An Old World, A New Regime

Chapter 2: Double the Action

"A slow rot... it is said that under the guise of peace, the government - no, the entire world - becomes corrupt, little by little. Peace breeds complacency and ultimately leads to decadence. But if struggle is a part of daily life, then people will never fall into that trap." -- Lamia Loveless, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation 2

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Swift "Aile" Striker wasn't your everyday Royal Guard pony.

Equestria was largely a peaceful realm. It had been that way for a thousand years, and according to everyone's beliefs, it would stay that way.

Aile thought differently. And lo and behold, he was being proven all sorts of right.

He couldn't voice these thoughts, as they amounted to treason and would get him fast-tracked to border patrol - or worse, out of the Guard in general - but to put it simply, Aile knew that there had to be reasons why the nation's peace was able to be held for so long. Especially when history proved that conflicts tore apart other nations while Equestria did nothing. And when history didn't prove such because - for some reason - that history was 'lost,' Aile found a very suspicious consistency in all of the dead ends he was led into. Even more suspicious was the fact that when he tried to go around them to get information from elsewhere - like, say, the Crystal Empire's ancient and uncensored libraries - his commanding officers never gave him the required leave, which resulted in the welcome side-effect of building up his vacation days.

What he did know was that Equestria was an isolationist nation, kept alive and afloat because Princess Celestia did anything and everything in her power to keep Equestria safe. This included going through and manipulating backdoor channels in order to keep the peace. She was the velvet glove to her sister's iron fist, and the 'fingers' of that glove were wormed in practically everywhere. It was the only possible explanation that made sense - Princess of the Sun or not, regardless of that immense amount of power, there simply wasn't enough of that power to conceivably rule an entire nation and keep it so peaceful for so long a time period.

And then the series of 'coincidences' that just so happened to result in the Elements of Harmony saving her sister? The only prophecy given was the return of the younger sister in a thousand years, and the only mare - Celestia's personal student, no less! - who made the connection to what Celestia already knew, was sent to the town that just so happened to be in walking distance of the old castle? How curious was it that Ponyville, a quite recently founded settlement, was the place where Nightmare Moon first returned? Where Twilight Sparkle made the first six true friends in her life, as opposed to the friends she could've made in Canterlot had Celestia pulled Twilight out of her books sooner?

Heh, funny joke, that. Making 'friends' in Canterlot. Aile could at least let that one slide.

Aile didn't believe that Celestia was a tyrant. She was a pleasant, benevolent ruler. It was only her methods that grated, her machinations and planning that went way over everyone's heads, his included. He and his fraternal twin sister, Swift "Vent" Impulse, were a part of one of those 'fingers' as - in the face of the growing number of threats and the sheer incompetence of the guard in comparison, Luna had decided that they needed an equalizing factor.

Like Aile, Luna knew the world was different. Like Aile, she also knew that it was fault of her sister. And, like Aile, Luna didn't dare bring it up, because Celestia probably did all of this peace-mongering in response to Nightmare Moon. Luna suspected that Celestia wanted to give her sister a home to return to, not too unlike the one present a thousand years ago. Aile knew deep down, in the same perceptive mentality that kept him from all sorts of higher ranks in the Guard, that such a prolonged peace resulted in stagnation. It was this lack of development which pointed to the facts that A.) Celestia continued to play neutral isolationist, in an effort to avoid a war Equestria wouldn't win, and B.) the isolationist doctrines kept the ponies far behind the times, so ancient in their ways that by Celestia keeping Equestria safe from everything that could be a threat, everything could now be a threat. And both of those points resulted in a single conclusion: Celestia couldn't start openly trying to catch up to correct this pitiful deficiency, not without other nations suddenly realizing that they should have invaded Equestria a long time ago, and thus causing a war anyway.

Currently, this meant that Aile and Vent were both part of a project meant to test out the concept of 'modular powered armor.' One of the things Luna was very familiar with was combat, and a method similar Celestia's 'fingers,' this allowed for the creation of several 'Black Projects' that no one was allowed to know about. Luna commissioned them in order to do things behind closed doors, things that Celestia Mc.Peacenik wouldn't be very happy about if she found out. Due to all of those fingers, she found out about quite a few anyway - or at least, the fingers Luna allowed her sister to find, which were either willingly disbanded 'cause Luna knew they wouldn't work, or were covers absorbed by Celestia's influence to hide the real projects.

The operative theory in the case of Aile and Vent's project was this: armor itself was a weapon, so if you had a baseline armor design and swapped out the parts that acted as weapons, you could adapt to any conceivable situation that arose. What neither of them knew was the fact this basically meant the pair were massive parodies of Gundam SEED. At least neither of them were Coordinators or Extended, though the option of genetic manipulation had been proposed... and then shot down by Celestia, vehemently. While the Sun Princess could support the creation of new weapons in order to put ponies on a level playing field with the other nations, she did so under the thought processes that ponies wielding weapons were instead wielding tools to protect the nation and the ones they loved. She would not allow her little ponies to become weapons themselves.

The closest 'level playing field' at this point was 'getting ponies on par with Pokémon,' however. Kinda hard to do when they're already living weapons by default. That and the whole '

Right now, Aile was adjusting the mechanical connectors attaching the red wingblades of his Striker Pack to the shiny white under-armor, muttering quiet obscenities over the lack of the power source needed to make this sort of thing automatic. 'Why, with the right crystal, you could fight in my armor for weeks!' the project leader had told him. 'Sadly we don't have one capable of that yet, but soon I'll be able to go to the Crystal Empire! Surely they have something we could use.'

Those were the last words Aile heard from 'Giro,' before the Pokémon came, Sombra returned, and the project group got a missive from Cadence herself, apologizing for the loss of his life. No one knew his real name, much less the name of any kin, as that was part of the project's parameters: secrecy. The end result was the fact his loss hit the team hard, the pegasus siblings crying for days. Giro was like the father they never had, and he lost his life in trying to be the good guy. Nice guys finished last, and naturally someone with good karma was the easiest target for a great evil like Sombra. A common pony, his life no different than any other, struck down simply because he was there.

Because all of his life, all he ever did was to make others better, even at the cost of his self.

That was what Aile and Vent swore to do in his name, and that's why they were currently decked out in their respective armor sets, designed by his hoof. Both pegasi, both ready and willing to launch themselves into the fray at a moment's notice. The problem lied in the fact that there was no fray to be had, as their mission right now was to discover the origin of a 'disturbance in the force.' Luna had sent them out with a squadron of reserve guards, as the rest were off dealing with some sort of massive conflict that they didn't have the clearance to know about. Apparently, in comparison, this disturbance in the fabric of spacetime was a small annoyance. 'Small potatoes,' in the words of their mission dispatcher.

It would probably fix itself anyway, or maybe one of Arceus' kids would take it upon themselves to actually... y'know, do their jobs. They had gotten complacent, and as such a lot of the untapped potential was currently sitting around unused.

Personally, Aile thought that was a good thing. While he wanted a change in the status quo, he didn't want the delicate balance of the world to be upset any further - he was naive in just what he thought that meant, but his theories so far had all been proven true. Follow his instincts, his combat professor had taught him, and that's what Aile did. That, and it just made more sense for Equestrian ponies to deal with problems in the Equestrian world. With the Pokémon here causing problems, Pokémon trying to fix those problems might very well end up causing more problems.

Aile and Vent had swiftly arrived in the area of the Everfree Luna had directed them to, and even they knew that something was amiss. Something was wrong, something was sincerely out of place. Of course no one who could easily solve this issue seemed to have the time to deal with whatever it was, otherwise there wouldn't be a feeling of unease trickling down the spines of the siblings and their squads, as the problem would've already been dealt with.

And they were all pissed off as a result. The whole lot of them had recently been startled into combat readiness by the sight of a pink Gardevoir holding tightly to what they assumed was someone very important to her, as upon sight they had witnessed the pair nigh immediately teleporting away. Something didn't seem right about whatever it was that 'voir was kneeling over, though, and the logical conclusion was that it was related to whatever this... discordant feeling in the air was.

"Let's split up," the voice of Mu La Flaga eventually said. He's the man that can make the impossible possible, and since Aile was as far from the sissy-but-overpowered 'Jesus Yamato' as you could get, the pilot of the Aile Strike after Kira got the Freedom seemed like a good fit.

"You sure about this?" The voice of Ashe from Megaman ZX Advent replied. Pegasi were natural Hunters, after all. "We're all feeling the same thing. Something's not right."

"Which means we need to cover as much ground as possible, as quickly as possible. The best way for us to actually do that is to split up. The sooner we find whatever it is that's causing this, the sooner we can leave and get back to safety."

"Given all the Pokémon everywhere," One of the grunts in the back piped up, "You might need to redefine 'safety.'"

"Shut up, Jenkins!" Came the reply from literally everyone within earshot.

"Your group goes left, mine goes right?" Aile suggested, completely ignoring the exchange.

"Red right returning," Vent agreed, "And the terrain looks flatter over here, so I'll be that much better better off when whatever this thing is eventually shows its face."

Vent always did have a problem with thinking three-dimensionally, so giving her the chance to fight somewhere flat and open made perfect sense to Aile. "Right," he affirmed.

"No, Left," she joked in reply. But at that point they had already started moving.

(--Ω--)

When the human next awoke, he had trouble realizing he had. It was dark, so dark as to rob him completely of vision when he opened his eyes. What really gave away the fact he wasn't sleeping was 'alien' japanese muttering, in a voice that could only belong to a certain Zoroark. While the human had managed to avoid being captured, he was still trained in what to do if he was, and as such Jonah already knew that he was currently blindfolded.

He also knew that he wasn't captured, as he was free to shift around, and a paw was gently rubbing his shoulder. "Michio?" The human coughed. O-ho-ly shit, that hurt.

"Shh. You're going to be okay, Jonah." The rubs became just a little more firm, as if the 'rark was trying to convince himself more than his Trainer.

"What the fuck happened?" Jonah tried to sit up, but the 'rark's paws carefully held him down. Not that he could move much anyway with the sudden agonizing pain lancing through every part of his body.

"That's what I'm trying to find out," came another voice. This one was new, foreign, and it immediately set the Trainer on edge.

"Who-" More coughing robbed him of any chance to voice the question, and Jonah had to relax, all of the energy suddenly leaving and rendering him exhausted. "Right in the diaphragm..." It was the deep sort of coughing you only got when something was in your windpipe that shouldn't be, and your body had to try very violently to get it out.

"I'm Doctor Hemlock. Field surgeon, or at least I used to be. Technically my license isn't any good here." Approximately three years ago from Jonah's perspective

But there were all sorts of medical professions in the old world now, and considering Jonah had no idea he wasn't in a new world yet, the idea of getting treated by a field medic was both a very welcome one - easily trusted, since Michio wasn't already trying to punch the Doctor's face in - and a little disconcerting, for what reason would a field surgeon have that required a blindfold? "...You're not operating on me right now, are you?"

"Oh no!" The doctor quickly reassured. "No, I'm just trying to get a diagnosis of what happened to you. Scared the bajeezus out of me, with you and your Gardevoir literally dropping right into my lap. Scared my team too, or what members I've found so far anyway."

"Jonah," Michio slowly began, "You're not going to like this."

"I'm already not liking it," the human groused. "Can you take off my blindfold?"

"" came the telepathic voice of the nearby Gardevoir. ""

The human just kinda... laid there for a few moments. Literally, his mind completely ground to a halt as he tried to process the sheer ridiculousness of that statement. Oh no, he knew it could be done, but then why was Ring being out and calm too? "Blindfold, off. Now."

Michio complied, and the human found himself blinking his eyes clear to see the night sky in all its glory. It was, of course, an alien night sky, something his mind noticed right off the get-go. And standing before him was a Dragonite decked out in a much-too-small doctor's vest, ripped but repaired into something still reasonably recognizable. It went well with the stereotypical stethoscope, and combined with the dragon's soft demeanor... well, the human couldn't find any fault with the doctor's presence nor his current predicament. You just couldn't fake a concerned face like that.

"What happened to you?" The Dragonite said in concise english. It was hard, due to his vocal chords being different from a human's, but with enough practice learning to speak it was relatively easy... especially when you knew enough about them to operate on them, if need be.

"I could ask you the same question," Jonah muttered.

"Apparently, Arceus brought all of the Pokémon and the humans he deemed worthy to this new world of Equestria, turning the humans into Pokémon in the process. That was quite some time ago, about three weeks give or take."

There was a pregnant pause, the disbelief tangible in the air. Mentally, the Trainer asked, <...he's not lying, is he?>

"" Ring sighed. ""

"Oh no, it makes perfect sense," Jonah groaned. "Just fucking perfect. Fucking great. Fuck this shit, I swear to fuckin-" The rest of his tirade was muffled by the Zoroark's paw.

"What's so hard to believe?" Doc Hemlock asked, complete with an instinctive head tilt he had even before the whole turned-into-a-Pokémon thing.

In reply, Michio simply removed one of the Trainer's Pokéballs and released his Sandslash. The doctor glanced over, and had to do a double-take as his expression became a look of utter horror. "What happened!?"

"We've been fighting in a war for three years," the Dark-type intoned, watching as the dragon swiftly unpacked nigh every single medical supply he had. "When Arceus took all the good humans and Pokémon away, you can imagine what happened to the world left behind. All the Teams - Rocket, Cipher, Plasma, and Galactic - united and took over basically everything."

"Wh-what about Creatures Incorporated?" The field surgeon asked, his tone skeptical as well as slightly distracted.

"Dead within the first six months." What you might not understand is that the ancestral home to all of the Legendaries is Japan. It was there that the Pokémon first settled and then spread from. Japan is only a small island nation, however, part of a much larger planet home to humans, Pokémon, and the animals that fell under neither category. The further away from Japan you got, the less frequent Pokémon were, until you got to somewhere like Madagascar which was inhabited entirely by these lemurs that liked to move it, move it. Or at least, that was the theory, as no one had actually been there and returned to tell such a tale.

Creatures Inc. was a global corporation that acted as the background framework for all the Pokémon world's governments, like a privatized version of the United Nations. The people at the UN made the rules, and Creatures Inc. disseminated those rules to the masses in addition to the policies concerning Pokémon. Naturally, the main bases of Creatures Inc. were also in Japan. "When all of the Teams united," Michio continued, "it was there that the attacks were focused on first. With all of the good humans and Pokémon suddenly gone, it didn't take long at all for all of the infrastructure to get wrapped up in the iron GRiP of the conglomerate of 'bad guys' left behind."

"" Which made sense, as bad guys squabbling would easily result in such a massive rift. ""

"B-but Holon is just a myth!" The Dragonite retorted, almost dropping his scalpel. Not that he did, though, and luckily enough the motion didn't hurt the Sandslash any.

"It's not," Jonah muttered. "I was there. Called there because, being one of the only good humans left behind that qualified for Champion status, I was the only one capable of being named a commander. I got control over the entirety of the remnants of both the Hoenn and Sinnoh leagues due to my twin sets of badges... which equated to only a couple hundred people." And a couple hundred thousand Pokémon, by the time Jonah had left Holon for Spear Pillar.

At this point, Doc Hemlock had to stop, his eyes wide and his gaze distant at the implications. He knew, deep down, that there was no way any of them could make this up: it was too realistic, made too much sense, and was too detailed to be a hoax nevermind the fact it was being told by three completely different people acting in concert. "H-how...?"

"" Ring telepathed. Her voice was still calm, but there was an undercurrent of steely rage that was felt more than heard. ""