Terminal Leave

Foam. Foam. Chuck was looking for Foam. The brown pony had been very specific about the name, and it stuck in the man's head as he drove north along 485.

The PER headquarters that Joan used to operate out of was in a mall about ten miles north of Charlotte. Chuck had never been there before, so he didn't know what kind of security the place had, but he figured it couldn't be too tight. Charlotte had given up the ghost, and it was no longer the front lines. Only the Railroad and the more zealous HLF crazies would be operating within this area, and neither of them had any cause to be interested in Chuck. Even the PER would be looking to move their personnel and stock further west, so now really was the best time to get in some petty larceny.

It was a nice, breezy day, and Chuck had wanted to bicycle, but the brown pony had told him to hurry, so he'd stolen some dead-or-converted soul's car instead. That's right. The pony had said others were after his quarry too. Just how many people had this Rockheart guy pissed off? Chuck shook his head clear. Didn't matter. He had to get to him first, and that was all there was to it. If he denied someone else their revenge, well, they could take it up with him. Smack him around a bit, even kill him if that's what it took to give them satisfaction.

He'd already decided he didn't care what happened to himself. He'd do Confucious proud and gladly dig two graves, just as long as the one next to his got filled first. The idea of living out the rest of his life without Joan didn't seem all that appealing  anyway.

Chuck stopped the car a half-mile from the mall. He knew better than to drive straight up to the food-court entrance and park at the curb. The PER was the PER, after all, and they'd slather him in potion on sight. Hell, the only reason Joan could be convinced not to do it herself was because of Chuck's job as a pharmacy tech. Lots of people, even pony-friendly ones, weren't exactly comfortable getting their medications from a pony, and funny enough it was because of fear of PER infiltration, doling out the perfect drug, the cure-all, the last word in pharmaceuticals. Joan had gotten excited—visibly excited, at times, thanks to her wings—at the idea of pushing potion through Chuck, but he'd been adamantly opposed to that. He was an honest man, and had wanted no part in underhanded tactics like those.

He smirked mirthlessly as he crept towards a PER stronghold to swipe tainted potion in order to pursue his agenda of vengeance. The irony was not lost on him.

The parking lot was open ground, so Chuck stopped in the landscaped shrubbery separating the mall from the highway. He couldn't see any watch posted on the roof or at the doors. No pegasi in the sky, either. Either the PER was even more lax than he'd thought or they'd already moved on. He hoped it was the former. Chuck's inner tactician told him it would be prudent to wait for nightfall, but the pony had said to hurry. It looked clear enough, anyway.

The approach across the lot to the mall's entrance was nerve-wracking. He was completely without cover, so if he got spotted here, there wasn't much he could do to prevent getting ponified on the spot. As Chuck made a beeline for the nearest wall, he idly wondered what would happen if he did get ponified the wrong way. He'd probably just wind up some blissfully dopey farmhand somewhere, content to weave straw hats and chew on carrots for the rest of his days while his wife's killer got his comeuppance from someone else. Or, at the very worst,  Rockheart would simply be left unharmed, left to laugh about how he'd been able to get off scot-free.

Laughing at Chuck, laughing at his wife, laughing forever.

The man took a moment when he reached the wall to flatten himself against it and calm down. He'd worked up his anger again, and that was dangerous. He had to focus right now. There would be time for anger later.

He kept himself pinned to the wall as he scooted along to the nearest entrance, a Kohl's on the south side of the mall. If lookouts did take to the roof, he'd only be spotted if they looked straight down. As for pegasi, well, there wasn't much he could do about pegasi.

Once he'd reached the doors, he peered through the clear glass and saw nobody moving inside. He gently tested the door. It was locked. He flicked his eyes up. The next entrance down was the food court. If anything was open, it'd be that.

Chuck moved along, growing impatient. He stuck to the wall, even when walking through the planters and flowerbeds that buffered the wall from the sidewalk. He arrived at the doors to the food court in short order, just as his heart was starting to pound from the tension.

Checking again with a peek to make sure no PER were immediately on the other side of the glass doors, he tested the handle and found that it was unlocked. Chuck moved into the mall and mantled over the counter of the nearest eatery. Walking through the customer area of the mall was a bad idea until he at least figured out where the PER had concentrated their presence. Besides, the place stank of rotting food.

The man left through the back of the eatery and found himself in the employee corridors that connected to all of the stores' back rooms. The air was stale, and since it lacked the huge skylights of the mall proper, it was only lit by emergency lamps whose light was growing orange and weak from the extended power outage. Chuck headed for the far end of the mall where he could then survey as much of the open area as possible while minimizing the risk of being spotted.

One the way there, however, he caught a snatch of conversation coming through one of the doors that led out to a storefront. Chuck stopped and put his ear to the door, but it was still too muffled. He very carefully turned the knob as far as it would go, pulled the door open a few inches, then slowly returned the knob to its neutral position. He moved to the crack in the door and peered through.

All he could see was the back of a counter, but beyond it in the dimness were racks of clothing that had been picked over by looters. He could hear better, though, and that was what mattered to him.

A female voice, young and fretful: "—got caught up by the HLF. There's no other reason for it to be late."

Another female, this one slightly older-sounding: "It's a human driving and the truck is empty. The HLF'll have no reason to keep him."

"Oh yeah? How many humans do they think should be driving an empty tractor-trailer towards the Barrier?"

"Look, there isn't much we can do from here one way or the other, Sprightly. If worse comes to worst, we'll just have to move west without the potion."

"If we keep waiting here, we're not gonna have much food for a trip."

"Fancy Free is thinking that if we split up into groups of three from here, we could hitch rides with Railroad teams returning from the Barrier. That would get us at least to some Bureaus. There's no way they'd let ponies go hungry. From there we could reconvene at the rendezvous point in Atlanta."

The younger voice giggled quietly. "Could you imagine tagging an entire Railroad team? You could never conceal that much potion in your stuff, but still!"

The older voice chuckled. "If anypony could do it, it'd be Fancy Free." Her voice then lost its mirth. "But seriously, don't try it, Sprightly. They may not be anti-pony like the HLF, but they can get pretty fierce about staying human."

Sprightly sounded bored. "Yeah, yeah, I know."

Chuck knew too.

He waited for the conversation to stop before slinking into the store and craning his neck to look over the counter that was concealing him. The two ponies had walked off, or at the very least weren't within line of sight of the store anymore. He silently moved out to the entrance to the store, getting a glimpse of the mall's open interior. The clopping of a few sets of hooves on the hard floor could be heard. Two were occluded, suggesting they were on the floor below, but another set was clear and quite close. It was probably either Sprightly or the older pony she'd been speaking with.

Chuck leaned out from the store entrance just a little to spot the nearby pony. It was a silvery-blue pegasus mare with a dark navy-blue mane, and she was moving away from him. Good. Chuck risked a sneak out into the main mall area to look over the railing and down at the ground floor.

The PER had pushed several of those annoying mid-mall kiosks out of the way to make room for a massive ammunition-dump of metal mermites stacked in a pyramid and painted an inappropriately festive purple color. One of the mermites had a broad yellow-and-black hazard stripe running around its center and over its top. Bingo. They'd marked the Foam to keep their members from inadvertently taking any out on operations.

Chuck scanned the area surrounding the large stash of potion containers. Ponies of various colors and types were milling around further down the promenade, near the atrium's inactive fountain. The nearest escalators were down by the fountain area, and that place was crawling with ponies. Chuck looked down the mall in the other direction and saw more ponies sitting idle between the next set of escalators and the stash. He realized was actually already as close to the potion as he could get without being spotted.

Well, there was nothing for it, he quickly decided. Chuck sucked in a deep breath, let it out, stood up, put his hands on the railing, and vaulted over to fall to the ground floor, landing on his feet.

Both legs broke immediately, the pain so bad that Chuck's vision blanked out for a moment as his remaining momentum caused him to slam down, coming to rest on his side and dislocating his left shoulder. The noise of the impact echoed through the empty mall, alerting nearly every pony within.

As his eyes struggled to remember how to see, Chuck heard laughter in his mind. Mocking laughter. That one's laughter. His legs alternated between a dull pressure-pain and an intense stabbing-pain in time with his heartbeat. He could only feel the faintest pins-and-needles sensation in his left arm. As light registered with his mind again, color followed, then sharpness. He had landed right next to the mountain of potion, the container of Foam nearly within arm's reach.

As he pulled himself up to a sitting position, he heard a dozen sets of hooves stampeding towards him, accompanied by inarticulate shouts from many adorable voices. His only focus was the hazard-striped mermite, however. The expanding pool of blood under his legs helped him to slide himself the remaining distance to the pile, and he reached up for the Foam mermite, sitting there halfway up the pyramid.

As his hands closed around the handle, something warm and wet hit him on the neck. Chuck pulled down hard on the mermite, sending the pyramid of stacked containers landsliding down over him, blocking even the washed-out sunlight from above.

Chuck felt his grip on consciousness fading, being replaced by a soothing comfort, an unseen mother singing him a lullaby. His legs no longer hurt. This was bad. He had to move fast.

His hand was still on the Foam, so he felt up the side of the container and found the latch, flicking it open with his thumb. He heaved up, throwing the lid back and causing the pile of mermites above him to shift violently. His ears barely registered excited, outraged chatter from all around him, as well as the scrape of containers being moved from his temporary cocoon of safety. He dipped his hand into the Foam and was rewarded with more viscous warmth seeping into his arm. He wasn't done yet, though. It was now a race; their potion had the head start, so he had to give his potion the inside track.

His vision was graying, and his neck was now too relaxed to hold his head up. With his last bits of muscle coordination, Chuck cupped his hand and pulled it out of the container and back to his mouth. He slurped up all of the Foam that he could, the whole handful of it, then licked his hand as clean as he could, getting in a couple of final swallows. He had no idea if it would be enough for the Foam to win out.

His last thought before passing out from sedation was the hope that Joan had been right about the PER not killing anybody.

*          *          *

"Tia, we have a problem."

Celestia looked up from her stack of decrees to see Luna standing at her doorway. She gave her sister a smile. "You know, Luna, if you came to visit me when we didn't have problems, these announcements might bear a bit more surprise!"

Princess Luna walked in, passing Celestia and heading straight for the window. She nosed past the translucent silk drapes and looked at her own beautiful starlit sky. "The night before those three showed up at court, somepony slipped a note through the door of my study telling me they would be there, who they were after, and that they were improperly converted."

Celestia's eyes widened and she stood up. "Truly? Do you know who wrote it?"

Luna shook her head. "T'was only signed 'a friend.' There was more, however. The note went on to say that there is an improperly-converted spy in the Night Watch assigned to keep tabs on how we handle the Rockheart situation." Her ears drooped. "It even gave his name."

The Goddess of the Sun frowned. "The first part was to give the note credence, then," she said. "Have you already apprehended and questioned this allegèd spy?"

"Apprehended, but not yet questioned," said Luna, almost to herself. "I wanted to wait until you knew before I proceeded further." The Goddess of the Moon turned to face her sister, on the verge of tears. "Tia... I hoof-pick my Night Watch... all of them... this spy—if he is a spy—passed right under my nose and I never suspected anything!"

Celestia came to her sister's side and rested her head cheek-to-cheek with Luna. "We must be careful, Luna," she said quietly. "We cannot know for certain if this 'friend' truly is a double agent or if they mean to manipulate us. He or she had to know we would act on the note once the three... let us call them 'transformed'... ponies confirmed what it said through their actions."

Luna steeled herself a bit. Yes. Transformed. Those three soldiers, they hadn't been converted. They were still humans, just in pony bodies, and who knew how many had come through the Barrier just like them? It had to be dealt with.

Celestia continued. "I have a newfoal expert on human law coming in from Fillydelphia to help with the investigation. With our visitors off on their Equestrian holiday, we can determine if there is a case against our guardspony."

Luna looked up into her big sister's eyes. "And if there is, Tia? Will you give him up then?"

"If there is," said Celestia, looking somewhere far away, "then we can only hope their time in Equestria has softened their hearts and opened them up to mercy."

Luna cast her eyes to the floor. "I see," she said. "What about Rockheart in the meantime?"

"I had considered adjusting his duty or placing him under protection," said Celestia, "but, if there are spies about, we couldn't know if we were delivering him straight into the wrong hooves. For now, it would be best that he remains amongst longtime friends and comrades and that he is not aware of all of this mess. I dislike keeping him in the dark, but we cannot make it too obvious that we are reacting to the note."

"We have one advantage, however," said Luna quietly. Celestia's ears perked in her direction.

Luna looked up with a slim smile. "It has been over a thousand years since I last had to interrogate a pony, so there is no way any human spy could know what to expect."

"I'll be there too," said Celestia quickly.

Luna feigned shock. "Why, sister! You still think me capable of harming anypony? He could be innocent, after all!"

"Of course," said Celestia with a small smile of her own. "I just want to see how the master does it."

*          *          *

Rockheart flopped down on his barracks bed. The brown earth-pony groaned softly and let his eyes roll back in his head.

"Rough night?" asked his buddy Jinx Breaker with a grin from the bed next to him. Like Rockheart—and all of the other ponies of the Palace Watch—Jinx Breaker had the uniform brown coat and dark-brown mane. To the lay observer it was extremely difficult to tell one guardspony apart from another, as the armor was very carefully designed to conceal cutie marks when worn.

"Cherry Pie... tiramisu... peach wine... no money left," grunted the earth-pony.

Jinx snickered. "No money left? So were you naming the dishes you had tonight, or the mares?" he joked.

Rockheart scowled at him. "Ha ha," he deadpanned. He would have thrown his pillow at his friend if he thought he'd get it back. "Cherry Pie's the only one for me. Once I get in next month's salary, I'm gonna get an anklet and pop the question, I think."

"Boooo!" intoned Jinx. "Man, if you get hitched, then that means you'll have to move out of the barracks and I won't have anypony to torment!"

"That's right, Jinx, it's aaallllll about you," said Rockheart, trying to hide his smile.

"Darn tootin'."

Rockheart couldn't help but chuckle. Jinx Breaker didn't have it in him to say "damn straight;" he'd told Rockheart when they first met that he was from Appleloosa, and folk out that way minded their Ps and Qs even more than the snobs in Canterlot did.

The young stallion closed his eyes and pictured Cherry Pie, sitting there outside the confectionery place he had just come from—a place that had just been a wee bit too expensive for his guardspony pay. A dollop of cream fell onto her hoof, and she gave him a sultry look as she licked it off...

"Hey, I hear Sergeant Wheatgrass is gonna be away for two weeks to train new recruits!" piped up Jinx.

Suddenly, in Rockheart's mind's eye, the pretty red mare who worked as a candy-striper at the hospital turned into the burly, square-jawed brown stallion who berated him daily for not policing that mane. Even worse, he was still licking cream off of his hoof with the same come-hither gaze that Cherry Pie had had. The hapless guardspony grunted. He couldn't escape the gruff taskmaster of the south wing, even in his fantasies. Of course, his friend hadn't been much help either.

"Ugh. How do you do that, Jinx?" he asked with a sigh.

"It's my special talent, bro!" Jinx snickered, holding a hoof up to his mouth to hide his yawn before laying back down again. "And here I thought newfoals would be tough to mess with."

Rockheart was too tired to banter further. He let out one last, long sigh and closed his eyes.

*          *          *

"Well howdy, major! I'm Applejack! Welcome t'Sweet Apple Acres!"

York almost lost a foreleg in the hoofshake that followed. He cast a furtive look over his shoulder and mourned the passing of the royal chariot as it disappeared into the night sky. He looked back at his hostess.

Applejack was an orange earth-pony with a blond mane and a notched-brim hat that looked much like the Stetson style from back on Earth. She even had strange small marks of color on her face's coat that approximated the look of freckles. She was wearing possibly the friendliest-looking expression he'd ever seen.

"Thanks, for, uh... for having me," he managed to get out before Applejack mercifully released his hoof.

"Now I know there's some kinda big important-type business that yer bosses back on Earth've put y'all up to, but the princesses have put it t'me and mine t'make sure you get a snootful of good honest Equestrian livin' while yer here, and I'll be bucked if'n that ain't exactly what I'm gonna do!"

This mare certainly was enthusiastic about having a guest. York summoned his best diplomacy. "Er, well, that's quite nice of you, Miss Applejack, but I'd really just be fine if I could focus on what I have comi—"

"First things first, though: we'll get some grub in yer belly and then getcha settled in. We can suss out the chores tomorrow!"

Major York blinked. "Wait... chores?"

*          *          *

Staff Sergeant Fells gazed up at the quaint wooden sign swinging in the cool nighttime Canterlot breeze. "The Armoire" was a rather unassuming name, and, sure enough, the picture accompanying it, pyrographed right into the sign itself, was a rather ornate wardrobe. The wardrobe had one of its doors slightly open, a painstakingly-rendered sock just barely peeking out.

Sheer was the older pegasus mare standing next to him, a proud smile on her beige face. "It's all thanks to you folks coming from Earth that I got the idea for this place," she said.

"The idea for a clothes store?" asked Fells incredulously. It was hard to tell himself that the clothing he'd seen dozens of ponies wearing during his two days here was purely a development from the worlds colliding.

Sheer's titter turned into a giggle, then a laugh, then a guffaw. "Oh, stars! Her Royal Highness didn't tell you?" She shook her red mane, streaked with silver, to and fro in amusement. "This is a dressclub!"

Fells looked from the sign to her. "A what now, th—oh, shit! One of those?"

His pegasus hostess grinned and nodded. "Mm hmm. One of those."

He thought back to the dressclub that had popped up in Lakewood, right outside of Fort Lewis. It was called "Lost Luggage" and its theme was ponies going through suitcases on-stage and dressing themselves in whatever they found there. To humans, the concept was incomprehensible and silly, but to anyone visiting the place, there was definitely something else to the vibe. There was nothing overtly sexual happening, but it was obvious that ponies got some kind of weird erotic charge from watching other ponies dress. The performers would move in suggestive ways and give seductive looks. Humans were welcome, but it only took a few minutes for most to get creeped out, leave, and never return. Fells had been no exception.

He let out a breath. "Are you expecting me to... you know..."

Sheer shrugged with her wings. "Well, I certainly can't force you to go on stage, but..." she eyed his wings with a hungry look. "Hoo boy, it's plain as day why Her Royal Highness sent you here."

"You're just putting me up," he said flatly. "That's it."

"If you say so," she said. Then she got an evil glint in her eye. "The room and board isn't free, though, and dressing is good money... just putting that out there."

Fells bit his lower lip.

"You got somewhere else lined up to stay tonight, big boy?"

He recalled his mission, and his resolution to keep his head down and just get home.

*          *          *

"More tea, Helen?"

Specialist Cooper looked away from the window to shake her head. "Oh, uh... n-no thanks."

Lesson Learned was the kindly middle-aged unicorn who had greeted her. Her house was across the street from the Sharing Smiles Magic Kindergarten, and that was where Cooper had been looking for the past several minutes as her half-empty cup of tea cooled on the table next to her.

There was something about the royal-blue schoolteacher that made Cooper feel very much at ease. When she had asked for her first name, she'd given it without even stopping to think. She had a warm smile and a patient way about her, which Cooper figured was pretty much a necessity for a kindergarten teacher.

"You're nervous, I can tell," said the teacher. "You're afraid the foals will think it's funny that a grown-up unicorn is learning magic alongside them."

To be honest, Cooper hadn't been worried about that—she doubted she could use magic at all—but now that it had been mentioned, she decided to add it to her list. For conversation's sake, she said "Kind of."

"Well, I must say I'm rather disappointed with the Bureaus, letting unicorn newfoals go without even giving them some basic magic lessons!" Lesson levitated the teapot in a pale-yellow glow of magic and poured herself a fresh cup of tea.

"Mine was, well... kind of a rush job," said Cooper, not entirely untruthfully.

Lesson held a hoof up to her mouth, setting the teapot down gently. The glow disappeared. "Oh dear! So it was an emergency conversion! How horrible for you!" She reached out and patted Cooper's neck. "There's nothing to be ashamed of, Helen. Some of the quickest studies I've ever seen in magic have been newfoals like you! I think you'll be surprised at what you can do with just a little bit of tutelage! In fact, that school right there was built with donations from a newfoal unicorn just like you! I believe that back on Earth she was a queen or something, and had vast amounts of wealth. Sharing Smiles certainly picked out the right name for herself; you should too, before long, Helen."

The younger mare offered up a smile she didn't feel. "I'm... thinking it'll just come to me. You know, like in a moment of inspiration. That's what I'm waiting on."

Lesson Learned waggled a hoof at her. "Don't wait too long, though, sweetie! You're young, and you should get on with your new life as a pony! It's an unfathomable shame that your world is going away, and all the loss that it must be bringing, but clinging to the past will prevent you from moving towards the future. When it comes to us unicorns, there's no better way to do that than with a bit of magic practice."

Cooper hemmed and hawed in her own thoughts. It couldn't hurt, she figured, and she had to pass the time some way while Rockheart got his Equestrian dose of due process. She thought of something else, then looked back over her shoulder at Lesson Learned.

"Miss, uh... Lesson Learned? I have a question."

The mare's face brightened. "Of course, young lady! How can I help you?"

"Ever since I came to Equestria, my horn has had this kind of... like, every so often, it just—"

"Itches?"

Cooper nodded. Lesson smiled knowingly.

"I know just the thing, Helen." She patted the cushion next to her. "It's something unicorn baby foals get, and apparently newfoals get it too. Come over here and sit down next to me, I'll teach you how to get rid of it."