Sergeant Johnson's New Gig

“Am I right, everybody?”

An awkward silence prevailed throughout the Royal Archives as Johnson looked at both the Princesses and Luna’s Nightguards, waiting for a reaction from them. Celestia’s expression was as unreadable as a blank stone as she simply blinked at him. In a similar fashion, the bat ponies were largely blank and stoic, as befitting their stations. In sharp contrast to either, Luna grinned and quietly stomped her hoof on the marble floor in applause.

Then, Flash Sentry trotted into the room. “Princess Luna, we have cleared the grounds as you req....” Luna ceased her stomping abruptly and looked at him expectantly, while the others stared at him as they had Johnson. The ‘IWHBYD’ skull, once again on the handsome mahogany table next to Celestia, seemed to be grinning at Sentry, even despite it no longer possessing its lower jawbone.

The Captain’s eyes narrowed in confusion as he looked around at the rest of the archive room’s occupants, including the skull. “Why are you guys so quiet?”

Everyone continued to stare at him. Flash Sentry slowly backed away nervously, lifting his right foreleg hesitantly. “Erm, is this the part where I’m supposed to take off my armor seductively and say what a naughty stallion I've been?”

Celestia shook her head and sighed, face hoofing. “No, Captain Sentry. Please, come in! We were just discussing the matter of Discord, the Roaman threat, and the mysterious skulls with Mister Johnson here.” She waved him in and motioned towards the empty floor space next to Sergeant Johnson.

Flash Sentry gulped and nodded, trotting towards the human and sitting on his haunches. Johnson nudged the pegasus playfully, winking at him. “Son, you’ve got one deviant mind. I like it, but don’t get too cocky now.”

Like a child caught with their hoof in the cookie jar, the pegasus nodded at Johnson uncomfortably, then turned his gaze to the world map near Celestia. Johnson shifted his own focus back towards the one object that summed up the matters at hand. Looking to Luna he said, “So, about these skulls, this Discord loony said that they would be appearing all around Equestria, correct?”

Luna replied,“Indeed. Our primary goal now should be locate the whereabouts of the other skulls, preferably prior to, or as they manifest themselves, and collect them before they can cause any major harm.” Johnson nodded slowly, seeing the logic in the Alicorn’s plan. Luna then followed up, and pointed a hoof at Flash Sentry. “Captain, are your unicorn battlemages fully rested and prepared to begin their telepathic forecast for any future skull appearances?”

“Only barely so, Your Highness.” Sentry responded with a hint of despair creeping into his voice. “Many are still tired from preventing the effects of this mere skull from overwhelming everyone in the castle.”

“Maybe they just need to raise their Alteration Skill to seventy five, so that they can unlock the perks that allow the spells to consume less magicka.” One of the Nightguards remarked, before slamming a hoof to his muzzle in shock.

“We beg your pardon? What dost thou mean?” Luna asked with her ears tilted at an odd angle and her brow raised.

“I....I have far too much free time on my hooves, my lady.” The flustered Nightguard replied.

His comrade nearly broke his own stoic facade, resisting the desire to face-hoof at such a blatant breach of Guard protocol. The bat pony’s own hidden frustration only mounted, as he could already sense a random comment threatening to burst out from his lips any moment now.

Luna looked both guards over with a disturbed expression, then returned her attention to Sentry and Johnson, whose feelings on the skull’s effects were mutual. Next to her, Celestia looked around the room, her eyes repeatedly drawn to the weird skull and then back again.

“My sister, could you perhaps lend your magic in locating the other skulls?”

Not looking at Luna, Celestia bluntly replied in a dreamy tone, “Nope.” The Princess’ body language gave no indication that the matter was up for debate.

Clearing her throat awkwardly, Luna continued. Her ears were now flattened at her sister’s sudden change of behavior. “Well then, if we may continue. If we cannot rely on our unicorn mages and wizards, or even Tia’s magical prowess to track Discord’s activities, then to more risky and draconian measures, we must resort. Johnson, may I suggest that you perhaps...try to interact with the skull?”

As Celestia herself continued to stare at the skull almost absentmindedly, Johnson gave the grinning bone a cursory glance, then looked to the younger alicorn skeptically. “Why exactly, do you want me to touch that creepy thing? I’m not anything like one of them headhunting types, ya know.”

In response, Luna frowned thoughtfully and rubbed the polished floor with a hoof. “Where to begin? Ah yes, the skull was what made your arrival here a reality, and it seems to have some kind of profound connection to you, almost as if it’s drawn to you.”

Johnson grinned for a moment. “Yeah, I’m familiar with that type of business.”

“That, and the skull resembles the bone structure of your species’ almost exactly, if your personal physical form is to be used as a point of reference in this matter. So, will you help us and try to interact with it, perhaps learning some of its secrets in the process?”

Still grinning, Johnson’s skepticism gave way to his own budding curiosity towards the skull. “Why the hell not? Just give me a second, and then I’ll give its shiny dome a good rubbing, maybe a genie will pop out and give us all some wishes.”

“We thank thee, Sergeant Major.” Luna said, bowing her head graciously.

“I wish for some fingers.” The first Nightguard declared, which caused the other bat pony to finally face-hoof.

Under Luna, her strangely-behaving guards, and Flash Sentry’s observation, Johnson cautiously approached the table. He examined the skull again for an extended amount of time, rubbing at his shaven head on at least a few occasions. After a few more seconds transpired, Johnson felt the hairs on his neck stand on end, as he sensed that someone nearby was watching him, closely. The Sergeant looked in the direction of his would-be stalker.

The offender–Princess Celestia–was giving the human a creepy look. After staring at him for a few more ominous seconds, the tall Alicorn said, “I have something else you could possibly give a good rubbing...I  reward those who are obedient, greatly.” Her magenta eyes flew briefly to her horn, then she broke into a fierce blush.

“Your majesty?” Flash Sentry said, completely shocked by his ruler’s sudden change of conduct.

“Tia!” Luna half shouted, half hissed, equally taken aback by her eldest sibling’s quip.

“Celestia have mercy...” The other Nightguard murmured under his breath, staring suggestively at Luna’s flanks, while the first Nightguard raised an eyebrows. Sentry looked to the pair with horror at their conduct.

Wishing he still had at least one emergency Sweet William available, Johnson frowned at Celestia, as she desperately tried to get her normal composure back. “You Equestrians are all crazy.” He mumbled. “Almost too crazy.”

Luna looked at him helplessly, shrugging. Johnson shrugged back in return and then returned focus to the disembodied skeletal head. Looking down at it, the delicate curves of the painstakingly-carved DNA marking on the skull’s crown almost seemed to sing out to Johnson, as if they were desperate to convey some great secret they held to him.

Reaching out a gloved hand tentatively towards the ‘IWHBYD’ skull, Johnson murmured, “Well...here goes nothing then.”

As soon as his hand made contact with the bleach-white enamel surface of the bone, Johnson’s mind was instantly subdued by an unexpectedly powerful flurry of activity that originated from deep within the skull itself. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, and everything went black.

The world, and all its inhabitants, swiftly vanished from the Sergeant’s range of mental perception, replaced instead by a cacophony of incomprehensible whispers.

Seeing the human sprawled on his back with his eyes closed, Flash Sentry looked from Johnson’s prone form, then to the Princesses who were gawking in surprise. “Oh good. Somepony, quick! Grab a permanent marker and a camera!”

***

When sensation finally returned to Johnson with spontaneity, the sights he beheld amidst the chorus of mysterious whispers was almost beyond words.

Distorted visions of creatures that resembled pegasi, dragons, and other winged beings flashed before his mind’s eye. The dragons, with immense scaled bodies of multi-hued gold, crimson, jade, and sapphire appeared to be locked in a great struggle against the pegasi. Small, dark humanoid shapes were riding on their backs.

With war cries in a language Johnson had never heard before, the humanoids fired bolts of energy at the pegasi and other winged creatures from the dragons’ saddles, while the pegasi fired back similar projectiles in response. The dragons roared in kind, and spewed out precise streams of fire at the swarms of attacking pegasi, burning some to great effect.

The scene changed again, as the whispering intensified. Both pegasi and dragon alike eventually began to swerve away and break off from one another as if in panic, as new, far more massive beings took to the skies. With scales as black as the void, and teeth like massive slivers of titanium and diamond, a trio of dragon-shaped beasts issued their thunderous booms.

Their roars echoed out from the colossus’ cavernous maws, carrying with them forces great enough in magnitude to trigger avalanches and landslides several leagues away.

Just when the scene seemed as if it could not become more chaotic, one of the humanoid figures shouted something amidst the clamor. Its compatriots’ dragons flew far and fast in the opposite direction of the winged leviathans, while a smaller group actually approached the great beasts, as if to defy them.

The squadrons of gold and silver armor-clad pegasi warriors were nowhere to be scene, having fled to the four winds just as the beasts had arrived.

For a moment, the black-scaled behemoths roared in amusement at their enemy, apparently believing their defiance as mere shows of foolish wasted pride. However, even their mighty roars were drowned out, as the small group of dragons and their mysterious riders suddenly vanished in an immense white light, the luminescence swallowing the forms of the beasts as well.

Reminiscent of his rebirth by Luna’s magics upon his arrival into Equestria, Johnson’s vision was beset by the great piercing light. He mentally grimaced as the light reached a near unbearable rate of brightness, until the lambency became greater even than the Sun itself. After a while, the light dimmed, and Johnson could see only briefly what had followed in its wake.

A miniature star hung still in the sky, brighter than anything around it. It pulsated and shimmered as it slowly faded out, and that was when the sound and heat finally came.

In a titanic thunderclap, it felt as if the universe itself was torn asunder. As he shouted out, Johnson was unable to hear his own voice. All his mind now registered instead was an intense ringing, a burning sensation, and the ever-present whispering, which had now reached a crescendo in the portion of Johnson’s brain that perceives sound. While the voices persisted, the vision faded out back to black, and the intense heat abated.

Finally, a single whisper  stood out amongst the clamor of the others. As if acquiescing a secret upon him, the singular voice said, “Lineage confirmed, IWHBYD skull acquired.”

There was a brief pause, while the other voices quieted their chorus. “Collect us all, and the secrets and riches we guard, will be yours.” With that, the voices silenced completely, and Johnson no longer felt entranced by a vision. Rather, he now felt like he was in the midst of normal sleep.

For an untold amount of time, Johnson dreamed of kittens, laser eyes, Sweet Williams, and finally the mysterious skulls, before his own biological alarm clock finally kicked into gear.

***

“AHH! Stop whispering in my ears you bony little bastards!” Sergeant Johnson awoke with a start.

In his rather frantic movement, he had struck himself on the headboard of a rather exquisitely made four poster bed. With a low groan, Johnson pulled himself out of the velvety embrace of the cloud-like blankets and forced himself to stand up and analyze his surroundings, as well as himself.

Johnson soon discovered that he was out of his Marine Corps BDU. He was garbed instead in nothing more than his usual grey-green fatigues, his undershirt, and to his extreme confusion, vastly over sized pink slippers covering his water-proof combat socks. “Did I miss some kind of party?” He asked to himself.

The slippers were obviously designed with hoofed individuals in mind. A cursory look around yielded far more interesting discoveries for the Sergeant Major.

Long gone were the dusty tome-filled shelves and maps of the Royal Archives. Instead, Johnson was greeted by the sight of a handsomely decorated royal suite. Beams of sunshine from the early morning shone through the lavish Prench windows. In addition to the minute sunlight, several ornately crafted oil wall sconces also provided illumination.

An armoire, a chests of drawers, two shelves, a table, and various oil paintings of famous Equestrians dominated the room. The furnishings were made of some of the finest Equestrian oak and mahogany the Princesses’ bits could buy.

Opposite where the stately poster bed met the exterior wall of the suite, a large gilded mirror revealed to Johnson an even more intriguing sight. A dark-haired, six-foot two, light-browned skinned man with exceptional build and dark brown eyes peered back at him awkwardly. His face was rough and weathered from his decades of service, and his upper lip was fringed by stubble, just now threatening to grow into a wild mustache underneath a prominent nose. None of these details were most intriguing about him however.

What did fascinate Johnson, was the noticeable lack of scars, or even the bruises from the Jiralhanae who had held him captive in the citadel back on the Ark. Besides the weathering brought on by his age, his skin was nearly as soft as a newborn’s. That, and the fact that he now had a uni-brow hastily scribbled on his forehead.

Part of it was smudged from an obviously half-assed attempt to wipe the marker residue off. The smudge and the faux uni-brow both disappeared as the skin beneath it started to turn a slight reddish while the Sarge quaked with outrage. Someone was going to pay for this, later down the road.

A few seconds passed, before Johnson set about locating his armor. To his convenience, he found it in the first place he checked, the gold-gilded steamer trunk at the foot of the large bed.

In no time, Johnson had reequipped his green armored vest, pauldrons, gloves, straps, boots, and belt, not necessarily in that order. The only thing obviously missing from his combat ensemble was his trademark hat, but the Sergeant was certain the ponies could solve that problem with their magics, along with his cigar situation.

As he kicked his Command Neural Interface into gear in his head, the familiar shape of his Heads Up Display came into view. With no weapon equipped, his targeting reticle was absent, but his health monitor was online and glowing a friendly blue. Where the shield charge readout meter on a Mark V Mjolnir suit would normally be situated, there was only empty space, for obvious reasons.

For a moment, something weird happened. Johnson said, “What the?” As the HUD suddenly distorted for a second, as a tiny skull icon flashed where the shield meter would be.

“IWHBYD temporarily disabled.” The icon flashed as the voice whispered. “Collect us all.”

“Dammit, I heard you the first time, stop your whispering, it makes me feel dirty! And not in a good way, either.” Johnson said in a slightly raised voice. The skull flashed a final time, then disappeared.

“Finally, peace and quiet.” Johnson sighed and laid back down on the bed with his hands behind his head, admiring the poshness of his surroundings. “Ponies have some pretty fine taste. It certainly beats all that tacky purple. Then them goddamn Hoolahoop-builders and their silver-metal, sharp angles obsession.

While Johnson mused about alien architecture, the door to his room popped open. The form of Princess Luna then slunk into the room. “Sergeant Johnson, art thou awake?”

Looking over at her, he said, “Yep. Ready for action.”

Getting a good look at him, the Princess of the Night looked relieved and smiled warmly. “Ah, tis good. We heard your shout, erm, about the whispers. We heard them from the skull as well, they were the ones who told us to find you.”

“Go figure. They mentioned something about secret riches if I collect them all, something freaky like that. Does this have anything to do with that ten-foot tall lunatic’s threats against Equestria?”

Luna rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, an apt question, Johnson. We are not sure, but it is quite likely. As to how Discord and the skulls are both related, we can only guess at the moment.”

Johnson chuckled, setting his gloved hands on his lap and climbing out of bed once again. “Them skulls are just begging us to start a game of twenty questions.” He rubbed at his still soar head. “How long have I been out, what exactly happened?”

“As soon as you rubbed the top of the skull, it vanished into the thin of the air, and you reeled over backwards drunkenly to the floor before any of us could catch you, Sergeant.”

Concern returned to her face slightly and her ears tilted at an angle. “We brought you in here to rest, and had a physician examine you. While your anatomy is largely a mystery to us, he was able to perform basic tests, and found nothing awry. You have been unconscious since you made contact with the skull.”

“Speaking of which, Johnson, our sister is almost complete with raising the Sun this morning. If you would join us in the throne room, we would like to discuss the matters of where you will be posted, as well as what our contingency plan will be for when more skulls appear.”

“Sure.” Johnson replied.

Luna’s pleasant face hardened into urgency. “We fear today, or any day now, that Equestria could see once such event. And if what we understand about Discord and the skulls are correct...”

“They could appear anytime...” Johnson interjected.

Luna nodded. “...anywhere...”

“...and likely have any number of effects. Let’s go get down to business then, Princess.” The Sergeant finished, frowning sternly.

Luna nodded once more, slowly, and began to take her leave. Johnson accompanied her down the expansive, well decorated hall, nodding to the various guards he passed. All of the Royal Guards thankfully had no off-key comments to make, at least for now.