The Calm & The Storm

A middle-aged earth pony stumbles out across the wide ponyville street from a bar, carrying a heavy beer keg on his back and in his mouth he holds an empty beer cup. At the door of the bar, the angry bar owner yells “And stay out! Don’t come back, or I’ll throw you out myself!” before stomping back inside and slamming the door behind him.

Of course, the fine pony staggering about in the street doesn’t pay one bit of attention, and it’s not because he’s drunk. The keg is no small thing, and he tries to balance it as best he can, but he walks lopsided anyway, so it’s much of a lost cause.  This pony has a full name and everything, but he simply prefers to be called Deaf, a nickname he earned in his short time in the military, of which he was ‘retired’ from through a series of embarrassing (to Luna and Celestia) events. His cutie mark is a quill inside of black inkwell, behind a piece of parchment. This parchment has a cartoonish sort of map, with a bunch of lines, X’s, and arrows scribbled all over it. This is suppost to symbolize strategy. You see, in the army he was a general, and showed great promise in the mass-scale training exersizes (since there has not been a war for generations). During combat situations, he was a mastermind at commanding troops – but not without a few drawbacks. He has horrible memory, and the habit of being a bit overconfident in his troop’s abilities. Out of combat, he generally was not very social, except with his soldiers, and had a horrible amount of procrastination. His military career ended almost a year ago, and since that time his bad memory and procrastination has flourished to unbelievable levels. But he does know how to be patient when he wants something, even if it drives others so mad they give him it for free, just so he will leave. Hence the angry bartender.

So, as Deaf swerves down the street, a small money pouch making small clinks, hardly noticeable clinks from its well-hidden spot under the keg, he tumbles into ponies, mailboxes, fences, but makes sure to avoid Derpy when she comes strolling down the street. Two derpish ponies colliding would not do well for the town. They’d both probably end up knocking over the whole street in a silly daze of confusion.

Anyway, jokes aside, Deaf manages to stumble up to a small hill. At the top of the hill is his small ramshackle cottage, and a small set of cracked, moss-covered stairs leading up to it. At the bottom of the hill, and stretching all around it, there is a fence. At the base of the stairs is a small gate, and next to that there is a small mailbox, stuffed with letters. Oh boy, I probably need to check that out, after I dump this keg, he thought.

So, after carefully making his way up the stairs, he opens his solemn door and takes a quick look around the single room.  On the far side of the cottage is a small army-grade cot, and a small window just above it. To the left of the door is a small desk with an almost dried inkwell of black ink, and an old quill stuck in it. Next to the inkwell is a parchment, with a couple of sketches of what could be revolutionary designs in weaponry, and invasion plans that could end with world domination. But he’s set all of that aside, because he doesn’t want world domination and, as far as he has studied, war is already deadly enough for him, at least. But it’s not good to be prepared in some aspects of life.

To the right of the door is a small fridge packed with frozen food, and next to the fridge on a small counter is a microwave, linked to a generator that is well-hidden behind the house. In the center of the room is a small table that has a small variety of standard military guns. An SMG, a rifle, a pistol, a small knife, and a fair amount of ammunition are scattered about the table, for all sorts of guns – from pistols to shotguns to heavy machine guns. If you need ammo, it’s probably lying there. Although, there is only a clip or two for everything but his pistol. It has about 5 clips. Under the table is a large sack of money, a nice ‘retirement’ gift so he wouldn’t speak a word of his embarrasement of a career. Of course, he had no sense of shame, but he did have a sense of who not to mess with. He sort of found that out himself. All in all, his cottage was a bit of a mess. Deaf is kind of careless, but that is something he’s developed over the years, and in all truth he isn’t all that careless. He’s only really careless when, well, he doesn’t have much to be serious about. His cottage wasn’t so ramshackle nor was it such a mess when he first moved into it.

Well, with him not forgetting about his mail like he has for the past week or so, he casually walks outside, and for a few brief moments takes a look at the beautiful view he has of ponyville. His house isn’t that high up, but it sure is high enough to get a great look at the thriving town. He continues, seemingly lopsided, down the stairs, up to his mailbox, and opens it, getting hit by enough mail to tip him over onto the ground. So, he casually gets up like nothing happened, but as he’s about to pick up his mail one letter at a time, he stops. He can faintly hear the subtle sound of an engine. Not one running, no, but rather staying still, lying in wait. Is that what I think it is? No, it can’t be. The Ponyville Town Guard doesn’t have tanks, so it’s not a training exersize. Neither does Twi’s elite guard. And it’s not like there are training exersizes this close to Ponyville, anyway. They are all farther north towards Canterlot. So, with these thoughts, he dismissed what he heard and finished picking up his letters, and carefully walked into his cottage to sit and spend the rest of the day yawning and reading letters.

Nearby, in a pretty large bush, hums an armored scout car (A ba-11 to be specific), the hammer and sickle symbol of the mighty Union of Soviet Pony Republics (USPR for short) painted in a strong red color, and painted on just below it is, in the same shade of red, USPR. Two ponies stand next to the car, chatting away without a care in the world. They wear a standard uniform – a casual shirt, a helmet, and they have a powerful PPSH 41 SMG that can fire a stunning 900 rounds per minute, and holds 71 bullets in a round magazine. Sitting on top of the car is their commander, who is surveying Ponyville with his binoculars.

After a short time he barks at his men “Alright, they don’t know what’s coming. Get back inside, you idiots, and try to shut those mouths of yours before they go running off telling the enemy all you know.” He then pops inside of his car while his crew scramble back in through the hatches located on the side.

“Command, this is SF 6, reporting in. The enemy does not know what’s going on. No military activity in 68-91.”

“This is command, roger that. Pull out, leave no trace.”

And with that the armored car pulled out of the bush, slowly and quietly making its way back across the border to the USPR, without a single soul noticing. No living creature, not even bugs, birds, or bees, noticed them as they drove back.