Off the Record
He was seated atop one of the railcars that made up the perimeter of Junction R-7. He had a thick fur coat the color of wet ash, tufted ears that twitched with every odd sound or raised voice, and gleaming, slanted amber eyes with predatory slits for irises now gazing over the endless expanse of dust, dirt, and death. His armor was gothic in aesthetic, awash in dark shades of blue and violet with demonic designs and an alien-like fin on the helm. New additions of distinctly Northerner, daresay Hokkaidan flair protected his previously vulnerable neck, belly, and legs. A muzzle shroud dangled from one side of his helm. Clutched in a scraggly, griffin-like arm constructed out of ice was a hodgepodge of a shotgun- clearly a Saiga 12S but with the remains of the curved end of a crowbar making up the stock. A shark muzzle brake tipped the barrel, and a reflector sight was mounted up top. Staring out in statuesque fashion over the land with weapon at the ready, he was every bit the Sentinel he claimed to be.
Aside from perhaps the ebony balisong he was twirling in his other ice arm. True to his claim of mastery, his horn didn’t emit even the slightest aura as he cryomantically cantered the blade between his fingers.
It was no longer quiet at the Junction. Only a couple weeks ago, their numbers swelled by hundreds overnight. That meant more mouths to feed, more bodies to lodge, more shit to shovel.
And more fucking noise.
She decided to join the Sentinel. The armored stallion only slightly turned his head at the approach of the gray griffiness touching down beside him. She was suited in old combat armor modified to bear the outstretched claw, calling card of Talon Company. She nodded him in greeting and set her beaten bolt-action down. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he greeted back in a deep, grave tone one wouldn’t have expected from a Northerner. “Griseis, right? Fourth in command?”
She huffed and cracked a thin grin. “You act as if you don’t remember.”
“Two-hundred-fifty-seven years is a lot to sift through, even if you’re more recent,” he huffed in turn, looking back over the dreary landscape. “Couldn’t stand the noise?”
“Pretty much,” Griseis answered with a grimace.
He cocked his head momentarily- out of agreement, disapproval, or mere acknowledgement, she couldn’t tell. “Can you blame them, though? Not their fault the Steel Rangers decided to raid their Stable, and at least they brought their orchard with them.”
“Guess it ain’t, but fucking hell it sucked donkey balls that we had to expand the perimeter,” the gray griffiness said with a scowl. “Least you arrived after we had that handled. And it’s certainly Gawd’s fault for actually taking them in instead of… fuck, I dunno, passing them on to New Appleloosa at the very least.” The clicking of his balisong stopped. He turned his head toward her. Even if his expression was unchanged, those eyes seemed… hungry. Unsettlingly hungry. “... what?”
“You realize you’re talking to the son of two refugees, right?” He tilted his head forward, and those eyes grew ever more ravenous. “Hell, a buck whose entire people were refugees?”
Griseis winced and broke eye contact. “Sorry. I didn’t think about that.”
He faced forward once more. “Remember what I said? Not too long ago? Before, people greeted one another with a smile and a wave. Today? Caution and paranoia. With few exceptions.” He cocked his head momentarily again and pouched his balisong, sublimating the unneeded arm. “Of course, I might be biased in their favor. They make for a good audience.”
She huffed again and grinned a little once more. “Can’t imagine why.”
He huffed and grinned a little in turn. “Got a favorite part yet?”
Griseis sighed softly, glancing upward in thought. “When you told us about Aldorna. You know… Avalon.” She could feel her eyes on him. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see the three towers in my life, but the way you described it all… couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride in the griffin people.” She let out a sigh. “Fuck, we’ve fallen far, haven’t we?”
She looked at him, and he was the one to break eye contact, glancing downward. Most certainly not in thought. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “We all have.” Eyes back on hers. “But we can get it back. One step at a time.” He looked back upon the multitude of ponies and griffins mingling behind them. “One life at a time.”
Griseis glanced downward. Most certainly not in thought. “... you know if Avalon’s still standing?”
“... mostly,” he answered.
“‘Mostly?’” she parroted. Eyes on him. “Frost.”
Eyes on her. He lets out a soft sigh, cool mist flowing from his mouth. “The southern and northeastern tower still stand. The northwestern… it didn’t make it through the Enclave occupation.”
“Way you say it, you make it sound like it was your fault,” Griseis remarked.
He flattened his lips and drew in a deep breath. “Kid, when you find out exactly what I did when The Great War turned into a Cold War…” He shook his head and turned away.
She kept watching him. “How do you know about that? I mean, that two of the towers are still standing and… well, the third ain’t.”
He let out that breath slowly. “I know a griffiness.”
“Sounds like a story.”
He lowered his head and let out a huff. “Yeah. It is.”
Griseis looked off into the distance. “Well, it ain’t even noon yet. We have the time.”
He looked at her with an arced brow but an amused grin. “Kid, isn’t one story enough for you?”
She found herself chuckling in spite of herself. “You complaining? Fuck, buck, it’ll at least kill time. Can’t fucking imagine how you kept yourself occupied being a Lunar Guard if any bit of what I know of them is true! Standing all statue-like for hours at a time and all that shit.”
Again he cocked his head momentarily in that ambiguous fashion. “We have our methods.” He too looked out over the Wasteland. “You really want to hear it, don’t you?”
“You bet.”
He let out a soft sigh. “... I’m going to be talking about the Aldorna-Enclave Resource War, Griseis. I’m going to be talking about perhaps what is the darkest hour of griffin history, and that’s saying something coming from a historian. The Age of Struggle? Eons ago. The Cold War, The Great Schism? … okay, well… I’ll talk more on that later, but the Resource War? Aldorna was almost completely annihilated, Griseis.”
Her eyes met his. “You know this only makes me want to hear it more, right? Unless that was intentional.”
He sighed and glanced behind them. “It’s a warning because this is probably going to make you feel a lot worse than dealing with several hundred Stable Two refugees.”
“Well some stories need to be told, and that sounds like one of ‘em,” Griseis said, crossing her arms.
He let out another sigh and glanced downward briefly. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It’s one of them.” Eyes back on her. Sat up straight. “I’m not the only storyteller around. I guess it’s time I did at least one of them justice.
“Just between you and me for now, Griseis- we’re going off the record.”
* * *
Soundtrack: Theme of The Last Sentinel: Off the Record
Author's Note
And thus begins another project of mine. Here's hoping you enjoy it. As always, I encourage feedback of any sort, and constructive criticism is always appreciated. My thanks to my pre-readers, Lazer726 and Sideband, and you for reading.
Regards,
Adder1
Chapter 1: Her Name Was Scar
Chapter One
Her Name Was Scar
I met her during a storm at sea. This was forty years ago, one-hundred-sixty years after The End.
We were aboard the OMS Leviathan, crown jewel of the Aldornan Navy. With a displacement of over seventy-two-thousand tons at full load, a length of over a quarter-kilometer, nearly forty meters tall from the waterline, and featuring a main battery of four-sixty-millimeter rifled guns in three triple-cannon turrets and an array of secondary batteries consisting of one-fifty-five- and one-twenty-seven-millimeter guns and thirty twenty-five-millimeter BOFORS autocannons for close air defense, she was by far the largest battleship ever constructed. Her main and secondary batteries were even capable of firing incendiary cloudburster shells designed for the sole purpose of destroying Equestrian Raptor-class and Thunderhead-class cloudships. Heh, you’re drooling, Griseis. Mind yourself. The Leviathan outgunned, out-ranged, and out-armored both the LVS Valvuis before her untimely demise and the HMS Warspite, and she was built in complete secrecy over the course of five years. She wasn’t even finished- another rear-mounted triple-cannon turret was in production, but it couldn’t be mounted in time before her emergency deployment. And she was built as a precautionary measure of all things.
Another symbol of griffin innovation, the Leviathan was designed and built with the express purpose of discouraging any military action against the griffin motherland of Aldorna. Officially neutral since the beginning of The Great War and all the way to the end, the Aldornan High Council fought to the bitter end to keep their people out of a war they knew no good could come out of.
They failed. In the end, the only times the Leviathan fired her guns in anger upon Equestrian and Legion ships was a grand total of three separate occasions. The rest… were upon her own people.
But to the present, the Leviathan was bound southward from Seaddle at twenty-seven knots- that’s roughly fifty kilometers-per-hour for you. And we were suddenly caught in one hell of a storm.
“All personnel, get inside ASAP!” the intercom blared, nearly lost over the howling wind. “Do not proceed to your quarters! Get into the closest damn door you find and close all hatches! Abandon all open turrets! I repeat, get inside the closest door and close all windows, hatches, anything opening to the outside! Abandon all open turrets!”
It was at this moment I really wished I had Stagger Storm with me. Less than a minute ago, the wind was relatively calm. We knew of the approaching storm and were casually making our way below decks. Within seconds of the storm system hitting us, gale-force winds were hurling some of us around the weather deck- myself included.
My starsteel horseshoes screeched and scraped against the deck as the wind literally pushed me across the deck until I latched onto a support beam with an ice arm and tugged myself closer. The wind whipping past me sought every gap in my armor, rattling the new plates covering my legs, neck, and belly until I closed them up with ice. My horn lit up with an icy-blue glow that spread to the surrounding water as I tried to break up the titanic waves now crashing against the Leviathan, covering the griffins and scant few Steel Rangers struggling to get indoors. A griffin wearing heavy armor with a skeletal design awash in shades of death and decay skidded past me, growling as his claws scrambled for purchase against the deck and then let out a sharp grunt as he smacked against the railing. He latched onto the crossbeams fifteen meters past me and ducked low against the wind but found himself unable to move toward the bulkhead doors hanging so tantalizingly close.
I swore under my breath and closed my eyes, focusing on the feeling of the wind whipping past me and the slant of the deck below me. This… was going to be an interesting test of my sensory and proprioception, my sense of balance and orientation in space. I flashed my eyes open and released my grip on the support beam, practically skating down the deck toward him, bending my knees and twisting my waist to adjust how the wind caught me until I whipped out a fresh ice arm to catch another support beam further down. My eyes met the griffin’s, and I let ice muscle tendrils snake down my foreleg as I stretched it toward him. Behind me, I spread a wall of ice toward the nearest door, shaping grips into its surface as I simply nodded to him.
The griffin blew out a deep breath and brought up his hindleg against his gripped crossbeam to push himself into a position he could grip my leg and I helped pull him up toward the wall. Once he latched on, he started making his way toward the bulkhead with my support.
And then the support beam I was gripping started to give. I let out a misty, exasperated sigh. “Of course, right?”
My words were lost to the wind as tried to seep more ice into the beam to reinforce it, but the ends gave away first. The griffin snapped his head around and reached out to grab me, but the beam pulled free as I let out a snarl of frustration. I skidded further toward the stern of the ship until I twisted my new polearm and wedged it between a railing cross guard and a door frame just past me. Clutching to the remains of the beam and looking at the griffin still clinging to my wall, I just waved him to just go inside without me. He grimaced and nodded before clambering inside, and then I froze my impromptu brace in place before looking toward the doorway.
Starting to shut the door was a Dead Boys Elite, and a griffiness by the slight curve of her waist. Her wings were skeletal with scant few feathers, and even if her head was obscured behind a helm that fully enclosed her head, she was obviously a ghoul. The eyepieces were lit up with a bright-blue glow, and the right side featured a set of telescopic rotary optics. She stared at me for a good few seconds as I pulled myself along the beam toward the doorframe as if waiting to ensure my intent. Her shoulders slumped, and she almost reluctantly, irritably shoved the door open against the wind and waved me inside. I nodded and hauled my way across the beam, hurling myself inside. The griffiness ghoul carefully repositioned herself out of harm’s way and let the wind slam the door shut behind us, plunging us into near-darkness.
My ears were left ringing in the sudden silence, broken only by the griffiness cycling the wheel-style lock closed. The ship was relatively steady, barely rocking amidst the rough seas even as worrying, metallic groans shuddered through the bulkheads. Sprouting an ice arm, I unlatched my muzzle shroud, pulled out my radio earpiece, and switched it on. “Rig, you there?”
The unicorn mare answered, “Yeah, made it in. I’m fine. You alright? Where are you?”
“Well, I’d be worried about anyone going over the secondary weather deck about forty meters from the bow,” I huffed drily. “Even griffin engineering doesn’t hold up to a hundred-sixty years of wear and tear. But I’m fine. I’m in…” I took a look around, “storage room for cranes and winches, probably for moving equipment around on deck.” I sighed softly. “You know if the Razorwings are alright? Where are you?”
“They’re with me now,” Rig answered. “We’re below decks and headed toward crew quarters.”
“Figures,” I huffed, looking around the storage room and eying the armored ghoul as she started pacing about amidst the sagging life jackets. I especially eyed the arcsurge plasma rifle slung over her shoulder and the sidearm at her chest. Her rifle had the look of a conventional battle rifle aside from the long triple conduction rails and the cell housing unit. Looking around me, the room wasn’t too cramped and it had some lighting at the very least.
Ah, hell. It was pretty damn cramped, and the only lighting came from the porthole window.
The unicorn mare on the other end huffed, “Yeah, figures. I’ll keep you posted on how the storm looks, but it looks like you’re stuck where you are for the time being. Next time, try to stick with us, alright? Going off mic. I’m needed in engineering.”
“Couldn’t help but let nostalgia get the better of me,” I said with a sigh. “Copy that, Rig. Hey, Radar, you on the line?”
The pegasus buck replied, “Radar here, currently in the operation center. Needed me?”
“Have any idea how long the storm’ll last?” I inquired. “Or at least how long it’ll be this bad?”
“From the looks of things, ahhhh… for a good chunk of the day, maybe longer,” he responded. “As for how long it’ll stay this bad, I couldn’t tell you. I’m ex-military, not a weatherbuck. You have enough food in your bags, right?”
I glanced back as I heard the pacing ghoul grumble. She definitely heard that. “Yeah, I do. Keep us posted on any intercepted comms. Try to stay awake, old buck.”
“I’m old, not senile!” he protested, to which I merely huffed and grinned in response. “Now clam up and lemme do what I do best, would ya?”
“Over and out, then,” I said before switching off the headset and turning to face the griffiness She was still pacing around agitatedly, but when she noticed me looking, she drew to a stop. “Hey.”
After a good couple seconds, she merely huffed back.
Well alright. I cocked my head momentarily and said, “Thanks for helping me in. I appreciate it.”
This time a scratchy voice electronically distorted by her helmet speaker grunted, “You should be thanking me for letting you in. I don’t like that we’re working together, I don’t like that we’re on the same damn battleship, and I don’t like that we’re stuck together until this storm lets up.”
Well alright then. Feeling that old familiar sting, I asked, “Is it because I’m a Lunar Guard?”
“Damn fucking straight.” She drew her arcsurge in one hand and used it as a pointer to partition the room. She pointed to one half. “My side.” Then the other. “Your side. Got it?”
I again cocked my head momentarily and sat down on the floor, easing back against the far wall. “Your ship, your rules.”
She huffed again and did the same against her wall, looking out through the porthole window as it washed over with droplets of wind-whipped sea spray.
I glanced down and cocked my brows for a moment, sprouting a pair of ice arms to undo the clasps on my helm and neckplates. I tugged it free and ran my “fingers” through my greasy black mane, shaking my head rapidly in sweet liberation before setting the headpiece aside. I looked over my shotgun, working my jaw around in thought. I cocked my head momentarily once more before I ejected the drum and cleared the chamber, starting to dismantle the receiver. It was time for some long-needed weapon maintenance.
A few seconds into working, I heard a mechanical whirr across from me, and I looked up to find the griffin ghoul extracting the biomass cell from her weapon, located in a horizontal cell that could be ejected ambidextrously. She was likewise exposing the internals of her weapon, using a pair of dextrous hands to ensure all the delicate components were properly aligned. I cracked a thin grin and kept my gaze on her as I continued working, taking apart the firing assembly and and breaking out my trusty cleaning kit. In the meantime, she quickened her actions to catch up, tapping the side of a talon against the internals to ensure they stayed in place. My grin only grew as I too picked up the pace. The clicking, clanging, plucking, and plinking went on for a few frenzied minutes. Then we pieced our weapons back together, and the snapping of my cleaning kit’s lid and the metallic shink of her plasma rifle closing up rang as one.
I cocked my head momentarily, maintaining my grin as I slipped my cleaning kit away and reloaded my magazine. She stared at me for a few seconds before similarly cocking her head and nocking the biomass cell into place.
“Not a fan of MEW’s, but I admire the simplicity of maintenance for that one,” I said.
The griffiness merely huffed in response.
Slinging my shotgun away and standing up, I strode over to the ‘partition’ she set up and extended an icy arm to my side. “My name is Frostbane Hokkaido Windchill,” I started in the traditional griffin greeting, “but I wished to be called Frost. I hail from Manehattan of the Equestrian Heartland.”
The griffiness stared at me for a good few seconds. She didn’t get up from her position, leaned against the wall. “You can call me Scar.” She stood up and advanced toward me, still clutching her rifle. “And don’t think that just because we had a little competition that we’re buddy-buddy. I will never forget what Equestria did to Aldorna, Lunar Guard.”
By the time she was done advancing, her face hovered only a few centimeters away from mine. I didn’t flinch, and I kept my head level with hers. I made eye contact as best I could past the optics of her helmet. Inhaling softly, I said, “I don’t blame you. I know full well what Aldorna suffered as a result of Equestrian and Zebrican aggression and interests. I know I don’t have the right to apologize for them, but for what it’s worth… I’m sorry for what happened, and I regret that it happened.”
Scar turned away, heading back for her wall and slinging her rifle as I spoke- with a scowl no doubt. When I finished, she paused and rounded on me, tweaking the lock on the back of her neck. The optics winked out, and the mechanized parted and retracted into her armor to reveal her face. Only patches of dark-brown feathers remained on her balefire-seared face, and her eyes were the characteristic near-featureless milky-white color of ghoulkind.
“You know?” She challenged, eyes aflame. Like white fire. Like hellfire. “You think you know how much pain you caused Aldorna when you and Zebrica dragged us into a war that tore our people apart? Did you see a family get torn asunder, all over who supported Equestria, who supported Zebrica, and who wanted to stay loyal to the Motherland? How many friends, how many sisters and brothers did you have to disavow to save those on your side? Did you have to make that choice? Did you see the family you could have had die? Were you there to watch your city burn? Look at you! Look at me! You don’t bear the scars of that war, you aren’t reminded of all of that each time you see your reflection, and you have the gall to say that you know full well what the Land of our Mother suffered because you lost sight of the values that made all of our civilizations great to begin with! Honesty? Kindness? Laughter, generosity, loyalty? Magic? Look how well you upheld those values! Don’t you talk to me about what you know, pony.” She spat to the floor. “You know nothing.”
She jabbed a talon against my chestplate with her last words and then stormed back to her wall. I don’t think she knew just how deep those jabs went.
“Why did I have to be stuck in here with you of all people?” Scar scathed.
I watched her for a few seconds, watching her clench her first and squirm her talons in rage. “Why did you help me in?”
“Because dammit, we need you alive!” Scar roared at me, hissing through her nostrils. “You’re no use to us with a concussion on some beam or shit. So there. If I never saw another pony or zebra again...” She exhaled deeply, “that time won’t come soon enough.”
We stood like that for… who knows how long. Me, standing there, watching her. Scar, leaning against the rain-washed window, eager to be freed from this torment. Staring outside with those eyes. Eyes full of hate.
I knew that look all too well.
I waited a good long time to let her fury simmer down. Then I said, “You know we’re going to be stuck in here for the unforeseeable future.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Are you going to spend the whole time staring out that window?”
Eyes on me. “If you want to say something, then say it. Don’t beat around the bush.”
I inhaled deeply and let it out mistily. “Aldorna will… Aldorna will always be one of my deepest regrets. I’ve been there so many times before the War. I’ve been to Avalon, I’ve been to Nanagust, been all over. I’ve met so many incredible people. I was an equinpologist and a historian before all this, and Aldorna was the first foreign country I visited. I’ve experienced the wonder and greatness of the griffin people... and I played a part in leading to the downfall of the Republic. Aldorna will always be one of my deepest regrets. I can’t deny that the griffin people and the Motherland were wronged. And it’s my hope that I can make things right again. One step at a time. One life at a time. We can get it back.”
Scar huffed softly. “Spoken like a damn Equestrian Parliament politician.” She grimaced at me harshly. “But I don’t often meet a pony who doesn’t deny those atrocities.” The griffiness ghoul let out a sigh as she strode over and sat down against the wall close to our little ‘partition,’ still looking at the rain-washed window. She thunked her head against the wall and blew out a deep breath. “Fine. What did you want to talk about?”
I trotted over to sit down beside her, just across the imaginary line. “Like I said, I’m a historian and equinpologist. I’ve read, listened, and watched many stories unfold.You look like you have one to tell.”
Scar huffed, “What, you want my life’s story?”
“You said I know nothing about what Aldorna suffered,” I said. “I’d like to change that, especially with how little… anyone in Equestria, really, knows about the Enclave occupation of Aldor-”
She cut me off and pointed a talon at me. “Do not call it an occupation,” she growled. “It was the rape of our Motherland.”
I watched her closely, maintaining my expression. “I won’t. I mean no offense- I just wish to learn. Why not?”
“Occupation,” she spat angrily, “implies that they just arrived, that we just allowed them to come in without putting up a fight, and they just occupied space. No. No! They invaded and violated our land, our seas, our skies! We fought back long and hard against them, and they crushed us, subjugated us, and herded us up like cattle for slaughter, for labor, or for sick experimentation like they did Iaida! They tried to steal our lives, our land, our culture, our society, our future! It. Was. A. Rape. Call it an invasion. Call it a resource war. But don’t you ever call it a godsdamn occupation!”
I nodded slowly, doing my best to remain respectful. “Alright. Thank you. Scar, would you feel comfortable talking more about this? About yourself?”
She let out a sigh, hissing through her nostrils. “This feels like a godsdamn interview. The last interview I had was like… I don’t know, I stopped counting the years. How long ago was The End?”
“... of The Great War you mean?” I inquired.
“Of the world, but sure.”
“One-hundred-sixty years ago,” I said.
“One-hundred-sixty-six years ago then,” Scar grunted, then sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t know if I want to tell you this story, Lunar Guard. You could die on this operation. I could die. We could both die. What would the point be? You just need to know what we need to know to deal with what’s in front of us, and that’s killing some damn Enclave fools and shutting down the CYA.”
I nodded lightly. “I’m a Northerner, you know. I think you’ve lived long enough to know what that means.”
Scar looked at me and asked, “So you think we’re going to be nearly wiped out or something?”
“I’m just saying that you can never truly die if someone knows your story,” I said. “At the first Northern Lights Festival, we were told that forgetting the stories of those who died during the Great Exodus would be the same as killing all those millions a second time. The Enclave almost wiped out the griffin way of life, Scar. I don’t want to give them a second chance.
“Plus,” I added, “we’ve got at least a good few hours to kill, and as fun as field-stripping contests are, we only have two guns.”
Scar huffed, this time cracking a thin smile at that. Her smile faded as she stared out into the storm for a good long time.
“It’s up to you, Scar,” I said. “Your ship, your rules.”
She huffed softly and then let out a sigh. “I can’t believe I’m about to do this for a fucking pony.” Scar tilted her head up at the ceiling and closed her eyes.
Then she began.
And now this, Griseis, is where I begin.
This is the story of The Partisan.
Melt away.
* * *
Soundtrack- Her Name Was Scar
Author's Note
Here's hoping you like where I'm taking the story so far. Again, my thanks to my pre-readers, Lazer726 and Sideband, and to you for reading.
Until next time,
Adder1
