MiE: Divided Path

The next morning, I had a question of dire importance to ask AJ.

"Why are there a lot of mares living on one stallion's house sometimes?" I asked her as we ate breakfast in town, me as Sand Dune. She choked on the bite of veggie omelet she had in her mouth.

"Why're ya askin'?" She asked after pounding her hoof against her chest a little.

"Just curious." I said with a shrug, taking another bite with the fork I was levitating. AJ took a moment to compose herself before answering.

"They're a part of a herd, Sugarcube." She explained. "A herd usually consists of two to four stallions and up to fifteen mares, all in a relationship with each other."

"Kinda like some of the religions back home." I replied, poking at my food as I frowned a little.

"What's 'religion'?" AJ asked, and another voice I didn't want to hear said the same.

Without turning around, I knew that AJ was glaring at Twilight Sparkle, who somehow came up behind me without either of us noticing.

"What're ya doin' here?" AJ spat.

"I've came to apologize..." Twilight said, and I could feel true remorse and sorrow in her voice. AJ sighed and nodded.

"Ah'm not the one ya should be apologizin' to, Sparkle." She said, pretending to not know where I am.

"I'm sorry for not noticing that Princess Celestia was corrupted, Mark." Twilight said to the back of my head.

"Sorry or not, you sided with a murderer and a tyrant." I shot back, turning around to glare at her. She was tearing up at the eyes, and it didn't make me feel any pity. "Though... She probably brainwashed you over the course of ass amount of years."

"That's what Dawn said..." She muttered, looking down. "He removed the spell Celestia put on me, and showed me what you all went through back in your old lives."

"So you could see how we actually are." I muttered, looking at her. "Look, I don't forgive you (yet), but I could use you."

"How?" She asked, looking at me in confusion.

"Spy on Celestia for the NLR." I told her. "We already have spies for her in our forces, let's get a mole or two in hers."

"Won't Celestia notice?" AJ asked from behind me.

"Not if I pretend to still be on her side." Twilight answered. "Dawn said he masked the spell being taken away, so Celestia wasn't notified. And I can give you some information right now." She added, causing me to lean forward a little (and stop myself from falling face first onto the ground).

"Go ahead and tell me." I said, smiling grimly.

"Two pieces of information; I know who one of the spies is, and somebody strong has sided with her, and neither are humans." She whispered. "The spy is Flint Record, a pegasus who's job is being a DJ."

"Go on and get some people to arrest Flint, Doppel." I called out to a mare who was sitting a few tables away.

"Right away!" The mare replied, vanishing into green smoke that shortly dissipated.

"And the one who sided with her is Discord, but more forced than by choice." She finished, causing me to look confused.

"Why the bloody hell would Discord join Celestia? She's the one who put him in the Canterlot Gardens as a statue." I muttered, scratching my chin with my fork.

"Chaos." Applejack answered for Sparks. "Just imagine how much he's makin' just by sidin' with the person everybody least expects."

"Add the fact that after he joined her side, she promised to not seal him back into stone because he helped her, only as long as he didn't cause too much chaos." Twilight added.

"That makes complete sense." I said. "I would do the exact same thing if I had the right mindset."

"Why do ya say that?" AJ asked in confusion.

"Humans are some of the most chaotic things to exist." I answered. "And being bribed with wealth or other things by your captors to leak information or join their side happened all the time. Hell, I've shot a former Marine before because he joined forces with Bin Laden's terrorists." AJ frowned as I turned around to eat some more eggs.

"And before you ask sooner or later, it's hard to accurately tell what a human is thinking." I said, sensing Twilight about to ask.

"I was going to ask if you wanted me to pay for your breakfast." Twilight said.

"Nah, I got it covered." I said, putting a hand(hoof)full of bits onto the table.

"Well... If you need anything, just ask." She said, before trotting off.

"...She's lyin' 'bout bein' on our side." AJ said once the purple mare was out of earshot.

"I know." I said with a smirk. "As soon as she opened her mouth I knew." Leaning back in my seat, I watched the ponies for a while. "Good think Mark said I was allowed to act as him while he slept in the barracks."

"Ya do a good Mark, Ah'll give ya that." AJ said as we left the cafe.

"I'll see you later, my Queen." I said with a bow, causing her to blush.

"Ya don't need to do all that formality stuff with me, Bubba." She answered, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.

"I know, my Queen." I answered, walking off while leaving her outside the cafe. I knew that nochangeling in Ponyville would attack her, and any day guard who appeared would either be shot down or incapacitated and imprisoned.

Looking around once, I changed back into my natural form and cracked my neck, before going into the Emporium.

"Password?" A sentry on the other side asked.

"Giant spiky dragon dildos from Bad Dragon." I recited like Mark told me to. A giggle from the other side sounded out as the wall rose into the ceiling, revealing a batpony on the other side.

"I still want to know why the General wanted to make that the password." Lt. Colonel Echo said as we descended the stairs.

"Said something about being a product on a website." I answered, drinking a little salt water.

"What's a website?" She asked.

"Hell if I know." I replied with a shrug. We continued walking down until we entered the main barracks hall, and Echo left me to go back upstairs.

"How was your morning, Bubba?" King Mark asked from the map sheet, glancing over my way.

"Queen Applejack is doing well." I answered with a small bow. "And Twilight Sparkle thought she could appeal to us by saying that Dawn had turned her over to our side."

"Hell, I was going to leave to do that right now." Dawn said with a surprised look. I was about to answer when a scuffle sounded in the stairwell, and everyone grabbed either gun or spear and aimed them at the entrance. Down came a pegasus, whom I assumed was Flint Record, with a bag over his head.

"What's this?" King Mark questioned Doppel, who had him by a wing and had thrown a bag over his head.

"Traitor." She answered. "Before you ask, I picked his memories first to see if what Twilight said was true. He's not a follower of Celestia, but a follower of Discord." Half of the night guard hissed.

"Discord's free..." Dawn muttered, before pointing Doppel deeper into the hall. "Mark's if he's free this is serious."

"What do you mean by that?" King Mark asked.

"He's the spirit of Chaos." He answered. "If he wanted to, all of our bullets would turn into pudding. Spears into candy canes. Swords into chocolate bars."

"So we beat the day guards to death with candy." King Mark grunted. "I see your point. Any ideas on how to fight him?"

"We can't fight him." Dawn sighed. "The best way to fight him is to not fight him. It'll make him doubt working for Celestia."

"Some sort of reverse psychology bullshit..." King Mark nodded. "Alright. Bubba, go spread the word. After you're done, visit me in my office and I'll debrief you on this morning."

"Aye aye, sir!" I said, giving him a salute that he returned. As I trotted towards some of the others, King Mark turned to Doppel, who came back from putting Record into the jail cells.

[Mark's POV]

"Flint Record is contained and has been searched for hidden weapons and tools." Doppel reported, giving me a salute.

"Good." I said, nodding. "I want a full report of the incident by tomorrow morning."

"There a reason you're being so lenient?" She asked.

"We're taking a break." I answered with a shrug, turning back to the map. At the moment, the Chinese was pushing into Nevada, while Schmidt's forces were completely occupying the northeast and proceeding to take the south. As I watched, a small farming town in Florida went from red to black, indicating that Schmidt took them down as well.

"How's that railroad going?" I asked Dawn after a moment, tapping the tracks that I blew the fuck out of.

"Still down." He answered. "Both the snipers we have posted there and the twin A-10s passing over every four hours have kept engineers away."

"Good." I muttered, before sighing. "We need to get this war over with already. I feel like this will turn into both a civil war and the Vietnam War if we don't hurry up and win."

"What do you propose?" Dawn asked.

"Contact Chrysalis, Schmidt, and whoever runs the Chinese; we're assaulting Canterlot at the end of the week." I said, cracking my back. "Tell Luna when she wakes up, so she'll be able to get her troops ready as well."

"I'm already on it." Dawn said, writing crap down on three scrolls at once.