Chapter 15

*The Battle of Canterlot, Part II*

“Aaaaaaand we’re back, baby!”

“That’s right, Chicago! President ‘Dusky’s dinky, little raids ain’t got shit on us! We’re like a sale on gasoline—impossible to find! We’re fucking Supramen!”

“We’ve been off the air for, what? Four hours?”

“I think that’s a new record, Mikey.”

“I think so, too, Robby.”

“Then let’s fucking SE-LUH-BRATE!”

Fire spewed like the fountains of Canterlot Square, painting the dark, insect-infused sky with fireworks of green gore. Changelings screamed through the air—living projectiles wreathed in green flame—trying to skewer the chassis of the roaring, metal monster that was attacking them. They missed, but the concussive force of their landing rocked the speeding vehicle back and forth, forcing Raymond to grip the wheel until his fists were bone-white against the molded, plastic helm.

“It’s working!” Jer cackled, rifling through the duffel and pulling out another magazine for his gun. “They’re following us!” A bump nearly sent the mag flying, but Jer was just barely able to keep hold of it, slipping it into his rifle with a satisfying ‘clack’. “Y’think they’d chase faster if we got the stallions making out again?”

“BUCK you, Boss!” Cymbal shouted, horn glowing a dull green as he depressed the rotary trigger with his magic. “What in Tartarus are we even doing!?! I’m a bucking musician! Not a… Not…”

“It’s not murder, kid. It’s defensive retaliation!” roared the yellow stallion as he spun the bullet-spewing cannon across the converging swarm above. His left eye twitched and he gave Jer a nervous look. “Right, Boss?”

“Aw, fuck, not you too!” Ray heard Gerald yell, spinning back around and bumping the driver’s elbow with his rifle. “I’m not your damned boss! Just fucking kill them!”

The radio blared, and Raymond heard the yellow stallion in back growl.

“Is that a human love song?” he shouted above the clatter.

“Seriously?” Cymbal quipped, “You’re bringing this up now?”

“Yes! I’m definitely bringing it up now!”

“You got a problem with love songs?” Gerald asked, gripping the roll-cage as Raymond made another sharp turn.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” the yellow stallion yelled, swinging the rotary left and right, spraying the swarm above. He turned toward the front for a moment, switching places with Cymbal as he reached a hoof toward the radio. “Stallion sings a heartfelt verse about compassion and bucking under the moonlight, and mares flock to him. That never works, and it pisses me off that musicians make so many bits off of them! It’s mino-manure! Besides, we’re being chased by love-suckers! What if it makes them stronger or something!”

Ray pushed the encroaching hoof back and snorted. The music could barely be heard over the sounds of cannon-fire and endless buzzing, but Raymond switched it off anyway, taking a sharp right to avoid a pile of rubble that might have once been a set of posh apartments. Gerald whooped and fired his weapon into the swarm above. A loud click brought a curse to the stim-high human’s lips, and he turned in his seat to reach into the duffel at Chuckle’s hooves for another magazine.

The jeep rocked, and suddenly there was a changeling soldier snapping at Ray’s throat, clinging to the open side of the driver’s seat. Raymond flinched back, and the creature’s gnashing fangs sliced the air. Letting go of the wheel, he brought his fist crashing into the bug’s snout. The changeling’s head snapped backward, and, shrilly-screeching cut off with a sharp snap, was tugged away in a spray of blood and splinters by an overturned taxi-cart.

Raymond cracked his knuckles on the wheel and grimaced, swerving down a side street to avoid a blockade of stone that used to be a guard tower. “Anything on the tablet?” he yelled amidst the sporadic, tinny pops of Gerald’s rifle and the steady beat of the rotary.

A smaller changeling bounced off the windshield, cracking the glass and sliding off into the air above. He heard Chuckles grunt and yell something about his head, but ignored it in favor of the wall of green fire suddenly springing up in front of their vehicle. The exterminator frowned and put the pedal to the floor, and, Gerald laughing like a little kid on a roller coaster, they sped straight through the flames. Fire washed around them in one, great wave, and when the jeep burst through the other side, Ray spotted the source of the jeep’s new set of soot-stains: a line of changeling mages standing firmly in their path.

Several thumps later, they were once again out in the open—Royal Armory towering above them, still a few miles distant.

“You say something, Sarge?!” Gerald shouted above the rotary, his own rifle set in his lap.

“Got anything on the tablet?” Ray repeated, keeping a straight course with the castle. They were ahead of the swarm at that point, and the driver wanted to keep it that way for a second. He kept his foot firmly planted on the gas, and the shrieks of pain and rage grew slightly quieter; fire from the rotary, louder.

Ray saw Gerald slip his tracker from his jacket pocket out of the corner of his eye. He held it against the sun in front of his face to cut down on the glare, slowly turning to the right as he looked at the screen. “We’re still going in the right direction, and it looks like they’re still—”

A flash of green cut the Ray’s companion off, an the human gave a pained hiss. Raymond glanced left just in time to see Jer quickly toss the melted tablet onto the blurring street. The former corporal hunched inward, clutching at his blistered hand and growling through gritted teeth.

Burnt-flesh smell tinged the Canterlot breeze.

“MotherFUCK!” Gerald whined, looking at his blackened fingers in disbelief. “Motherfuck!”

“Boss?!” came a concerned cry from the back of the jeep. “Boss, what happened?!”

“Shut up and fire, damn it!” Ray growled, voice reverberating in the already shaking vehicle. Cymbal was silent, cowed by the exterminator’s authority-laced tone, and the jeep bounced past the sprawled bodies of a tour group, huddled together in their last moments: a shriveled mass of crayola-esque fur and flesh.

Jer punched the dashboard, face flushed in pain and scream sifted through clenched jaws. He snatched up his rifle with his left hand, supporting the barrel with his right forearm, and stood, facing back toward the changeling swarm: the expanding, black cloud filling Ray’s rearview mirror, raining broken, black bodies.

Explosive slugs joined the stream of fire flowing from the twitching, jerking rotary cannon, tracing white lines through the afternoon sky.

What was once rain became a bloody downpour.

Raymond turned his attention back to the Armory in the distance: another black cloud hung low over the fortress-like building, obscuring buttresses and colorful, plate windows. Ray thought briefly back to Celestia’s proud smile when she mentioned the “searing, prismatic beam of pure magical energy” that was the Elements of Harmony. The idea had certainly piqued the human’s curiosity (Jer, perhaps, more so), and if the Elements truly were a super weapon, Raymond had the feeling he would be seeing the results of their power any moment. “Either that,” he thought, heart sinking as he watched the swarm over the armory condense, “or I never will.”

Determined grimace set over his scarred face, Ray milked as much speed as possible from the dune jeep, and, slowly, their destination grew closer.

The jeep bounced, and Raymond had to jerk left to avoid a deep crack running through the cobbled street. An ejected magazine bounced off his lap and into the space at his feet, and Raymond heard Jer grunt next to him, attempting to load the penultimate of their present rifle clips into his weapon with only one arm. Good eye flickering between the road and Gerald, the former sergeant noticed something that made his stomach turn.

The Armory was clear as day. The swarm had disappeared.

“Jer! Twelve o’ clock!”

Gerald whipped around, finally sliding his magazine home, and scanned ahead. A particularly bad bump made him stumble, and he quickly gripped the jeep sidewall for support.

“I don’t see anything, Sarge! There’s nothing there!”

“I know!” Raymond yelled, eye still locked on the structure ahead. Realization soon dawned on the corporal, and his eyes narrowed as he scanned the sky around them.

“Well, shit... nine o’ clock!”

Ray glanced left, and sure enough there they were: a narrow wisps and bends of insects in flight over the southern half of the market district, heading toward the courthouse. Waves branched off of the second swarm, merging with their own pursuers and swelling drunkenly behind the jeep. “Keep an eye on them,” he yelled, slowing ever so slightly around a pothole the size of an apartment, “We’ll check the Armory for bodies.”

Gerald glared at the westbound swarm angrily. “If the girls’re hurt—”

“Then we purge the planet of them, lack of fuel or no, as contract dictates,” Raymond interrupted, catching the slate eyes of his counterpart as he slid back to a seated position. They sat in silence for a moment, surrounded by buzzing and huffing and streaming, pinging fire. A blast of changeling magic washed over the back bumper, prompting sharp hisses from the two stallions working the rotary and a frustrated tug on the wheel from Raymond, trying to avoid further hits.

“How the hell haven’t they cornered us yet?!” yelled Cymbal, taking a turn at aiming and firing as the lighter stallion cringed against the back seats, nursing his lumped head. “There’s over a thousand of them, and they just bee-line after us!”

“What are you saying?” Chuckles groaned. “They’re trying to distract us?”

“How should I know?!” the musician shouted, swinging on his haunches to get a better angle. A pair of changeling drones buzzing in from the side were torn apart in a hail of .50 caliber rounds, and Cymbal swung the rotating barrel back towards the sky. “I’m just a bucking drummer!”

“Cool it back there,” Jer snapped, shifting his weapon to check the ammunition load-out. “We’re almost to the Armory, so get those fucking bugs off our backs already!”

Cymbal started yelling a retort—perhaps a complaint about the lack of fire support, or maybe that there were far too many changelings for him to kill by himself—but was cut of by the sharp whine of a COM connection.

“...are! Come in! This is Sergeant Sun Flare with the Equestrian Royal Guard! Humans! Pick up, damn it!”

Ray was about to grab the wiry palm-communicator attached to the radio when Jer quickly snatched it from its home, fumbling with his severely burned right hand and wincing through his clenched jaw.

His arm trembled as he held the COM in front of his lips.

“What, Sergeant?” he barked, shrugging his shoulders anxiously, hypnotically, as burnt fingers pressed mercilessly on the ‘transmit’ button. Raymond could see the stimulant finally begin wearing down on his partner, and reminded himself to prep another one when they got to the armory.

Glancing to the former corporal’s blood-soaked thigh and torn ear, Raymond considered another morphine as well.

“Elements west-bound. Carried by changeling soldiers above the market district and toward the courthouse. Please advise.”

“Create a distraction,” Jer obliged, nudging Ray and pointing him down a narrow alley that would take them toward the market district. Schaffer turned the corner, plowing through refuse and a few stiffening bodies as speeding bullets ricocheted along the narrow stone passage, tearing into any who dared brave the small space between buildings in pursuit of the humans and their pony accomplices. “Try and lead as many away from the courtyard as possible, back toward the castle if you have to.”

“A distraction?! There’s too many of—”

Jer racked the handheld transmitter and powered down the radio, cutting off the shouting stallion before he could finish his half-baked complaint. The angry human quickly asserted himself as a side-seat driver.

“Left, here: down that alley… LEFT! Left, damnit! We’re trying to lose them! Not lead them back with us! Throw some twists and turns in this shit!”

Schaffer grit his teeth and briefly glared at his friend with all the venom he could muster, and the shorter human quickly clammed up, looking apologetic. His fingers twitched and jittered over his rifle; his lap; his blackened hand. The former sergeant skid down another, perpendicular alley, and the swarm sifting among the rooftops above quieted somewhat. Gerald spoke up again, quieter, like the bugs up above: “I just don’t want to hear any more screaming, Ray. Do you understand? No more.”

Raymond understood.

“No more, Sarge.”

“Yeah, Jerry. No more.”

It was then that the rotary ran out of ammunition.

Changelings buzzed frantically around the courthouse—over, around, through—in a sporadic, black orbit. They perched on trellis and bulwark and ledge, flitting about in eager, swelling anticipation.

Double doors opened, and six bright mares were whisked inside on gossamer wings, right past Daemon Moonfire’s position: a small, traditional cloak-house at the edge of the courtyard, flush with the southern cliffs leading to the thin strip of buildings that was the central market district. It was dark, cramped, and smelled of old ponies and mothballs.

The Daemon felt right at home.

“Stallions in position, Sir,” whispered Sun Flare from the rafters above. The injured Sergeant had flapped up there painfully in order to keep an eye on their soldiers in the city below. “Should I give the order?”

“Allow me.”

The midnight thestral slinked from the smeared front window toward the open crevasse that was the rear air-vent—meant to reduce the musty smell, perhaps—and tilted his horn out over the cliffs.

Concentrating, Moonfire tugged at the life surrounding them. Hearts beating in the hay—a family of mice—ragged breathing from the rafters—Sgt. Flare—and hundreds of chittering, eager insects gathering outside flowed together into his sickle-shaped horn, bursting forth in a shower of purple sparks over the precipice and the buildings below: the signal to begin.

Down below, one hundred sixteen Solar and Lunar Guards thought of their mothers.

Wives.

Children.

Family.

Luna’s Favored Daemon felt the changelings—their insistent buzzing—subside into silence, and the creaking of nearly five hundred chitinous necks twisting southward took its place. Moonfire smiled reservedly.

It was summertime.

Love was in the air.

Concentrating again, the thestral showered the air with another spout of sparking manalight, and his forces began to move, loved ones still paramount in their minds, deeper into the district below: to the old Star-Struck Theater.

They began shouting, screaming, beating at their armor, and then, his soldiers nearly safe, prepared for their last stand in the windowless showroom, Moonfire heard what he was waiting for.

Changeling wings began to beat.

Soon they were everywhere, swarming past the window in a blur of black and blue and sickly green. Each burning with a lust for food—for love—they flew: quickly now, too fast to notice two stallions waiting in the dark. Moonfire watched them go, his sergeant waiting patiently alongside. To the southeast, another, smaller swarm rose from Canterlot Hotel Circle and joined the first, all converging on the theatre.

“Check the courtyard, Sergeant.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He heard the door open, close; heard hooves move softly away on the grass, then nothing. Moonfire simply watched the city below—the Star-Struck, his soldiers—and hoped.

In the distance, a familiar roaring arose from the buzz, and the Daemon smiled.

“’The Elements are secondary’, my flank…”

Something big and metal and round crashed to the cobblestones just outside the “Three Pony” luxury hotel.

“I’m sorry!”

“Fuck, Cymbal! How could you possibly drop the canister!”

“It slipped!”

“But what about magic! Fucking magic, damn it!”

“Shut up and hang on. We’re almost there.”

“But what about—where the fuck did they go?! Chuckles did you see them?”

A yellow muzzle poked out from under the cargo tarp. “Y-You serious?” the bright pony it belonged to groaned. “I can’t even open my eyes.”

Up above, the sky was clear, and, aside from the screaming and the sound of the jeep, there was no noise. Not a single drone, mage, or soldier was chasing them, and Gerald Hanes wasn’t worried one bit: disappointed maybe, and perhaps hysterically angry, but not worried per-se. Granted, a swarm of bugs chasing them when they got to the courthouse would make things a bit more difficult, Cymbal having lost their second and, unfortunately, last canister of rotary ammunition. But Jer was high, and he didn’t care.

They burnt his hand, scratched his jeep, tried to murder a group of children and their teacher, drained half a city of its life force, and threw him and his partner out a goddamn window.

Jer was fucking pissed. He hadn’t truly felt that way in awhile. It was freeing.

“I… I think my skull is fractured.”

The seething human looked down from his position—crouching in the passenger seat, facing backward—and found Chuckles crawling out from under the tarp. A changeling corpse had bounced off the back of his head at high speeds almost an hour ago, but he looked all right: head wasn’t crushed or caved in or anything. Gerald reached into the driver’s seat, fumbling inside his friend’s jacket while keeping an eye on the sky—Ray only grunted—and pulled out a serum pouch. Selecting a clear syringe of morphine, he leaned over the back seats and stabbed the yellow stallion in the flank with the thing, pneumatic cylinder injecting the pony with icy relief with a sharp hiss.

Honestly, the morphine probably didn’t do much for the poor earth pony, as resistant to everything chemically influential as they were—“learned that from Pinkie Pie”—but, once again, Jer was stimmed beyond reason and he didn’t care.

It worked on him, so, logically, it would work on Chuckles.

Fucking impatient fuck—fuck!

The yellow stallion winced as Jer retracted his needle, but was quiet. Perhaps it was working after all.

“Coming up on the hill,” Raymond growled, swerving to avoid various debris, detritus, and bodies, nearly making Jer fall over his seat. “Get ready.”

Buildings fell away, and Jer had to squint against the sudden influx of sunlight. He spun around, gritting his teeth as he clutched at his rifle with his charred fingers—the skin was raw, dying from the outside in, but was beginning to numb over with adrenaline. Corporal Hanes looked up, voices screaming for blood, hopefully ready for anything that came their way.

A nearly pristine, pompous building and an empty courtyard greeted him. It was rather disappointing, honestly.

The jeep slowed, and both Jer and his partner hopped out, weapons panning around the yard. Cymbal stayed in the back of the jeep, sitting on his haunches next to his friend worriedly.

Gerald’s bandstand—he didn’t really know why he felt the need to refer to it possessively—was crumpled in on itself, and that just made him even angrier. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, Jer understood the irrationality of the feeling, but he ignored it. Being angry just felt too damn good.

“Clear,” Raymond muttered, lowering his weapon half-way. “Standard breach, yeh?”

Jer nodded. “Cymbal, grab the spool of thick, yellow wire.”

He heard the green stallion shuffle around a bit, when Chuckles spoke up:

“Here.”

Jer looked over just in time to catch the exchange of the spool, and Chuckles’ subsequent rise to his hooves. Both ponies hopped from the jeep, and the four of them began walking toward the courthouse.

A charging pegasus interrupted them.

“Corporal Hanes! Sergeant Sh—”

*CRACK*

“—AGH! Oh Celestia my leg! A-Ah-A—”

“Red,” Raymond observed, lowering his weapon as he approached the downed stallion. The taller human lifted the pony—a royal guard Jer recognized: Sun Smear or something—back to his hooves. Standing unsteadily, he looked at them in disbelief.

“You shot me!” he shouted, clearly very unhappy about the situation.

“Yep,” Raymond grunted, standing and leaving the hobbled stallion to balance on his own.

“Ah-Again!”

Not caring in the slightest, Raymond pointed him back toward the bandstand. “There are three fillies hiding under there. Watch them until we get back.” Gerald watched the other human quizzically, wondering what he was talking about, when he heard a small sound.

“Jerry? Ray?”

Gerald whipped around to find Sweetie Belle, halfway out from underneath the bandstand, eyes wide, scared. Behind her, just barely visible in the dark, were two other shapes. They were curled up next to each other, unmoving.

Scoots?

The concerned human didn’t make it more than a step before he felt a hand on his shoulder. “They’re fine, Jer. Just asleep.” Gerald looked over his shoulder into Ray’s cold, blue eye. “They’re fine.” His scars stretched and danced when he said that: Jer could see them. He could see everything. Every detail: the sweat, the hair, each individual line and bump and contrast. “We don’t have any more time.”

Jer looked back. Sweetie was out in the open now.

“Get back under there, kid, and keep an eye on your friends. We’ll be right back.”

They would be right back. He wasn’t lying. They would.

Suddenly, they were running. Across the courtyard, up the steps: it was all a blur of detail and color and senses. They made it to the huge, wooden doorway, and Jer became entranced with the wood grain. Everything was so much faster and yet he felt sluggish, like an observer in a sped-up world. He dimly realized that the stimulant was wearing off, probably due to mingling with morphine in his system, and fumbled around for the serum pouch he’d stolen from Raymond.

He found it in his back pocket. He didn’t recall putting it there.

Amidst rough panting and the sound of more hooves approaching, Hanes injected himself with another half-dose of adrenaline. The world slowed down, and he sped up. Finally, he could begin looking at the door in earnest.

Slinging his pulse rifle across his back and snatching—more like lugging, actually—the spool of plastic explosive from Cymbal’s magical grip, Jer got to work.

Words bled through his concentration:

“Don’t shoot! Check the wound!”

“State your business.”

“I wish to help. My soldiers are distracting the swarm, but they can only last so long.”

“Did you see how many went inside?”

Jer danced nimbly from hinge to hinge. Somewhere in the haze of creation, Raymond had lent him his combat knife, and he cut a length of wire to meet his needs. Crissing and crossing, Gerald wove his new masterpiece from hinge to hinge, frame to frame, molding to molding. The Royal Architect was nice enough to leave plenty of iron rivets and decorative carvings in the enormous door: so useful.

“Eighteen drones along with Chrysalis and the hostages.”

“And you’re positive about this?

“Yes, Sir.”

Almost done: just a few touches left.

“Everything is so… numb.”

“Chuckles, are you feeling all right? How’s your head.”

“Cold…”

“You’ll be alright, Boss, eh? The princesses are in there. They’ll fix you up good as new, okay? Hearty, can you hear me?”

“… yeah…”

Gerald felt along the inner wall of the spool until he felt a small, manufactured crack. Fingernails—“getting long”—pried it open, and he removed a pair of pre-packaged receiver caps and a detonator. The caps found homes at each end of the cord and Jer, of course, kept the detonator.

He held up the metal and plastic device, enabling it, admiring it up against the landscape of his yellow, stringy artistry. A green LED near the trigger flashed twice before remaining constant. Perversely, the shorter human was reminded of an Earth holoboard ad: one he’d seen lit up while they were cleaning out Las Vegas during the campaign.

“Green on the strip flows—drip, drip, drip. Men on the strip grow—lick, lick, lick.”

“What is your plan?”

“Take Chrysalis alive. Kill the others.” Ray raised his voice, directing it solely at Gerald this time. “Got it, Jer?”

The anarchic human’s eyes refocused, and he nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah. Ready?”

“Ready,” Raymond answered, “Blow it, then I’ll toss this in.” He held up a chrome and rust-red canister: one of the Company issue flash-bang grenades. Did he pack those? Jer didn’t remember. He didn’t remember a lot of things right then. Should he worry?

“Nah.”

Better situating the pulse rifle against Rarity’s destroyed suit-jacket, Gerald retreated to the stairs at a slight jog. Raymond, Cymbal, Chuckles, and that weird, purplish military pony from before had had the same idea, and were already crouched below the top step.

Heart racing, Jer settled into place next to his former sergeant. “The big one’s mine,” he growled, that delicious anger returning from its short, lonely hiatus.

Ray nodded. “Alive.”

“We’ll have to do something about her magic.”

“I’ll handle it. Just immobilize her.”

Jer held up the detonator in his right hand, blackened fingers gripping painfully. “On three?”

“On three.”

Smiling cruelly, Jer began the end.

The doors blew inward in a bright flash of red and brown, and both humans stood, rushing the door. Hearty Chuckle flinched at the splinters peppering his face, not from the feeling—he couldn’t feel a thing—but from the seeing. He didn’t hurt anymore, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.

A minute ago, Chuckles had been sure he wouldn’t last another hour… now he felt immortal, and it was scary.

The yellow stallion saw Raymond sling a small, chrome canister through the doorway, running blindly forward as the two humans ducked to either side, covering their heads. Hearty quickly scrambled left of the doorway, next to Raymond, and heard another explosion—sharper this time, ringing. Less than a second later, he was standing in the doorway with the others.

He didn’t quite recall moving.

Everypony moved slower than they should have: like insects through molasses. There were already green patches on the walls from the entry breach, and Chuckles could see the huge double doors lying splintered across the great hall. He counted seven mares and a stallion—familiar celebrities, all of them—still standing, and seventeen changelings. In comforting slow motion, Jer streaked across the room, black, green, and red bleeding away behind him. Yelling something unintelligible, he collided with the largest changeling in the room—the queen, apparently—and they both went down.

Raymond quickly followed, legs wading through thickened air. Hearty tried to follow in the taller human’s wake, but the flowing color got in his way, and he felt rooted in place, hooves nailed and shod with marble pony-shoes the size of a courthouse: THE courthouse.

It was only after his only really good friend, Cymbal, passed him, head low, horn glowing against the color and rattling gunfire streaking above, that the yellow stallion felt he could move his hooves. He crossed the divide, feeling warm, and things began to speed up.

The changeling queen lay ahead amongst the scattered bodies of her subjects, Raymond’s dulled dress shoe quivering above. It came down with a snap, shearing jagged horn from thick skull-carapace in a shower of black splinters and glowing changeling blood.

Silence reigned, broken by a shape rising from the queen’s side: Jer.

He said something, but Chuckles couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear or feel anything anymore, but he kept moving. Getting to the center of the room, where his friend stood watch, horn glowing, was all that mattered now.

Out of the corner of his eye, the stallion saw Chrysalis hoisted up, locked in one of the human’s forearms. He couldn’t tell the bipeds apart… they looked… so alike…

Yelling and pointing, out the window, at the changelings still surrounding the Elements of Harmony. All was a blend of screaming and shouting, and it was soooo tiring. Hearty just felt like lying down. But he couldn’t, because there were fillies running between his legs…

“Sis!” “Rarity!” “Jerry! Ray!”

“Get back! Don’t—!”

A black figure swooped by Chuckle’s left, and he swayed on his blood-caked hooves. Hearty could feel his head throbbing quietly again, but he looked up: a changeling, wings buzzing and twitching agitatedly, was almost right in front of him. It was holding something—small and struggling and white—and hissing:

“Releasssse Her!”

“SWEETIE BELLE!” The Element of Generosity was pushing, trying to escape her changeling guard detail. “LET HER GO! SHE’S JUST A FILLY!”

“Releassse our Queen, or it diesssss!”

The creature tensed, and a child wailed. Hearty felt something sick twist inside of him: it ignored him—just flew right by! Ignored him! He’d been ignored his entire life—by crowds, audiences, family—and now by members of an invading army. Did he really look that injured? Helpless? Was it because he was an earth pony?! Nearly every rational thought left Chuckles’ mind, and something snapped. A sudden burst of forest-green manalight—Cymbal, probably—shot across the room, splashing against the changeling’s horn and rocking the creature back.

Hearty Chuckle pivoted, hind-legs cocked back, and, with the very last of his strength, bucked the changeling as hard as he could.

Everything after that was a bit blurred.

The yellow stallion felt a satisfying crunch as his back hooves connected with changeling carapace, and was suddenly on his side. The room spun, and his vision began fading… darkening around the edges.

Hisses and screams reverberated in Chuckles’ skull.

Gunfire flashed—

—a streak of rainbow and silver steel pierced by chittering screeches—

—clopping hooves, buzzing wings, and pained hissing—

—two, bright flashes of purple, and near silence…

Something writhed at Chuckles’ feet, but he barely noticed. He was too busy reliving everything he had ever seen; ever known; ever felt.

Anger.

He was a colt in Manehattan again, ignored and passed up because of his coloration. In a world of grey and brown, yellow had become feminine, and therefore, in a young colt’s world, useless.

Joy.

His cutie mark was a smiling face. He could make ponies happy: make them laugh. Manehattan brightened for a day, and Hearty Chuckle became an adult.

Hope.

He was in Ponyville. Moved in six years before Nightmare Moon’s return and got a job over at the pub—Hayseed’s they called it. Looking up.

Happiness.

The bits were good; the drinks, plentiful. He’d even made a friend: a green colt who fancied himself a musician. He wasn’t all that good yet, but Chuckles was confident he’d be playing with the best of them in no time. The yellow stallion began running his jokes by the drummer before he added them to his act, and they even began collaborating on some things. Life was good.

Lust.

The rose merchant across the square. Soft, red tail flicking under his muzzle and a wink.

Hatred.

Filthy Rich tried to buy out the Hayseed to build a credit union, whatever that was, and Chuckles missed a date with Rose to organize a protest. The greasy stallion rescinded the venture a day later.

Loneliness.

Rose left, and Chuckles drank. His act suffered, and fewer ponies came to his shows. His only solace was his kinship with Cymbal, and he felt even that begin to slip away from him.

Jealousy.

Cymbal made the same amount of bits no matter the turnout. Always the same. Hearty would have to sell his apartment soon, and he felt it happening again: he was ignored.

Gratitude.

Hearty had one real friend, and that was all that mattered. Cymbal had gotten him a show at the capitol performing at the Royal Wedding. He didn’t know how he did it, but that didn’t matter either. All that mattered was that his friend knew how sorry he was. Chuckles cried at Cymbal’s hooves, and knew he would never feel as cared for as he had in that one moment.

Pain…

Chuckles was being cradled in somepony’s hooves. The throbbing in his head had become impossible to ignore, and he felt something wet against his muzzle: warmth leaking from his eyes and nose. Time had no meaning anymore. Was this a memory? Or was he really experiencing this? Somepony was shouting and sobbing something, but all Hearty could see was a light. He flicked his ears back against his head to block out the noise around him.

The light grew, and Chuckles felt heavy, as if there was a mare sitting on his chest. He couldn’t move, and he didn’t really want to anymore. There was only warmth and weight and light.

Bells chimed, and Hearty Chuckle finally felt Peace.

Another scream joined the crescendo in Jer’s skull, and he could do nothing about it.

A small crowd had gathered in the nearer to the doors, purple, blue, and pink magic flashing futilely over a dead, yellow pony and his sobbing friend. Ray stood to Jer’s left, an arm around the changeling queen’s neck and an impassive, stone mask over his face.

The court bells rang in the rafters above among streaks of rainbow mane, sounding the changeling retreat, and Jer wanted to shout at his partner—yell at him because the screaming wouldn’t end—but he couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault.

Pinkie had led the fillies away already. Jer didn’t know where. He didn’t even see them go. With that in mind, he felt himself slowly approach the crush of ponies further down the aisle.

He needed to take care of some things.

Writhing at the edge of the crowd, the last changeling—the failed negotiator—lay in agony, flashing and morphing intermittently between ponies.

It was Cymbal when he finally reached its side. Jer stooped down amidst exclamations from ponies and humans alike, all internal, and began dragging the beast down the aisle, toward its ruler.

A flash, and he was dragging Chuckles.

Another, and it was the three fillies, obscenely shifting and sticking as one.

Jer felt his gorge rise, and he threw up on the aisle rug. There was blood.

Everyone was watching him, and that spurred the human forward. Spitting to clear his throat, he kept going, dragging the changeling—Rarity, now—through blood and bile to Raymond’s feet.

Releasing the thrashing, brain-damaged changeling, Jer brought his face as close to Chrysalis’ as he could, sweat on the bridge of his nose smearing on her snout. He stared into her eyes a moment, cutting his forehead on the jagged stump where her horn used to be—the magical outlet was on the ground to his left—and smiled coldly.

“Where are they going?”

Chrysalis was silent; watching the human carefully, wet tears in the corners of her emerald eyes.

“Your soldiers: where are they going? Home? Where is it?”

“P-Please…” the queen whispered. “I…”

Jer’s smile twitched at the corner, and he gently ran a hand through her stringy, blue hair. “Shhh… shhh… It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Please!” she shouted, really crying now. “We were starving! W-We were tricked! I needed to feed my—my children.”

Jer licked his lips, and, still smiling, he turned and picked up Chrysalis’s horn. His leg flared, and his eyes began to water, but he ignored it. He held the sharp, irregular horn clenched in his blackened fingers and glanced at the restrained queen. “What children?”

Stooping slightly, he drove the improvised stake into the still thrashing changeling at their feet. It had taken the form of a guardpony, but the second Jer pierced its breast it stiffened and changed, opaque blue eyes wide, fangs turned up in a silent scream as air left its body.

Chrysalis shrieked and began struggling, but suddenly Gerald was back, stroking her mane and whispering:

“Shhh… its all right, now. Stop screaming…” Chrysalis just kept thrashing, but Raymond stood strong, not moving an inch, that same, impassive mask covering him.

Jer’s smile twisted into a hateful frown. “STOP! SCREAMING!” The queen fell silent, staring in fright at the raging human. Breathing out, the corporal composed himself and smiled again, angry tears in his grey eyes. “I’ll ask you one more time: where did they go?”

“I just wanted to feed my family. Please don’t kill me!” the bug pleaded. Jer did everything in his power not to simply put a bullet in her. The screams in his head were getting louder, the sobbing in the corner was getting quieter, and all he wanted to do was sleep. “Discord tricked us! Please! You can’t—”

“Ray, please put her on the ground for me.”

“No! Wait! No!” Chrysalis wailed. “Please! My children!”

“What children? I saw no children, only bugs.” Ray set Chrysalis on the marble floor, and slipped his rifle from his shoulder.

“Gerald! Don’t!” a voice called from behind. Still keeping his eyes on the bug lying prostrate before him, Jer tilted his head, acknowledging the speaker.

It was Twilight Sparkle.

“Don’t kill her,” she pleaded. “You don’t have to do this! The changelings live to the south, in the Badlands, at a place called Red Rock.”

Chrysalis looked past Jer in disbelief, tears fading as she looked on the mare who just signed her death sentence.

Not bothering to look over his shoulder, the human finally let his smile fall.

“Thank you, Sparky.”

Raising his weapon, Gerald fired.

And so ended the Battle of Canterlot.

Author's Note

Please comment about any perceived discrepancies.

Thanks for reading.