Loyalty and War

by Kyromancer

Rating: mature
Tags: Dark, Alternate Universe, Human, Anthro
Length: 3044

How is war realy won? Through one coutry's use of propaganda or by its willingness to gain allies through its former enemies?

The following is the account of a soldier given the choice of how he should die.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-12-01 21:48:56 UTC

Between a noose and an electric chair

Whenever the flames of war are sparked, there is always that one reason to keep the flames form burning out.  Patriotism, religion, self defense, expansion, or proving to the world you can't keep your ego in check... but what happens to the bastards forced to fight alongside the fuckers?   All I know that in order to win a war... one needs to understand politics and have a shitload of blackmail.

There is a prison on the outskirts of ponyville, made from the ruins of a castle that belonged to the power players of this war, Princess Luna  and Princess Celestia.   In the depths of the prison is a long hallway surrounded by doors but not to store prisoners, but to hold interrogations, each rooms only light source is a single electric light hanging over a flimsy iron table.  One of the cells is occupied; the bright light shines on the shacked hand of the prisoner, he wears the dark shattered remains of his battle armor, long black bang cover his  eyes as he stares at the silver face of a pocket watch following   the hands as they tick towards midnight 'Five...four...three...two-' his stomach turns to ice 'one' the light flashes and screams begin to emanate from the door at the end of the hall...the smell of burning fir claws its way into the room.

When the screams stop, he puts the watch into his pocket when a white bipedal unicorn walks in, she wears a red dress with what seems to be lilies stitched over her right breast, her pink hair is tied into a bun and in her right hand is a metal briefcase... she sits across from the man, puts an ashtray  where the watch was then opens the case and pulls out a file.

"Andrew Izunagi-" she begins "Call sign: Frostfall, one of the many humans that refused to be deported back to earth when the war began, infiltrator for the Lunar Republic with over fifty confirmed kills and responsible for the sabotage of the Manehatten stock exchange"

She then reaches back into the bag and pulls out a thicker file, puts a cigar in her mouth and with a glow of her horn lights it.

"You also go by the name of Michael Rodriguez... call sign: Rattlesnake, assassin for the Changelings of high value politicians and war generals throughout Griffaria, Zebronica, and Saddle Arabia with over 200 kills... a majority of these kills were civilians or so the rumors suggest.  This is only half of the information we have on you but if either of these files were made public, you will be tried, convicted and executed however our solar empress is still willing to show you mercy if you (in her words) tell your side of the story."

The man looks up; his hazel eyes bore into her pink orbs but still remains silent.  She takes a long puff of the cigar and blows smoke into his eyes, after a few more seconds she slams her fist on the metal slab the sound resonates throughout the stone cell.

"This is going to end one of two ways, either you tell me everything right now and you can die with a noose around your neck like every other Lunar soldier or you can keep playing mute and see what it feels like to have 50,000 volts run through your veins and given the fact that the guards don't take kindly to child killers, there may be a slight chance that in their grief they might forget to properly dampen the sponge."  She slams the files shut, stands out of the chair and reaches for the ashtray.

"Wait" he gags.

The  single word is enough for the mare to sit back in her seat.

"Guard!" she shouts.

The door opens and another  unicorn walks in, he wears the armor of a captain but doesn't have the natural buzz cut style of most soldiers and instead has a shoulder length blue and white mullet... a black patch hides the right eye that was gouged out two months ago.

"Bring us some water, please" she asks

"And a lot of coffee" the prisoner adds only to have his jaw bashed with the hilt of the captain's sword before he teleports.

Two minutes later he returns with a glass jug, a wine glass, and a wooden mug... twenty guesses whom it's for.  The mare and prisoner drank from their 'respective' cups and the mare ignites another cigar and offers it to the prisoner who accepts it gladly.

"How much do you want to know?" the prisoner asks refiling his mug, keeping his eyes on the mare and placing the pocket watch back onto the table.

"Everything" the mare answers placing a recorder next toe the watch and switching it on.

"Then get comfy-" the prisoner laughs "-because this might take awhile"

He looks at the watch which reads 1:15 AM.

Blizzard

Four years ago I lived in Manehatten working as a mechanic for the hybrid carts the ponies would create from the parts humans sent from Earth, what else could an eighteen year old graduate do when he saw college as a big fucking waste of time?  Why should I waste eighteen more years of my life learning more bullshit when they could have just sent students to some bigger school and ‘officially’ graduate at grade fifty instead of twelve? Alas everyone was too brainwashed or tired to care but when a planet drifted into Earth’s orbit without destroying both worlds, why would I hide behind my races’ fear of being the only living species in the universe?

On April 15 2016, I turn on the news to find that princess Luna is announcing that she is creating her own nation… one that welcomes all races to coexist and deals with their problems through the decisions of elected politicians instead of having a single ruler decide for or against some bullshit complaint from biased (if not racist) advisors, I’ve met my share of racist equines but looking back on each encounter even I was skeptical.

* * *

“What does any of this a have to do with the files?”  The mare sighs, the captain walks toward the prisoner ready to listen to the abridged version of the files but the mare raises her hand… even with his commanding title she is the one in control.  The prisoner leans back then refills his mug.

“Well Ms. De Lis, you wanted to hear everything there is on these files and I will tell you now that this all started when your solar princess decided to send me back to my pisshole of a home world.”

The air begins to shift, the mare’s eyes widen and the captain breaks into a cold sweat.

“How do you-“she begins.

“Fleur de Lis… Celestia’s BEST interrogator, the only interrogator who doesn’t torture soldiers within an inch of their life whether they’re pony or human and is able to calm them down before they are given a slow and painful death… when you work with the Changelings, you find that the most dangerous weapon in war is what you know about your enemy, from their occupation to their rack size. Now… back to the task at hand.”

       * *            *

Although Celestia didn’t protest to baby sister’s announcement, she may have been threatened by the idea of splitting the territories. Four months later she declared war on Luna and since my species wasn’t involved with the conflict, Celestia and the U.N. decided it would be safer if humans not part of the Solar army were sent back to earth… whether we wanted to or not and when some fanatics started to revolt, giving Celestia the reason to enact marshal law.

Because I lived in the more undesirable part of Manehatten, the ‘relocation’ agents took longer to find me and when they did, they treated me like a serial killer despite the evidence that I didn’t want anything to do with this war.   It was on December 25th that I was ‘scheduled’ for deportation, I had my fair share of the cities festivities so I trekked three blocks in a blizzard to board a subway tram I didn’t care where it was going but being underground was enough to sober me up enough to react to agents crashing through the window and knocking me out with one too many stun spells.  I woke up and found my legs chained to the floor of a bus, I looked out the window to see the blizzard was getting worse seeing as how it was the end of the line I put my ear to the window to hear the harsh winds and feel the cold glass when the cage at the door slid open.

“Well, Well, Well. Look who’s awake-” A mare shouted.

Rainbow Dash… the Element of Loyalty with the ego to trump a spoiled wealthy daughter, it wasn’t so much of a surprise since all the Wonderbolts WERE wrapped around Celestia’s finger. I looked outside the window to avoid her until she grabbed my throat and turned my head toward her as she wrapped her thighs around my chest.

“-Another monkey who decided to play neutral and suck on Equestria’s cock in order to stay out of the war, y’know we always give most of you a chance to think things over before we send you through the portal and since you’re a grease monkey, you’ll fit right in with our-”

“LIEUTENET DASH!!” another mare shouted making Rainbow Dash fly back to the front.

I tried looking back out the window when the same mare cleared her throat, I looked back and clad in the skintight Wonderbolt uniform with a firehawk was their commanding officer Spitfire who decided to take a more… softer approach.

“This seat taken?” she asked, my guess was she was trying to help me ignore the fact I was in chains so I raised my arms showing her the shackles.

“I see the military training killed most of your humor” I growled.

“Would you have preferred if Dashie raped you into joining?” she scoffed then slid next to me.

I looked into her deep orange eyes “Depression killed my sense of humor and helped me figure out that life is just an ever turning shit grinder, then it decided to let another planet drift into Earth’s orbit, I may not understand the entirety of planet mass and orbit but I do know that Earth should have been destroyed, then when my race made the bridge between planets I thought moving here was a way to move out of the grey filter sure I had to deal with more racism than I grew up around, but at least I didn’t have to deal with greedy, religious, hypocrites. Now I have to deal with bullshit patriotism all over again while being force to leave the only real home I have so you tell me Commandant, do you really want me in the ‘Illustrious Solar military’?”

Before Spitfire could answer, a bright light flashed and I only had enough time to see her eyes shrink and the sound of screaming metal filled the air, I grabbed the back of my neck and ducked under the glass when a massive force hit the bus I blacked out and found myself hanging upside down, the emergency door was ripped open and a SWAT truck was backing towards it a unicorn wearing navy blue body armor walked into the bus aimed a gun at me and fired… I felt the bullet scrape passed me and hit something solid.

“Nice Going Buck! You just killed Spitfire! Now all the Wonderbolts will go AWOL just so they can skin us alive” a Pegasus mare shouted taking a bolt cutter to the chains while a green magic aura carried me into the SWAT truck.

Stike Against the Enemy

At dawn the cell opens.

“It’s time” Shining says grabbing me by the hair and throwing me out of the cell while placing chains around my wrists and ankles.

“You deserve worse you stupid monkey” he snarls.

He drags me out of the prison and into the court yard… I smell enough of the morning dew until Shining slams his fist into my nose replacing the smell with copper then stops in front of a white carriage fixed with the Solar Empire’s flag.

“Are you transporting a prisoner or escorting royalty?” I laugh.

“Both” a voice announces.  The curtains shift and looking from behind the glass sits Twilight Sparkle

“Hello Mr. Rodriguez” Celestia says as I sit next to Twilight

“Princesses” I mumble as the carriage starts moving.

“Of all the soldiers to cause me so much grief, I never expected it to be human”

“Not surprising that the eldest is a racist”

“The term is xenophobic” Twilight snarls.

“And she hid it so well, even though some of your forces have humans maybe it’s not because I’m human it’s because I worked in the lower half of Manehatten were all the rejects go to die, a human mechanic with no experience in war except for spending half his life playing video games”

“Sooner or later the changelings WILL turn on your rebellion” Celestia says.

“Are you saying that to frighten me or make me regret my actions?” I chuckle “As I’ve told Fleur, this war is a sham, all you had to do was show that you trusted your sister enough to let her have her country… you could have told her you needed time to think on it and swept it under the rug for another billion years, chastise her, let her turn into Nightmare Moon again and kill her or simply tell her she wasn’t ready. I owe no loyalty to either of your factions or my own race, I never wanted to be in this war and I never wanted to go back to Earth.”

“Then why participate?”

“I played the hand I was dealt, I may have folded before the pot got sweeter but at least I haven’t forgotten about the other players.”

“You think this war is a game?”

“We all think what we want to distort reality, it’s easier to focus on the cost of a nuclear bomb and ignore the drawbacks on which city you use it on, the only thing you see is a place that hides potential enemies who might not even become your enemies until you decide to drop the bomb.”

“You might say you don’t belong to your race but you sure think like them.”

“That’s because my country wasn’t raised to be content with what they had and before that they are raised to believe in God, a practice that should have died off long before man knew how to write”

The carriage shifts and stops.

“Guards! What’s happening?” Twilight shouts.

A pink unicorn puts his head through one of the windows “A tire fell off Princess we-“

“CONTACT!!!” another guard shouts filling the air with gunfire.

Using the confusion outside I wrap the chain from my wrists around Twilight’s neck and kick Celestia in the gut, once Celestia keels over I shove Twilight onto her horn and break it off but when I shove Twilight back into her seat, I fail to notice the tip of Celestia’s horn stuck between the interloping chain links, I bite down on the horn and rip it out of Twilight’s throat, staining the royal décor in blood.  Before Celestia can call for help I untangle the chains and slam my elbow into her throat… all sounds fade except for the sound of heartbeats and the slow shallow gags from Twilight, I glare into Celestia’s eyes and she glares back at mine when the gags stop, I let go sit back next to Twilight’s corpse… using my fingernails I dig into my bicep, I pull out a pin and unlock the cuffs then put them on Celestia

“This is your chance, what are you waiting for?” She gasps.

“Because killing you now would make you a martyr and the last thing Luna wants is her sister dead, plus I promised to give you to the queen… I’ll let you decide which is my answer.”

And with that… I jump out of the window and sprint towards the desert, the war is over for me… now all I have to do is work on my tan, wait until everyone’s done tearing each other apart, and plan on how to seek asylum.

Loyalty

“You gave her to the Changelings?” Fleur’s eyes widen in shock.

“Yes” I answer blandly.

“YOU gave the Princess of Love to the CHANGELINGS as a second part of an arrangement that even Luna doesn’t know about?

“Yes, who do you think made the captain here look more macho than he acts? Sadly that was also how I got here in the first place, once the changelings teleported, the guards blew the doors to splinters.”

“And the second file is just a changeling using your body as a disguise?”

“Yes”

“How can you owe your loyalty to two different factions and-“

“Because I want this war to end as fast as possible and if it means giving a mare and her unborn child to a bunch of soul sucking parasites, then I’ll fucking do it naked, slathered in honey, and reciting ‘Ride of the Valkyries’”

Fleur took what remained of her cigar and snuffed it then put the files back into her briefcase and stood.

“Mr. Rodriguez, you are now condemned to die by public hanging in Canterlot by noon tomorrow and since you are responsible for planning the sabotage of the only train line to Canterlot, you will be transferred by carriage”

Fleur takes the tape player and leaves the room, Shining uses this opportunity to slam my head into the table until I black out… when I wake up I’m being dragged across the granite floors and thrown into a cell, my vision clears enough to see them grab a batpony out from the shadows.

“Take this one to the chair” Shining orders.

“Let me just ask-” the bat pony pleads“-Who does your allegiance really lie with?”

I look into his blue serpentine eyes.

“All hail the queen” I growl.