One Last Mission

June 23rd, 0013 of the Harmonic Era of Equestria

10th anniversary of the disappearance of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony

10th anniversary of the scattering of the Elements of Harmony

7th anniversary of the death of Big Macintosh, The Stalwart

The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony have returned! After 10 years, they are back! Now there is hope! Now there is a real chance for victory! This war is over!

Yeah, those were my first thoughts. Let me explain how things really stand. It begins with the Crusaders. Captain Scootaloo will be transcribing over from her journal.

June 21st, 0013

We arrived in Canterlot this morning. Our mission: scour the ruins for anything useful. Our personal objective: look for clues as to why and how the Princesses and Bearers disappeared. In all honesty though, I’ve given up hope. Rainbow Dash and the others have been gone for almost 10 years now, and nopony’s even found a single clue as to where they went.

But I’m not about to say that out loud. Sweetie Bell and Apple Bloom still have hopes of seeing their sisters again. Hay, that’s why I write my journal in Gryphonese, so that they don’t read it and get discouraged. I refuse to be the one who destroys their hopes, even if I’ve lost mine.

We searched Canterlot all day but didn’t find anything useful in the city. Tomorrow we search the castle, where the princesses disappeared from. The day after that we search the remains of the Royal Canterlot Gardens, where Rainbow and the others disappeared from. Who knows, maybe we’ll find something.

Captain Scootaloo, The Crusaders

June 22nd, 0013

We searched the castle today. Nothing to report. It’s just as bare as last time.

Captain Scootaloo, The Crusaders

June 23rd, 0013

They’re back! Rainbow Dash and the others are back!

The day started out like all of the others. We got up, ate, broke camp, and set off to the remains of the Royal Canterlot Gardens. I could barely believe it, but they looked even worse than last time! The pathways are reduced to random cobblestones, the weeds have grown rampant all over the place, and the hedge maze was so thick that it was easier to just hack our way to the center with our machetes, rather than try to use the paths. We had to stop several times to rest, but we made it to the center at about noon.

There’s only one thing that I hate more than Discord, and that’s seeing the girls disappointed. I don’t know what they were expecting, but apparently an empty, dilapidated courtyard wasn’t it. The only difference from last time is that the weeds are higher.

“Well,” sighed Apple Bloom, “I guess we’ll just have to wait a bit longer.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can wait,” replied Sweetie Bell. “It’s been ten years since I’ve seen my sister. Even if we did find them, I’m not even sure that we’d recognize each other any more. It’s been so long...”

“We’ll find them!” I exclaimed. “Don’t think for a moment that we won’t! They are  going to come back, and they WILL help us win this war!” Like I said, I wasn’t going to be the one to crush their hopes.

“Come on,” said Apple Bloom, turning away. “We’ve got ourselves a long walk home.”

And nothing to show for it, I thought.

That was about to change.

As soon as we reached the hole we’d made in the hedge, Sweetie Bell stopped. I turned back to her. “What’s up?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” she replied, frowning, “but something feels weird.”

“Weird how?” asked Apple Bloom.

“It’s strange,” said Sweetie Bell, shaking her head, “but my horn is starting to tingle, like it does when I’m around the Elements.”

I sighed, not wanting to waste any more time. “You’re just imagining it. You ‘feel’ something every time we come here.”

“It’s not like that,” she said, looking around nervously. “It’s a lot more real this time. And it’s growing!”

I was about to tell her to snap out of it, but then I felt something too, a strange tingling in my wings. Apple Bloom must have felt something too, because she said, “You’re right. An’ it feels like it’s comin’ from over there!”

We looked to where she was pointing: the center of the courtyard. Suddenly, a sphere of light the size of an apple appeared. It started growing until it almost touched the hedges. Sweetie Bell shielded her eyes, Apple Bloom got down into a fighting stance, and I drew my sword, clenching it tight in my mouth, ready to spring into a fight.

The sphere of light flashed brightly once, and disappeared. As soon as I could see again, I looked toward the center of the courtyard where the light had been.

My jaw dropped, my sword clattering to the ground.

In the center of the courtyard, lying unconscious, were six ponies: 2 unicorns, 2 earth ponies, and 2 pegasi.

None of us moved for a while. I don’t know about the other 2, but I was biting my tongue over and over to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. Sweetie Bell was the first to move. She slowly approached one of the unicorns, the white one with 3 perfect diamonds on her flank. She slowly made her way up to her and nudged her softly.

It all proved to be too much for Apple Bloom, who ran forward and tackled the orange earth pony, crying out, “Applejack! Applejack!”

Sweetie Bell lay down next to her sister and embraced her gently. Tears streamed down her face as she whispered over and over again, “Rarity. Rarity.”

As for me, all I could do was stare at the cyan pegasus who I’d hero-worshiped all those years ago.

It took me a while, but I finally noticed something strange. “Sweetie Bell,” I said slowly, “Apple Bloom, you might want to take a good look at them.”

Sweetie Bell looked up worriedly. “Wh- what do you mean? Is something wrong?”

Apple Bloom glared at me over her sister’s stetson. “Don’t you listen to her, SB! She’s just bein’ paranoid.”

I shook my head slowly, my eyes still not leaving Rainbow Dash. “It’s not paranoia, Bloom. There’s something off about them.”

Apple Bloom stood up and started stomping towards me, grinding her teeth. “There ain’t nothin’ wrong with ‘em! Just look at them! They’re exactly the… same as… we… remember...” She stopped and slowly turned around as she saw what I was talking about. “But, that’s impossible. It can’t be.”

“What? What is it?” Sweetie Bell asked, getting visibly more nervous since she still hadn’t figured it out yet.

“Sweetie Bell,” I said calmly, “how old was Rarity when she disappeared?”

“18,” she responded, confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“How long ago did she disappear?”

“10 years ago to the day. You know that!”

“And how old does she look now?”

Sweetie Bell opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out. her eyes widened as she looked back down at her formerly big sister. “But, that’s impossible! She’s... they’re...”

“...exactly the same age as when they disappeared,” we chorused.

We slowly looked from one pony to another. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Twilight: all of them looked no older than they had 10 years ago.

“But how?” asked Sweetie Bell. “How is that possible?”

“My guess is that it’s a prank from Discord,” I spat. “Not funny enough that they disappear for 10 years, so he keeps them from aging so they don’t know that any time has passed.”

“But that means,” said Apple Bloom slowly, “that we’re goin’ to have to explain, well, everythin’.”

“The prejudice,” I said. “The war. The deaths.” I couldn’t even imagine how they would take it.

Unfortunately, we would find out soon enough.

We decided to stay and make camp until they woke up. Luckily, we always carry a few extra tents, as ours have a habit of getting destroyed. With each of the Bearers in their own one-pony tent, the 3 of us started to pool our rations to try to get something decent made for them to eat. As usual, it all just ended up in a big pot of soup. Sweetie Bell went off to think while Apple Bloom watched the soup to make sure it didn’t burn. (I still don’t get how she did that that ono time. Seriously, how do you burn soup!) I waited near the tents, listening for any sound that suggested that any of the Bearers were waking up. i’d volunteered to debrief them on how they’d disappeared and get them up to speed on the events of the last 10 years. It wasn’t a task I was looking forward to, but somepony had to do it, and I wasn’t going to make Apple Bloom or Sweetie Bell tell their sisters about their families, especially Apple Bloom. I just hoped that I’d get a chance to practice on the others before Rainbow Dash woke up.

Luckily for me, Twilight was the first to wake up. I heard some groaning and shuffling coming from her tent at about 1330 hours. I stood up, took a deep breath to steel myself, and walked into the tent. Twilight was sitting up facing away from me and rubbing the side of her head. “It’s good to see you again, Twilight,” I said.

She whipped her head around so quickly, i’m surprised that she didn’t get whiplash. She stood up and looked me over, more than a hint of fear in her eyes. I guess that that was only natural, considering my uniform and weapons. I think that the closest thing she ever saw to a soldier before me were the old Royal Canterlot Guards in their useless ceremonial armor. She stared at me for several moments before asking, “Do I know you?”

“Yeah,” I replied, hoping to Celestia that Sweetie Bell and Apple Bloom wouldn’t have to hear their sisters ask them that question. “You know me. I knew you too, 10 years ago.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got to be mistaken. The only ponies that I really knew when I was 8 were my family and my foal-sitter.”

I had to chuckle at that; it certainly fitted Spike’s description of “Twilight the anti-social bookworm”. “I suppose you’re right, but I’m not talking about when you were 10 years younger.”

“I don’t follow,” said Twilight cautiously.

I took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. Now or never, I thought. “Twilight Sparkle,” I began, “there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it right out. You and your friends have been gone for 10 years.”

“Gone?” asked Twilight as her other eyebrow rose to join the first. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

“I mean that 10 years ago, you and the other 5 Bearers of the Elements of Harmony disappeared when you went to Canterlot to confront Discord. Nopony knows how or why, but you 6 vanished and the Elements scattered. The Princesses are still missing, and Equestria has been involved in a great civil war for the last 7 years.”

In retrospect, that probably wasn’t the best way to tell her. I really can’t blame Twilight for falling on her back and laughing, but it still annoyed me. I heard movement outside the tent, and I definitely didn’t want Apple Bloom or Sweetie Bell to see her like that. I did the only thing I could think of to shut her up. I quickly slipped my dog-tags off of my neck and tossed them next to her. She calmed down enough to look at them, and her laughter immediately stopped. She looked up at me and back to them, unwilling to believe what she was seeing, but it was pretty hard to deny dog-tags stamped with “Captain Scootaloo”.

It was about then that Apple Bloom burst in. She’d obviously gotten nervous when she’d heard the laughter. “Twilight!” she exclaimed, beaming. “You’re up! How’re you feeling?”

Twilight looked back and forth between the two of us, still trying to take in what she was seeing and what I’d said. “S-Scootaloo? Apple Bloom? But, but that’s impossible. How-””

“I’ll go get SB,” said Apple Bloom, darting out of the tent.

“Don’t forget the soup!” I shouted after her. Too late; she was out of earshot.

“SB?” I turned back to see Twilight still staring at me. “Sweetie Bell’s here too?”

“That’s right,” I said proudly, grinning. “7 years of war, and the Crusaders are still together!”

“And you’re all soldiers?”

My grin dropped faster than it had appeared, replaced by a look that made Twilight look away. “10 years is a long time, Twilight. When the war started, it took everypony available just to survive. Very few are blessed with the rank of ‘civilian’ these days.”

“But I just don’t understand,” said Twilight. “How did this happen? How did Equestria dissolve into civil war in just 3 years?”

“That’s a long story, Twilight,” I said, sitting down and getting comfortable. “It all started with your disappearance. When all of you vanished, the widespread chaos stopped. no more popping corn. No more cotton candy clouds. No more chocolate rain. Everypony thought that Discord was gone, because his statue disappeared too. Everypony thought that you’d sacrificed yourselves to destroy him once and for all.

“Unfortunately, Discord survived. He didn’t go away after you all disappeared. He just waited in hiding, biding his time and using his magic in a much more subtle way.

“He began corrupting the unicorns. He messed with their thoughts and made them think of themselves as superior to pegasi and earth ponies. It wasn’t obvious at first, but after a year we started to notice that something was off. By the end of the next year, unicorns were openly hostile against the other races. Of course, not all of them gave in. A few, like Sweetie Bell, realized that something was off and they helped us figure out that Discord was corrupting the unicorn’s minds. Of course, as soon as we realized this, we started to spread the word. Lots of unicorns didn’t listen, but lots of them did, and they began to fight against Discord’s influence.

“He didn’t like that much.” I hesitated. I knew that the next part would be hard for Twilight to hear, but she had to know. “Discord apparently decided that there was only one way to keep control of the unicorns. He had the unicorn who had taken charge in the place of the Princesses issue a decree. From that time forth, pegasi and earth ponies were banned from all major cities: Canterlot, Phillydelphia, Manehatten, New Yoke, Trottingham, etc. He enforced this decree using the Royal Canterlot Guard, and non-unicorns were forced to flee.”

“But that’s crazy!” exclaimed Twilight. “Not that the rest of what you’re saying isn’t, but that decree just wouldn’t work! How would they control weather without pegasi? How would they grow crops without earth ponies? Not to mention that less than half of the Guard are unicorns. How would they get the others to cooperate?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Really, Twilight? Almost three years of persecution and you think the ranks of the Guard were still even? By that time most non-unicorns had either quit or been fired.”

“But what about the weather and the crops?”

“Come on, Twilight,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’re the expert on magic. You know better than me that there are spells for that.”

“But those spells are so much less effective!”

“You think that Disccord cares?” I snapped. She flinched and I glared at the ground. “All he cared about was getting them out of the major cities. After all,” I looked up and stared Twilight dead in the eye, “it’s easier to destroy a village than to fight inside of Canterlot.”

I saw the gears turning quickly in Twilight’s head, and the look of horror on her face as she realized what I meant. “No,” she whispered. “You don’t mean...”

I nodded. “On June 21st, year 6 of the Harmonic Era of Equestria, the unicorns attacked Ponyville.”

I don’t remember everything I said after that. Suffice to say that I relayed the major points of the last 7 years: the Treaty of Remembrance promising cease-fire on the anniversary of the Princess’ disappearance, the treaty with the Southern Gryphon Tribes, the first clash of the Elements of Harmony which destroyed Canterlot, and finally, the official secession of Utopia.

“UTOPIA?” Twilight shouted when she heard. “They’re under Discord’s control and they call themselves Utopia?”

“Of course,” said Sweetie Bell, who’d joined us during my description of the Battle of Cloudsdale. “After all” she said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable, “a society ruled by the superior race is a perfect society.”

“Heh, careful there SB,” said Apple Bloom, who’d joined in while I described the latest duel between Octavia and Vinyl Scratch. “We wouldn’t want you convertin’ over to Discord’s side.”

“Oh please, don’t even joke about that,” said Twilight. “Rarity would be devastated if that were to happened.”

“Speaking of whom,” I interjected, standing up and stretching, “I’m surprised they’re not up yet.They’re probably just not as used to magic drain as you. Maybe I should go get them.”

“Wait!” We all raised eyebrows at Twilight and she blushed a bit. “I mean, I’d like to let them stay out of this world for as long as possible. Honestly, I wish I was still asleep.”

I shrugged. “Fair enough. But while we wait, we’d better get you equipped.”

“Equipped?” asked Twilight. “Equipped for what?”

“Think about it, Twilight,” said Sweetie Bell. “What sort of equipment would we, The Crusaders, have?”

Twilight paled a bit, not liking where this was going. “W-wait,” she stammered, “you don’t mean, equipped for f-fighting, do you?”

“No,” said Apple Bloom, rolling her eyes. “We mean equipped for a party.”

“A PARTY?!?!?!?!?!?”

Without warning, a giant mass of pink popped up in front of my face. All of us lept back, and Apple Bloom fell back on her haunches as a pair of bright blue eyes stared into hers. “Are you crazy? Nopony would come to a party all the way out here! It’s all doomy and gloomy and ruiny. It would be way way WAY too much of a downer! OOO! Unless it was a Nightmare Night Party! Then this place would be perfect! We could get streamers and balloons and banners and a spider toss and costumes and candy and-”

“PINKIE!!!”

It’s a good thing that Twilight interrupted, or we might still be standing there in shock. I am… happy?... to report that Pinkie Pie is the same as ever.

“Twilight! You’re up too? Neet-o! I went around to the others, but they’re all still asleep. So I looked around Canterlot, but I didn’t see anypony anywhere! Well, there was that group of unicorns at the base of the mountain, but they didn’t look too nice, so I-”

“WHAT?” I dashed out of the tent and sprang into the air, flying faster than I have since… well, last Tuesday. But still, fast! I got as high as I dared and looked down. It wasn’t just a small group. A small ARMY of utopians was making their way up the mountain on all sides.

I sped down to the ground where Sweetie Bell and Apple Bloom were taking down tents. “This is bad,” I said as I landed. “There’s a huge group of utopians headed up!”

“Which side of the mountain?” asked Apple Bloom, putting out the fire.

“All of them,” I said. “They’ve got us surrounded, and they’re moving fast! We have three minutes, max!”

Apple Bloom swore. “Ain’t no way we can get through that. We’ve got no choice. Sweetie Bell, Twilight, y’all’ve got to start teleportin’ us to HQ! I know it’s tierin’, but-”

Apple Bloom didn’t even get a chance to finish as Sweetie Bell grabbed her sister and vanished in a flash of light.

“W-wait!” said Twilight, panicking. “What’s going on? Where’s HQ? I don’t even know if-”

“Twilight!” I shouted. “Either you help to get us all out of here, or you’ll be facing down a Utopian soldier at swordpoint! Now move!”

“B-but I don’t even know where your headquarters are!” said Twilight as Sweetie Bell returned.

“HQ’s in Ponyville,” said Apple Bloom as Sweetie vanished with Applejack. “Now hurry! Get to the library!”

Twilight nodded as Sweetie Bell appeared again, panting. They grabbed Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash and teleported. Apple Bloom turned to me, frowning. “This is goin’ to be hard on SB.”

I sighed as Twilight reappeared alone. “I know,” I said as she vanished with Pinkie Pie. “She can barely handle 3 trips, and 4 will probably knock her out for a few days. I just hope Twilight can do 3.”

Sweetie Bell and Twilight appeared a few seconds later, both panting for breath as the tips of their horns sparked. “Y’all good for the last trip?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Y-yeah,” gasped Twilight. “J-just let me catch my-my breath.”

“No time!” Sweetie Bell wheezed, experience allowing her to time her gasps between words. “We have to move now! We can’t let them know that you’re back!”

“She’s right, Twilight,” I said. “You’re the best hope that Equestria’s had in 7 years. We have to go. Now!”

Twilight nodded, and she grabbed me just as Sweetie Bell vanished with Apple Bloom.

“It really is good to see you again, Twilight,” I said, right before we teleported.

Show Stopper was there when we arrived, so i’ll let him take over from here. It’s his journal, after all.

Captain Scootaloo, The Crusaders

June 23rd (cont.)

I’d spent that day up until that point reading the complete works of Shakespur. Hey, I’d had nothing else to do, so why not. After all, an actor must practice his material to retain it.

I’d just started re-reading Roameo and Jeweliet when Lieutenant Sweetie Bell teleported in. “You’d better not let Inkwell catch you doing that,” I warned, barely glancing up long enough to see her mane. I’d learned that morning that the librarian has a strict and paranoid “NO MAGIC” rule for “his” library.

“No time to explain!” she replied curtly. “Get the medics over here. Now!”

I sighed as she teleported out. I wonder how Scoots messed up this time. I wondered. I put down my book and went over to see what was wrong with Lieutenant Apple Bloom.

Except, it wasn’t Apple Bloom. I stared at the mare before me for several seconds before Lieutenant Bell returned with another one. “MOVE IT!” she shouted before vanishing again.

I didn’t have the time to contemplate the situation or the significance of it. If Lieutenant Bell was shouting, then it was definitely something serious. That, or she was singing, but I didn’t hear any music playing. I ran up to the second floor and went straight to the writing desk. “Ltn Sweetie Bell in library w/ injured. Send full team. Do not know what to expect. -Show Stopper, Spy.” Satisfied with my note, I rolled it up, wrote, “HQ Medical” on the outside, and opened a bottle of dragonfire over it to send it to Communications Chair Spike. I galloped downstairs to tell Lieutenant Bell, if she returned, that the message had been sent.

I must say, I did not expect to find 9 mares, 6 of them unconscious, when I came down. In retrospect, considering who the first one had been, I really should have, but it was still a surprise to see the Bearers of the Elements of harmony on the 10th anniversary of the day that they disappeared. That just has cliche (and thus not Discord’s style) written all over it. Yet, there they were, none of them apparently a day over 19.

My mind was still reeling with the implications when the pink one started talking. “Wow! That was fun! I don’t think I’ve ever teleported before. That was superly, amazingly, awesomely cool! Hey, Twilight! Can we go again? Oh, you’re asleep. I guess a lot of magic will do that to a unicorn. Not that I would know, since I’m an earth pony, butOHMYGOSH! We’re back in Twilight’s house! That’s so so SOOOOOOO far away from Canterlot! No wonder she’s taking a nap! Sweetie Bell too. Wow, I didn’t notice before, but she’s all grown up now. How did that...”

I have faced 7 years of warfare, 6 of them behind enemy lines, where discovery would mean brutal torture and, hopefully, death. I have killed those whom I called friends, and had to pin it on those who I truly considered as family. I have stood in the presence of the two Utopian generals as one bore the Element of Magic, and I tried to assassinate the other, barely escaping with my life. Allow me to be perfectly clear; I would do it all again in a heartbeat rather than spend 5 MINUTES trapped in a room with that demonic motormouth of a pony! I’m surprised that my ears didn’t start bleeding!

Thankfully, mercifully, Lieutenant Bloom knocked her out cold with a swift blow with a dictionary. “Sweet apple cider!” she exclaimed. “I’d forgotten just how much she can talk. Sorry about that, Stops.”

“At least you stopped her,” I said, rubbing my now ringing ears. “I couldn’t have taken much more of that.” I looked over the 6 unconscious Bearers. “So…”

“So,” Lieutenant Bloom replied.

“They’re back.”

“Eeyup.”

“And they’re unconscious.”

“Eeyup.”

“And they haven’t aged.”

“Nope.”

“...what?”

Lieutenant Bloom and Scootaloo explained the situation as best they could. The medics arrived within the first minute, and Scootaloo quickly explained that the Bearers and Lieutenant Bell suffered from magic exhaustion. They continued their tale, and almost immediately after finishing received a memo requesting their presence before the Generals. With barely time for a “See ya,” they dashed out the door, leaving me alone in the library.

A few minutes later, Inkwell returned from his lunch break. “So,” he said, walking in, “did I miss anything while I was out?”

I don’t actually remember the rest of the day that well. I think I just wandered around Ponyville for the most part. I do remember checking in on Lieutenant Bell at the infirmary. They said that she’ll probably wake up in a couple of days. As for the other 6, they should be up and around tomorrow.

I was heading back to my bunker when the memo arrived. A spiral of green flame interrupted my semi-aimless wandering and condensed into a note. “To Show Stopper, Spy, requesting your presence ASAP. From General Doo, Equestrian Air Force, General.” Well, I thought, it did say as soon as possible. I began charging a spell but was interrupted by another note. “And NO teleporting!”

5 minutes of painfully slow walking later, I arrived at HQ Central. I walked in and down the halls to her office. I knocked on the door and was answered with a, “Come in.” So, naturally, I fired up a teleport spell.

I think I may need to get a new prank, because General Doo didn’t even bat an eyelash. I guess she’s gotten used to my insubordination by now. Luna knows, everyone else has. “I thought I said no teleporting,” was her only response.

“Well,” I replied, “I didn’t use any to get here.”

She rolled her good eye and looked at a report on her desk. “We received a report from Captain Scootaloo today,” she began. “Apparently, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony have returned, but they know nothing about the last 10 years and are the same age as when they vanished. Ordinarily, I’d have had them all detained, suspecting a Utopian trick, but,” she looked up at me, “the Elements reacted.”

“Reacted?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” explained General Doo, “that at 1332 hours, we received a message from Captain Shores and Captain Top saying that the Elements of Laughter and Generosity began to glow by themselves. This can mean only one thing.”

“Yeah,” I said, grinning, “they’re finally back.”

General Doo raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were more practically minded than that. I was going to say that it means that Utopia knows that they’re back, since the Element of Magic most likely reacted as well,” my grin dropped faster than a struck down gryphon as my blood turned to ice, “but I suppose you were trying to be optimistic. In any case, the time has come to set in motion a plan that we’d begun to fear that we would never use.”

“Wait,” I said, still frozen from the implications of her other statement, “what do you mean? What plan?”

“Actually,” General Doo said, looking contemplative, “it’s rather good timing that you’re back. I’d been wondering who could perform that role.”

“What role?”

“Finally, a chance to end this war!” said General Doo, working herself up. “Once and for all! One final blow! Everything will-”

“DERPY!” I hated to use that horrible nickname, but if I hadn’t cut her off, she would have gone on like that for the next 10 minutes. “What plan are you talking about? What role do I have to play? What do you mean by ending this war in one final blow?”

General Doo took a deep breath to calm herself (whether from her excitement or from her fury at the nickname, I’m not sure). “Show Stopper, Top Spy of Equestria,” she said in her “get ready to receive your orders” voice, “you are hereby issued a new mission. As soon as you and they are ready to depart, you are to led the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony out of Equestria to track down and reclaim the lost Elements of Loyalty, Kindness, and Honesty. You are then to escort them safely back to Equestria HQ. Understood?”

My mind went blank. “...what?”

“As soon as you and they are ready to-” General Doo began again.

“No,no,” I interrupted. “I mean, yes, I understand, but-”

“Good,” she interrupted back. “The medical report says that they should be awake tomorrow. When they awake, you and they will be briefed on the details of your mission. Dismissed.”

So now, here I am, writing down this crazy new assignment. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the importance of it, but come on! Equestria’s top spy on an escort mission? How does that make sense? Why not just wait until Lieutenant Bell wakes up and send the Crusaders? I know that most 32 year old stallions would love the opportunity to spend this much time surrounded by 6 late teen mares (most 75 year old stallions, for that matter), but if the rest of them are as insane as that pink one, I’ll have gone off the deep end before we even get out of the Everfree!

Signing Off, Show Stopper

Top Spy of Equestria

Escort Mission