Wolfhound: Secret Heroes

I went over to Jackson after I was done.

“Hey.” He greeted me. “You ready to go?”

I thought about it for a second, then nodded. “Yep.”

He nodded back. “Alright. There’s a train leaving Appleloosa heading to Canterlot in a couple hours. I’ll get you a ticket. Grab your gear and let’s go.”

I went into the Armory, grabbed a few magazines, and then went down to the cache of weapons. Allen was still sorting through it.

“I’m heading to Canterlot. Would it disrupt anything if I nabbed some stuff?”

“Not so long as you tell me what you’re nabbing.” He didn’t even look up, engrossed in his cataloguing.

I walked over to the cache and looked around. Grab too many weapons or ammo, and I'll be either too slow or not even be able to carry it all in combat. So what should I get, me?

I eventually decided to take an SMG and a screw-on/screw-off suppressor for my pistol. I went over to Allen, tapped his shoulder, showed him what I was grabbing, and pointed at the crates I’d taken from. He nodded.

“Can I take some ammo?”

“Sure.” He grabbed a couple boxes and brought them over.

I opened them up.

“Take what you need.”

I took out the magazine in my SMG, loaded bullets into it, grabbed four more magazines of ammo for my SMG, and loaded the first one into it.

“225 rounds.” I stated.

Allen nodded and went over to a paper he had on a closed crate. He marked something down on it, and went back over to the boxes. “Anything else you need?”

I thought for a second. “Nope, that’s it.” I said. I made to walk out, but he stopped me.

“Bullet in the chamber, plus a full mag. Trust me, sometimes it’s that extra bullet that makes the difference.”

I walked back over, cocked my SMG, took out the magazine, inserted another round into it, and put it back in.

Allen nodded. “There you go. Now do the same with your pistol.”

“Already done.”

“Alright! We’ll make a soldier out of you yet.” He teased.

I played along. “Oh, I don’t know, I wanted to be a pacifist with an HMG.”

He cracked up. “Nice one!”

Jackson stepped in. “Alright ladies, the boys are coming, so get your dresses back on.”

I stepped up to him, a full-fledged idea in my head. I grinned, looked him right in the eyes, and said, in a Moe-like voice, “Why, I oughtta-“ I smacked myself in the face, and looked back at him. “-you!”

We all lost it.

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Jackson and I made small talk as we walked to Appleloosa. After getting to the train station, he bought me a ticket, and I was on. Apparently Jackie was on the same train, so I sat with her.

Like with Jackson, we made small talk for a while. But then we ran out of things to talk about in public, and we didn’t want anyone to overhear us. Mutual silent agreement. So eventually, we settled down and slept. A train whistle woke us up.

A conductor called out “Canterlot!”

Me, Jackie, and half the car got up.

The guy we were staying with was nice, and apparently he and the rest of the Royal Guard had already heard about the attack, but they’d also been told that they couldn’t divulge – or, in most Guards’ cases, couldn’t find out – how the information had come about. Nor could they even divulge the information itself.

I saw the sense in doing so. If Crimson Justice found out we knew, they’d either call it off – and leave us with no traces to follow whatsoever – or attack immediately, to catch us by surprise – which they would, and we’d suffer massive casualties just being unprepared. Plus, if we did tell the public, there’d be chaos in the streets. People would flock to leave, and that would probably encourage Crimson Justice to attack immediately, rather than risk losing an opportunity to strike a huge blow to Equestria. I didn’t like that we couldn’t do much without extreme risk, but we had no choice.

I spent the rest of the day walking around and familiarizing myself with the town. I also chatted with a couple other Royal Guards at a café a couple blocks away from the house. Both of them knew of the incoming threat, and shared my viewpoint: they both disliked being unable to help, but realized the necessity of keeping quiet about it. Apparently Celestia had personally spoken with all of the commanders of the Royal Guard squadrons and given them their assignments. The information and battle plan were then passed down to the others.

Allen arrived the next day, along with the rest of Wolfhound. He greeted us, spent an hour relaxing and talking with us, and then went into the living-room-turned-war-room for twice that. Then he came out carrying a few rolled-up pieces of parchment. They looked big. Suspiciously like the maps that had been set up in the room.

“Heading to Celestia for plan confirmation.” He explained. And off he went, the house’s owner trailing behind him.