"You know, I'm not even mad!” Sunburst finally spoke after sucking down more water from his canteen. “That was amazing! If I'd had a proper beer, I would've thought it was a Wonderbolts Show!"

Firefly stared blankly out the ARC ship’s porthole. Her squad continued their idle chatter beside her, but Firefly’s mind was elsewhere. A million thoughts flashed through her head like static on the radio.

"The perks of being splashed first, eh Sunshine?" Eastwind snickered, elbowing Sunburst in the side.

"Damn straight. You weren't so bad yourself!"

"Aw shucks, old sire's actually giving his sassy wingmare a compliment?"

"Not you," Sunburst glowered before pointing a hoof at Thunderlane. "Thunderlane."

"Hey!” Eastwind scowled. “I suplexed a dragon! Did you suplex a dragon?"

The gashes in her cheek would heal. The swelling in her lip would go down. The bruises would fade. The cuts could be stitched up. But history... history would never let go.

"You know what?” Sunburst waved his front hooves dismissively. “I don't even care anymore. I got to sit in a warm cabin while you schmucks froze your flanks off and kicked the horseapples out of each other in the arena!"

"Got kind of warm there near the end," Eastwind said.

Demon. The sobriquet lingered like the putrid miasma of gunsmoke, the very thought of it leaving a foul taste in her mouth. This was no affectionate moniker among squadmates or joking jab from a flight instructor. There was only one place that kind of name could come from.

Fear.

"Caliente!” Thunderlane laughed. “As my old sire would say!"

Respect was foreign enough to Firefly. It felt like all her life she’d been fighting for just a shred of acknowledgement. School, basic, OCS, it didn’t matter; she bit and clawed and bucked to make herself a place. But during the war, she’d gone far beyond that. She had transcended the need for respect. Now they were genuinely afraid of what she could do.

"Where'd you say he was from?" Sunburst said.

Thunderlane kicked back his hooves, putting them up on the galley table. "San Palomino. They joined PEACE about a year ago. Negotiations were in the works a while back but the war kind of threw things for a loop..."

Whispers of that vile epithet susurrated through the airwaves whenever the Timberwolves joined battle. Her opponents hesitated. They showed deference. Their aim was shaky and their blows weak. She could clear the skies by virtue of her very presence.

“Your old sire sounds like my kind of guy!”

“Yeah, except less frat boy and more dad jokes.”

At first, it was exhilarating. Oh the shots she could take when she was free to act, the moves she could pull when no one was bearing down on her with blade and gun! There was a perverse satisfaction Firefly got from those takedowns, a taboo feeling that could only be described as sadistic glee.

“Say what you want about the M-U frats. We really knew how to party!”

“More than the post-academy Bajrams in Cirria?”

“Didn’t realize you were into the whole orgy thing, Windy.”

Eastwind pursed her lips and lifted her brows in surprise. Surprise turned to glee and soon she was cackling madly. “That really what they called them in mainland Equestria?”

“Was that... offensive or something?”

“Not at all! Just wasn’t expecting you to know anything about it. I figured it wasn’t common knowledge on the mainland.”

“I call horsesapples on that!”

“You’re just jealous that I could rack up more pussy than you.”

“Mare, please. You didn’t prove shit with that...”

But even this soon wore on her. The freedom lost its luster. It was ephemeral, all of it. It wasn’t real respect. Her foes couldn’t respect her — how could they? They knew nothing of her; only of her ability to bring swift death to them...

"Yo jefa! You awake? You haven't said anything since we left the arena!"

Firefly blinked. Her lids ground on her eyes like sandpaper, finally alerting her to the fact that she had been staring unblinking into space. She scratched at her itchy eyes with her flight jacket sleeve.

"Just thinking, Thunderlane," Firefly finally said.

"About what?" he pressed.

"Stuff."

"I thought I’d be cordial, boss.”

“Thank you, Thunderlane. Just not in the mood for conversation.”

“Does she always do that?” Thunderlane whispered, turning to Eastwind. It was well within earshot for Firefly, but she ignored it. She had other matters that needed her careful consideration.

Fear got her what she wanted for a while, but it would never be a substitute for respect. Fighting battles got easier, but dealing with nuggets and brass got harder. Soon, her reputation became inescapable. Everywhere she went, that wretched name followed.

Demon.

"... and they don't know what to do when I ask for corned beef!" Khog brayed in laughter. The others in his squad echoed his exuberance.

Dragons were curious creatures. Their culture to Firefly was about as foreign as indigenous zebra tribes and areion conclaves. Despite the size of Fillydelphia, her hometown was mostly Equine with odd smatterings of griffon neighborhoods. Dragons rarely — if ever — made landfall in the parts of it she called home.

"You do realize a lot of the ship is vegetarian, right Khog?" Roshina’s characteristically cool voice rose in response.

"Feh,” the warrior dragon spat. “You'd think Pyrian Home Guard would throw us a bone or something. It’s not like we don’t do their dirty work all day, every day!"

Everything she knew about dragons came from hearsay and fiction. They were proud, strong, tough, and belligerent when challenged, with little in the way of diplomatic sensibilities. Her experience with Typhon squad had proved this to be mostly true. Khog was the very embodiment of such things and Zaan and Grana merely variations on the theme.

"You don't want the Guard throwing anything at you. Trust me."

"Roshina? Backing down from pony-assigned tasks?” Grana sneered. “I swear you're going soft!”

Roshina was the outlier. Despite her warrior prowess, she was no mere brute. She was magically gifted, tactically-minded, and impossible to read. Every time Firefly thought she’d had her pegged, Roshina surprised her with something else. It was infuriating— infuriating and fascinating.

"Better soft-hearted than soft-headed, Grana,” Roshina chided. “Never underestimate a pony. If they can beat the premier AirLand force on the continent in open war, you'd do well to respect them."

Roshina reminded Firefly of the type she’d dealt with in school. They were difficult to forget with their haughty eyes, coiffed manes, prim tails, full bit pouches, and egos the size of Canterlot Castle. Her hatred for them ran deep — beyond envy, beyond temper, and beyond prejudice. Inside, a cold rage smoldered, a rage that wished nothing but ruin upon those who had drawn her ire.

"I'm flattered, Roshina,” Firefly finally said. “I never knew you held Equestrians in such high regard."

“I would be remiss not to do so!” Roshina grinned her toothy dragon grin at the faux compliment, leaving Grana to shake her head and continue her conversation with Khog and Zaan. "I hold anyone who can be a dangerous foe in high regard.”

“Is that your only qualifier for a good person?” Firefly bristled.

Being antagonized was nothing new to Firefly. Teachers and their truancy lectures. Queen bees and their mewling sycophants. Jocks and valedictorian contenders with their dimwitted bravado and pompous snobbery. But no matter their advantages in authority, wealth, strength, or intelligence, Firefly never broke. She never folded. Anyone who picked a fight with her would find an opponent unwilling to give up until one or both of them were completely and utterly destroyed.

“Now you’re putting words in my mouth,” Roshina chuckled. “You think all I care about is combat prowess?”

“More or less.”

Roshina was different. She could plainly see that ferocity. But rather than be taken aback, she faced it without reserve. She didn’t just like it, she relished it. Firefly’s attempts to intimidate only excited her more. This was perhaps more unnerving to Firefly than her combat prowess.

“You’re not one to give easy credit are you?”

“I didn’t survive a war by taking it easy,” Firefly countered. “I figured someone in SOF would know that.”

“More than I care to admit.”

Anger. Envy. Hubris. Roshina provoked the worst in Firefly. Yet she still offered friendship. Was this some kind of sick joke? Another mockery of Firefly’s struggle to carve a place for herself in the world?

“... which is actually why I was planning to talk to you later, Firefly. But I figure now is as good a time as any."

Firefly’s ears perked up. "Oh?"

“I’ll be straightforward. I need to apologize again about training today."

Firefly’s eyes narrowed and her ear twitched. A surly frown dragged down the corners of her lips. This again. Leaning in so as not to catch the ear of either of their squads, Firefly blasted Roshina.

“What the hell is your problem?” She snapped. “I’m sick of telling you to drop it! You mention Valdus one more time and I’ll kick your ass right here on board ship!”

“I’m trying to apologize.” Roshina’s response was equally quiet, but flat in tone in stark contrast to Firefly’s incensed hiss. “You’re not going to let me fix things?”

“There’s nothing to fix.”

“Remember Farrier's Salient?"

“And now you’re changing the subject?”

“Would you just listen to me?” Roshina said, eyes narrowed. “I promise I won’t waste your time.”

Firefly gritted her teeth. It would likely be fruitless. She’d just walk away irritated and never want to speak with Roshina again. But still, something compelled her to stay. Firefly slowly leaned back in her seat, letting her wings droop lazily by her sides.

"Farrier’s Salient, huh? Just after Neighvarrone and Argent Battery first fell to the Aquellian National Army?” She finally replied. “That was at the beginning of the war. Pyre had already pulled out by then. What does Farrier’s Salient matter to you?"

"Because I was deployed there. Pyre may have withdrawn the Home Guard, but several ACG squadrons including my own were still deployed abroad."

"Cut the horseshit and get to the point, Roshina."

Farrier’s Salient was an accident. That sleepy little hollow may well have been ignored for the rest of the war had the Farrier not crashed there. Funny how something little like that can change everything.

“Typhon One, this is Horus. How copy, over?”

The dry, proper voice of the ARC operator roused Roshina from her flight hypnosis. “This is Typhon One. Read you five by five. Send traffic.”

“New orders. You are to divert to grid three eight niner zero niner one.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“We have a downed airship in the AO. Crew is in need of extraction. We’re getting ready to deploy CSAR but we need eyes on and force protection until the ships get there.”

The Farrier was tasked with scouting a potential air corridor toward the Aquellian flank. It got caught up in rotor winds and crashed into a hollow in the middle of nowhere. What they didn’t realize is that they had landed right on the doorstep of an Aquellian FOB.

“That’s what we’re here for, Horus. We’re diverting to target coordinates. Typhon One, out.”

“Should have known they’d send us off on another milk run. Maybe I should have had Grana go with you instead!”

Roshina gave her companion a sidelong glance. The gold of his scales glinted in the late afternoon light, overshadowed only by his enormous self-sure grin. It seemed to bother him little that his stature and magical prowess fell short of his wingmate.

“And here I was thinking that that brain of yours would make you a harder worker, not a lazier one!” She chided.

Bashir Gul was a character. He was that queer blend of social, curious, and smart that ran circles around other ACG candidates and drove officers to conniptions. Usually smart enough to stay out of the line of fire, but reckless enough to be — dare I say it — charming.

“Why work hard when I can work smart?” he chuckled. “Or not work at all? There are finer things in life than the art of war, Roshina!”

“Only your ACG immunity is keeping that attitude from killing your career.”

“They know better than to discharge me!”

“I’d argue the opposite,” Roshina said flatly. “Stay focused. Alter heading to one one niner. Let’s make for that grid.”

It was a routine operation. Find the wreck. Sit on it until C-SAR showed up. Have a nice chat. Fly home in time for tea.

“You ever wonder why we get stuck in this shit?” Bashir’s banter was incorrigible.

“Sometimes,” Roshina said. “But the mission comes before my own sentiments.”

“Some wrinkly-ass olden pony sitting in a board room thousands of klicks away signs a paper and we’re suddenly at war,” the other dragon mused. “Blows your mind, doesn’t it?”

“I thought you were tactics, not philosophy.”

“I dabble in a bit of everything, Rosi dear.”

“Call me that one more time, Bashir, and I’ll—”

A loud boom interrupted her. Golden eyes snapped to target, guided by keen ears honed from years of training and countless combat sorties. A single black puff of gunsmoke bloomed ahead. Roshina knew better than to think it would come alone.

“Airburst! Hit the deck!”

Roshina inverted and pulled hard as more flak bursts exploded around her. Her scales sparked and pinged with skipping shrapnel. Fragmentation did not concern her. The blast itself was far more deadly, able to crush her lungs and break her bones through her thick natural armor.

“Looks like flak cover for CAS and an air assault unit.” Bashir’s voice turned deadly serious. “They know the Farrier is here.”

“Then we have no time to lose.”

Roshina leveled off below the flak field and stretched her arms forward. The snaking gold lines adorning her scales began to glow with an unearthly light, growing in strength as she conjured her magical weapons of war. Roshina’s magic coalesced in the form of a gleaming aegis on her left arm and a quartet of ghostly javelins that hovered around her right, awaiting the command to strike.

Just ahead was a billowing plume of black smoke. Following it to its base revealed the shattered hull of an Equestrian frigate and the deep gash its crash landing had carved into the forest. Charred trees rimmed the twisted prow and sickly violet flames licked at its leaking altus reservoirs. The jagged pocks of flak bursts settled in a cloud atop the wreck, dispensing a flurry of jet-black snow.

“Roshina, gunships!”

Roshina quickly heeded her partner’s warning. Just beneath the cloud of flak lurked two shadows, the bulbous forms of Aquellian gunships. Small two-pilot craft bristling with cannons, rockets, and repeaters, they could give anything short of a capital ship pause all on their own. Roshina squinted through the haze of battle, spotting dim shadows flitting between the gunships.

“Bashir, hit the closest gunship. I’ll deal with their escorts.” Roshina ordered. “FOX THREE!”

A snap of her lips on the missile launch voice code and a flick of her fingers in the aether sent her javelins streaking away. The flitting shadows revealed themselves to be heavily armed griffons in flight as the dragons closed the gap. Roshina’s victims saw the missiles too late. Four brilliant points of light flashed in the formation, casting the gunships’ silhouettes in eerie backlight against the flak cloud above.

It wasn’t unusual for the ANA to use shock and awe tactics. What was overkill for Alliance forces was a routine CAP for the ANA Air Corps. Every fight we had our work cut out for us.

Roshina’s shield swung forward. The high-explosive autocannon rounds blossomed into orange fireballs before her, forcing her to squint back the harsh brightness. She could physically feel the shield weaken, its magical lattice cracking under sustained assault. A wave of her left hand dispelled the shield, splintering it into a thousand glittering fragments and freeing her arm to cast again.

Roshina whirled around, clenching her fists in careful mnemonic motion. More javelins materialized out of the aether, four around each hand. Her closed fists flew open, sending the missiles fanning out before her. With her missiles fired, Roshina turned on her left wing and dove. A quick peek above showed exactly what she wanted to see. The escorts vanished in scintillating points of light, leaving only the gunships.

“Typhon Two engaging!”

Roshina leveled off and reversed her course as dragonfire erupted to her right. Bashir came through on his word. The stream of liquid flame scorched the gunship’s front windscreen, surely blinding the pilots. But Bashir was far from done. The Aquellian gunship lurched to the side as Bashir grappled it. A hammerfist punch smashed the windscreen to splinters and a second blast of flame spelled doom to the vessel and its crew.

The other gunship turned, but held its fire, as if given pause at the violent destruction of its wingmate. Roshina capitalized on the pilot’s hesitation. A magic missile sprang to life at her fingertips and streaked toward the gunship’s underside.

A violent SNAP-CRACK told Roshina her shot had found its mark. The gunship shuddered violently, the purple glow of its engines flickering rapidly before finally flaming out. The gunship listed heavily to starboard and coasted to an uneasy stop, its altus supply the only thing keeping it airborne.

Roshina brought her hands together, her fingertips beginning to glow as she touched her claws at the tips. She then stretched her arms out, spinning threads of coalesced aether into a web before her. With a touch of dragonfire breath to charge the net, Roshina shoved her palms forward, firing a searing white beam of energy into the belly of the crippled ship.

The beam pierced the vessel like a surgeon’s scalpel, slicing machinery, ordnance, and stores alike. Roshina streaked past the stricken ship with a smug grin on her face. Her eyes caught the panicked look on the gunship pilots’ faces before their vessel went up in a roiling ball of purple flame.

“Horus, this is Typhon One, airspace is secured but the ANA are sure to be back for more. What’s the ETA on our C-SAR?”

“Stand by..."

Being told to “stand by” was never a good thing. It always meant either red tape or red alarms. I’d hoped it was red tape, but with how deep we were behind enemy lines, that wasn’t likely to happen.

“Typhon One be advised, Aquellian cruiser closing on your position!”

“Bashir, break!” Roshina barely had time to utter the words before the concussion of an airburst shell slammed into her. So much for red tape.

“Bashir, I need you topside!”

Roshina shouted over the roar of flak as she righted herself. She strained to hear a response over the surrounding din, but the airwaves were quiet. Where was Bashir? A sudden realization made the blood run cold in her veins. Her eyes snapped to movement in the periphery.

In the distance, the silhouette of a lone dragon tumbled from the sky, its carapace bleeding black smoke and purple flame.

“Bashir!”

“... and that was all it took. One round and he was gone. Never saw it coming.”

It took a moment for Firefly to regain lucidity. Roshina’s tale was enrapturing. Even more so because of the subject matter. A wellspring of feelings continued to resonate in her chest even after Roshina had finished the story. After a long breath, Firefly finally spoke.

“So you know what it’s like,” she said quietly.

Roshina nodded.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Firefly continued.

“As am I,” Roshina said.

“Why tell me, though?” Firefly suddenly said. “You can’t tell me that you go around baring your soul to just anypony.”

“I don’t, no.” Roshina paused for a moment as if to contemplate. “But if there’s one thing I’ve come to love in life, it’s learning. We have a lot in common — a lot we can learn from each other. If that takes a bit of opening up, that’s a calculated risk I’m willing to take.”

Roshina? Take a risk? For her of all ponies? Firefly was dumbfounded. But Roshina was not done yet.

“So what do you say? Friends?”

Firefly’s face betrayed nothing. But inside, she was reeling. All of the ups and downs of the previous few days had finally come to a head. Old feelings had become new again. Enemies of the past had become enemies of the present. Fierce rivals had become fast friends.

“Friends,” Firefly finally said, sticking out her hoof to shake.

Roshina grabbed firmly and shook, sealing the deal. It was then that Firefly realized that the cabin had fallen into silence. She raised her head and looked around. Dragons and one side and ponies on the other, both squads had their eyes firmly locked on their respective leaders. In an instant, Firefly’s commander bluster returned.

“The hay are you all looking at?” she growled. “Is there something stuck to my muzzle?”

A quiet murmur spread among both squads before Thunderlane spoke up. “We just, uh, weren’t expecting it, jefa.”

“What, I can’t make new friends?” Firefly retorted with a smirk.

“Go right ahead!” laughed Sunburst. “Just don’t leave your old friends behind!”

“I’m flattered, Sunshine! Never thought I’d get the honor of having the old fogey call me ‘friend’!”

Sunburst rolled his eyes and groaned. “I’m not that old!”

“Says the only one with wrinkles!” Eastwind snickered.

“You know that thing you do where you don’t help?” Sunburst growled in retort. “You’re doing it again!”

“And I thought it was bad when we talked about Roshina!” Khog guffawed.

Roshina responded with a dirty glare. “Now don’t you start, Khog!”

“Guess Rojo over there isn’t so stiff after all!” Thunderlane joined him.

Laughter erupted from the galley as the prior tension dissolved. The barrier between the two squads had finally been broken. Firefly leaned back and nestled into her seat, pulling her flier’s cap over her eyes as she let the chatter between squads fade out of her attention.

Roshina was different. She was more than an empty uniform wrapped in scaly armor. She was complex, individual, and — dare Firefly say it — personable. Though they didn’t always see eye to eye, they had more in common than Firefly would have admitted before. She was not the enemy.

For Firefly that was good enough.