Winterfall

“The Crystal Kingdom is a bit of a paradox. Somehow, in the middle of the northern reaches of the Equestrian Wilderness, this peaceful and fruitful oasis stands as a bastion against the harsh cold surrounding its borders. Every day, the crystalline citizenry carry out their daily lives within one great idiosyncrasy dominating Equestrian civilization. For in such a world as this, where three races live as one community, a population centre must claim access to nature as it must to science, art, and sport. Ponyville manages to contain the borders of the Everfree, Manehatten stands over the untamed seas, Canterlot fortifies itself amongst the great mountains, The Crystal Kingdom radiates warmth against the arctic bite of the North...

“While such a construct of society is beneficial to the Equine race, it results in an unfortunately oft-overlooked weakness: break the ephemerial chains of nature, and the Ponies suffer.“

Epsilon smirked as he re-read the abstract from his military thesis. In applying for the Crystal Kingdom, he had chosen to stress the importance of maintaining a local billet—which he, of course, should be part of—for “the defense of Equestria’s greatest unchecked threat”. Perhaps the royal military board of science and study had misinterpreted his case, and sent him into the wilderness rather than to its edge.

One of Epsilon’s ears twitched at the sound of a knock. Four in the morning, an ungoddessly early hour to be awake, but the right time for his scouting party. His teeth subconsciously pressed down on his lip as he approached the door. The four ponies behind this door had been specially selected for the task at hand. Would they be outcasts, misfits, loose cannons? Was his thought process romanticizing the whole situation? This isn’t some crappy dime-novel, get a hold of yourself, Red.

He pushed the tangential flashes of thought to the back of his mind where they began to angrily beat at his consciousness. In Luna’s name! He hadn’t even opened the door, and he was failing. He turned around, facing the wall in an attempt to clear his mind, but before he could further prolong his mental paralysis, he heard a small scraping sound, followed by a muffled click.

“Hey Sarge: Either you need to have a major operation or that’s your flank. How about showing us your muzzle?” Dumbfounded, Epsilon turned around automatically. That voice sounded familiar.

“Captain Stormy?”

Four ponies of various age and stature stood in a semicircle, sizing him up. The eldest, a black stallion pegasus starkly contrasted by his electric blue mane, opened his mouth once more. “Yeah. How’s life, former basic Ruby?” the Captain flashed one of his trademark twitchy-side-smiles that appeared and disappeared in a flash of white teeth.

“W-what on earth are you doing here?” Epsilon faltered, hastily adding “Sir.”

“What do you bucking think? I’m running this operation!” Captain Thunder Storm, known by most as Stormy, raised an eyebrow: “You didn’t think the Captain of the Guard was going to assign a Sergeant so green he hadn’t finished pulling his head out of his ass to lead a matter of national security, did you?”

Epsilon’s ears flattened under the verbal assault. “I, well, the Captain of the Guard—”

“—Assigned you to be our guide, yes.” A more diminutive mare spoke up. “My name’s Daisy Chain, by the way.” She pointed to the pony next to her, a near-carbon copy of herself. “This is my sister, Daffodil.”

Captain Storm took the segway as a chance to introduce the party as a whole. Daisy and Daffodil were twin sister unicorns from the Royal Engineer Corps; Daisy specialized in Hardware, while Daffodil focused on Software. Together, they had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of every piece of technology inside and out, which, on this mission, would be needed to analyze the “breach point” (as Epsilon Ruby’s discovery was now called) and determine the equipment used to create the border break. The final pony was an earth pony called Power Flash, a name fitting considering his specialty: Firearms and Explosives. Captain Storm himself had suggested that he be the “Big Gun” of the team.

Captain Storm was an interesting choice. When Epsilon had last met the Officer with the snappy oratory, it had been at a squadron-wide drill-down at the academy. Storm was known to be a by-the-book type of pony; many of his peers said that he had entered the academy as a basic, and never intended to leave. Though he could perform in the field, he had never been officially assigned to lead a detail in a mission against an active threat.

The Captain turned toward the door. “Now that we’ve dispensed with pleasantries, let's call a close to the cocktail hour, shall we? Fall in!”