made up of a million and a half variants of stallions, mares and fillies in every shape and form... making me completely unrecognizable and the perfect ‘everypony’.

I wasn't Tombs the gray pony anymore.

I was this... this thing, this revolting twisted skin.

What a terrible thing... To lose one's personal identity like this...

Wearing the scramble suit was nothing like wearing the Civil Protection uniform.

When I wore that at least I HAD an identity, I was always a pony wearing the uniform, when I took the uniform off I was always one unique stallion, that never changed.

Technically I still was, but with no way to take the damn thing off I had no way to prove it.

I was anypony and nopony.

I washed my face in the cold water of the sink, taking this opportunity to take a look at the wound caused by the electric baton.

It had already begun to heal nicely.

Luna bless pony metabolism.

I noticed that my wound had become part of the pattern of the scramble suit, the placement and skin color around the wound shifted with the suit based on the pony currently shifting, as a mare the wound seemed to move slightly to the left and as a filly the wound became larger.

It was as if the suit wasn’t really there, it looked and felt like my skin and fur.

I stepped back out into the cell.

“Took ya long enough, we were starting to worry about ya, mister shapeshifter.” Brook Cotton whimsically started the conversation.

Ha Ha Brook, really fucking funny. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes and I was already begging to hate that nickname. It had a totally different meaning to me after I realized that I couldn’t take the suit off.

“I was... reflecting on things. A lot of things have been happening to me over the last few days.”

The suit did portray emotions, but not nearly as effectively as a whole face does.

My gloominess over being trapped in the scramble suit went completely unnoticed.

Strawberry Feather shyly began talking to me,

“Sweet Heaven... I’m sorry to ask and it’s fine if you don’t want to answer, but... what do you really look like under the suit? Who are you really?”

“What is your real age!” Rainbow Sea called out.

“32...” I muttered.

“No, your REAL age!” he called out again.

“THIRTY TWO..” I said, again in an irritated tone. I sighed deeply.

“Oh. Well, so how the hell do you look like anyway? Answer the boy!”

“Does it really matter? I can’t take the suit off, I can’t prove that what I am saying is true or not.”

“I’d believe you.” everyone turned to Manie Manie, who had stood up and walked up to me.

Before I could express my doubt and surprise she put a hoof on my left shoulder and leaned towards my left ear, almost touching it with her muzzle, I felt her warm calm breathing on my ear, she whispered quietly.

“I know you... You were the officer who arrested me. You were the officer staring at us through the mirrored glass...” She leaned away and took a step back.

A deep chill went down my spine, her sixth sense was uncanny.

So she knew about me, but why would she tell me?

“But...” she resumed, confusing the others (nopony else had heard her whispering), “It seems like CP have legitimately screwed you over too. They tricked you, Sweet Heavens. They are sending you in the same boat with us as equals.”

Not as equals, I am not like you. I thought.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I clumsily lied.

“Let me guess...” she said, pausing momentarily to simulate thoughtfulness.

“They had you hand in all your CP gear, correct? The pistol, the baton and the uniform?”

“I am not following you.” I said, pretending not to know what she was talking about.

“But you were assigned the scramble suit to protect your identity as a CP officer,” she continued ignoring me. “Presumably you commented on this saying that it would compromise your relation with us and make us suspect you of being a CP officer.”

Interesting...

“But since your mission requires you to wear the scramble suit and keep your identity hidden to us you simply had to keep the scramble suit.”

“Which is why you then suggested to be introduced to us as an abused prisoner so that our suspicions would be quelled and we’d take pity on you.”

My eyes went wide in surprise.

How could she be so accurate?

I said nothing, but my expression betrayed me, the others had begun to suspect.

“...but why would they hurt one of their own?” Nurse Swirly asked, not fully convinced.

“To trick us into believing that he wasn’t part of CP.” Manie replied to her.

“But why send one undercover officer to guard us instead of sending two normal officers?” Blizzard Candy wondered. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”

I was wondering that myself.

What the hell had I done to deserve being sent alone with these ponies to die in a faraway land?

“Because... he is being punished for something.” Manie deduced, yet seemed unsure.

Punished.

That would make sense, they would send me on a phony mission of redemption for something I did in CP.

But what would that be? I was a model CP officer, one of the best.

What had I done to deserve punishment?

But then the pieces began to fall into place.

I remembered the confrontation regarding the Psycho chems with Bob.

She had suspected me of using Psycho, but I had quelled her suspicions by denying it

Or so I had thought.

Bob’s words about my gear came to mind.

By the way, you have to hand in your uniform and CP issued weapons and gear.

We will allow you to do so yourself, we trust that our agents know what is best for their task.

What they then decide to bring in their pack, be it legal or illegal, is entirely up to them...

I had betrayed myself, somepony must have seen me use Psycho back at my precinct and reported me.

And I had only confirmed their suspicions by showing up with a satchel filled with Psycho and... the bag of Ecstasy from Cake.

Manie didn’t know however, she couldn’t deliver the final point revealing me as a CP officer, I could still salvage this.

"Punished..." I said slowly.

"Punished for what?”

Manie smiled fiendishly.

“For possession and usage of illegal drugs, silly.”

You have got to be kidding me.

“...what?”

There was only one way she could know...

“I looked in your bag while you were unconscious.”

Why of course she did.

“You went through my bags?!”

“I sure did! And guess WHAT ELSE I found in your bags?”

What else?

What else did I have?

All I had left was the dandelion vodka, the medical supplies and the food.

“You tell me.” I challenged.

She lifted her hat and pulled out my Civil Protection officer badge.

“THIS OFFICER’S BADGE!” she yelled holding the badge up proudly for all to see.

WHAT THE FUCK, I DIDN’T PUT THAT IN MY BAG!

I LEFT IT ON THE TABLE WITH THE REST OF MY GEAR, NEXT TO MY PISTOL.

I KNOW I DID, THERE IS NO WAY THAT BADGE CO-

“FUCKING BACKSTABBING BOB!” I growled, snatching the badge out of Manie’s hoof.

“Who is Bob?” Brook Cotton asked.

“‘Bob’ must have been the CP officer that briefed him on his mission, perhaps even the same guy that gave him the scramble suit in the first place.” Manie answered.

"But wait, you can't prove that the badge belongs to me." I knew that by now, it was a desperate cause.

She opened the badge and looked at the document inside, there wasn't much to go by I knew, the document only revealed the age, gender, home precinct and name.

She closed it and threw it in an arch to me, I managed to catch it by pure reflex.

"No. But your emotional outburst betrayed you. We know."

I said nothing, not knowing what to say anymore.

“Feeling a little upset there mr undercover CP officer?” she said condescendingly.

“Fuck you Manie Manie.” I bit back.

“And you know my name...” she responded slowly, “I wonder what else you know about me...”

That's right, I knew something about her that could turn them against her.

"Yes Manie, what else DO I know about you?"

She began looking nervous, she realized what I meant.

"Don't..."

“Do THEY know, Manie?” I said, referring to the others.

She recoiled slightly.

“Err, know what?”

"What is going on?" Rainbow Sea wondered.

“Do you guys know what she did to end up here with you?” I asked the group.

No response.

“She killed an entire platoon of helicopters and betrayed her own kin in a military exercise.”

The reactions were quick, all attention instantly turned to Manie.

“YOU DID THAT?” Rainbow Sea called out, jumping up from his bench and storming up to her. “YOU KILLED MY BROTHER AND SISTER?” She yelled at her, making her nervously back up.

“No...” Nurse Swirly reacted. She was almost in tears. “Please tell me this isn’t true...”

“My husband, he... he....”

“YOU FUCKER, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU EVEN DID!? WHY MANIE!? WHY?!”

Manie was speechless, she had backed in a corner and was staring blankly in fear at Rainbow Sea and Nurse Swirly.

“I-I’ts n-not that simple...” she tried to explain, stuttering slightly in fear.

“WHAT ISN’T SIMPLE!? YOU KILLED THEM BOTH, THEY HAD JUST TURNED 18, MANIE. YOU FUCKING KILLED THEM!” Rainbow Sea was furious at her.

“I-I had to do it...!”

Swirly Star was crying out in agony as she heard the truth.

“It was either them or me!” she said.

“YOU ARE FUCKING DEAD, DEAD!” Rainbow Sea growled.

As he was about to charge at her Brook Cotton and Blizzard Candy jumped at him, knocking him over and restraining him.

“LET ME GO! FUCKING LET ME GO!” he screamed at them, trying to bite and kick his way out of their grip. Strawberry Feather had been knocking on the steel door, trying to get a guard in here.

“You’ll get us all killed!” Blizzard Candy warned him.

“Calm down!” Brook Cotton said to him, keeping his rear legs locked.

Two CP guards came into the room, without fuss they grabbed hold of Rainbow Sea.

“THIS ISN’T FUCKING OVER MANIE, YOU ARE A DEAD PONY.” he screamed as he was dragged away.

The door shut with a slam, silence befell the room.

Manie Manie was still in a corner of the room, quiet and in fear.

Nurse Swirly was being comforted by Strawberry Feather.

Brook Cotton sat down with a deep sigh, then the two turned to me.

“Now,” Brook began, “Ah know Manie Manie doesn’t exactly bring out the best in us, but could we please not pull crap like that again? Things are really bad enough as it is.”

“You are right.” I said. “I am sorry.”

“What happens now?” Blizzard Candy asked.

“Manie Manie is right...” I said. “I am a CP agent, sent to spy and watch over you...”

“But after what she said, about me being punished for something... I don’t know what to think.”

“I am starting to think that I am being sent on a phony mission simply to die.”

“What was that about drug abuse?” Brook Cotton asked. “Is that why they are punishing you?”

“It must be, there is nothing else I could have possibly done to end up here aside from that, not that I can think of.”

“What? They just betray their own for using drugs?” Blizzard Candy said surprised.

“It’s not that simple... I am... a bit of a psycho junkie. And the only way to get psycho is by stealing it from the army."

"You stole drugs from the army?"

"Of course not, but the dealer I got it from somehow did."

"Then why are you getting the blame for it?"

"It is illegal to own the drug, if you are caught with the drug you may be punished with the same charges for stealing it in person, which is serious."

“What exactly is Psycho?”

They sure were asking a lot of questions about it.

I sighed deeply.

“Psycho, is a military combat drug that was created during the early golden age to increase the aggression levels of ponies and make them emotionally better suited for things like combat. We ponies aren’t naturally aggressive creatures, we experience anger and sadness just like any creature, but never pure rage.”

“Most ponies are also incredibly squeamish, being unable to take the psychological burden of bloodshed, violence and death. The Psycho chem changes this, it makes ponies more “numb” to violence.

Because of the way things are today, many ponies use the Psycho drug as a grief reliever, to deal with the death, disappearance of a relative or friend.”

"By becoming angry?"

"Well... yeah, I guess. It seems to work that way."

“And why do you use it?”

“I answered your questions, why I use it is none of your fucking business."

I could see mixed feelings of disappointment and understanding in Brook Cotton’s face.

“We all have our grief to deal with.” he said with compassion.

“You don't know me.”

"No. But I know you have problems, and if you look around, you'll find that you are not alone."

He was right.

But I was still not going to tell my life story to these ponies, I had my share of that on the train yesterday.

I walked up to a bunk bed in the room and sat down on it, it was sturdy, as with all pony designed beds.

“Guys...” I said getting the attention of the group, “I... I am not going to force you to follow me."

"I understand if you want to escape and I am not going to stop you from doing so once we are on our own...”

“But it is not safe in Equestria controlled territory, Civil Protection is everywhere, they see everything. If I don’t follow through with my mission they will send a hunter seeker team to track me down and kill me," I didn't know if that would happen to me, but I knew that we had hunter seeker teams and that they carried out their work with brutal efficiency, at least on the mainland.

"I... assume they would do the same to you if you don’t check in with me.”

“Again, I am not forcing you to stay once we begin to travel on our own, but if I were you I’d simply stick around until we leave the frontier border. From there you can try your luck with the dangers of the new continent safe from CP and Equestria...”

“And Swirly Star...” I said, the crying nurse looked up at me.

“I am sorry for your loss and predicament. I wish there was something I could do for you who undeservedly have ended up here, same thing applies for you Strawberry Feather and you Blizzard Candy.”

“I know why you are all here, and you didn’t all deserve it. I know that it doesn’t mean anything coming from me, but this isn’t what I signed up for, I never meant for innocents to be arrested for mere accidents, this isn’t what I was looking for in CP. Just know that... that I feel for you.”

"Then what you make of that, is entirely up to you."

I laid down facing the wall and put my head on the very hard and uncomfortable pillow on the bed.

As I closed my eyes Strawberry Feather spoke to me,

“Sweet Heavens...”

“Yes, little one?” I calmly replied.

“What do you really look like under the suit?”

Personal question, but I didn’t intend to argue just now, I just wanted to be left alone for a bit.

“I have a dull gray coat and charcoal mane. My eyes are yellow.”

There was a pause.

“What about your cutiemark?”

My cutiemark.

A feeling of sadness and grief washed over me.

“It is a half moon encircling a pink heart...”

I felt a tear run down my cheek, I closed my eyes and soon fell into a deep sleep.