Steel Blade!

Chapters

I.
II
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.

I.

The prestigious Oxbridge University stretches across the northeastern reaches of Canterlot, dug firmly into the side of the towering, white-capped mountain; an awe-inspiring jumble of ancient buildings, lined with crooked, tiny streets sharply inclined upward with the elevation of the school, belted with grim, grey walls spanning enough ground to suit a city– and, indeed, from a distance Oxbridge resembles a forbidding walled city.

Oxbridge University’s dramatic, ancient architecture dates back to the founding of Canterlot City itself.
High curtain walls and parapets glare down onto the streets below. Within the walls are stout towers, bright, green quadrangles surrounded by lush green ivy climbing the grey walls, long, sweeping halls with soaring ceilings, and pennants snapping in the breeze from flagstaffs: the University flag, a navy blue field and a golden crown atop an open book, its cover gold, its pages white with black text, bearing the motto of the University:

DICTUM SAPIENTI SAT EST

The walls are worn with weather and time; here and there, the gouges and scars of past battles can be observed in their dull, iron-grey stone.

The University is regarded to have been one of the oldest in all of Equestria, comprised of thirty-three self-governing colleges and the support infrastructure necessary to sustain such a large academic facility, with a vast underground network of catacombs, cellars, and hidden passages.

At present, it is home to over 20,000 pliant students.

Battle College, the second oldest college in Oxbridge University, looks like a tough castle keep from Canterlot’s founding days, the college flags bearing a device of two crossed silver swords on a light blue field, surrounded by a golden Sunburst.

Professor Deborah Bowes-Lyon, a slender, elegant-looking golden-furred Pegasus mare with arrestingly sharp red eyes, a fluffy grey-and-black mane, and severe, narrow-rimmed eyeglasses, set her book down.

“Class is over for today. Please don’t forget to examine your supplements. I expect to have them by tomorrow!”

She glared very frostily at the sea of nubile young mares before her. They were taking barely any notice of her whatsoever, save for a trusty few. The others were busy scrambling to leave, furiously shoving books and pencils and other gear into their bags, or chatting with their friends.

“Ah, I’m starving…”

“Where’d you like to go have lunch?”

“You choose!”

“No, it’s your turn!”

Two young mares – a Pegasus with a white coat and red hair, and a lilac-colored Unicorn with green hair, were deep in conversation.
“-And all the apples were sucked dry! Just like-“ the Pegasus snapped her fingers – “-that! Can you believe that, Forsythia?”

Forsythia assumed a thoughtful look. “Why, no, Diamond Rose! Are you sure she wasn’t merely imagining things?”

“She seemed far too upset for such a thing, ‘Thia. In fact, I-“

The severe form of the Professor loomed over them, resplendent in her sensible white blouse, a white shirt, and a brown vest, adorned with a neat little red tie.

“Gossiping, you two? That’s not very nice.”

Forsythia and Diamond Rose hastened to demur to the negative that they had been doing such a shameful thing, with abashed looks, and promptly joined the flow of students leaving the room.

The Professor sighed gently, and returned to her lectern; she began placing her teaching instruments back into a small brown leather briefcase; well-worn, the leather worn smooth from years of use. While she did this, the other students filed out, leaving her by herself.

She spent a few moments gazing at the ceiling, thinking about nothing in particular, allowing herself to decompress from the effort of teaching.

She then left the room.

It was a pitch-black October night. Professor Deborah, wrapped in a black trenchcoat, strode purposefully across the quadrangle. Her nerves tingled warningly, her muscles tensing, the fur on the back of her neck lifting, her long equine ears pinning back against her skull.

She glanced up at the dark, foreboding skies and saw only the barest sliver of a silver moon, wreathed in brooding black clouds. She licked her lips, her abdomen clenching.

“Why am I scared? There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Afraid of the dark, how silly of me! What a thing to fear!” she thought to herself, sweeping the quadrangle with her eyes. Indeed, the darkness lent the quadrangle an eerie aura that it lacked in the daylight.

Professor Deborah had taken her time leaving the college hall, allowing the bulk of the students to leave before her. As such, the quadrangle directly before the hall was quite empty. She was by herself, which only gave her a profound sense of discomfort.

“Don’t be absurd!” she thought to herself. “Nothing can harm you in this citadel. Why, this is Celestia’s capital city itself, and this is one of the most respected universities in the Monarchy.”

She strode down the quadrangle resolutely, clutching her briefcase in one grey-gloved hand, the other thrust in her coat pocket. She rubbed the hilt of her dueling rapier fondly, and felt better at the touch of the firm handle under her fingers.

Professor Deborah turned a corner, and stopped, staring at the obscene sight before her in shock.

One of her students, a young Unicorn mare named Junebug, lay in a swoon upon the ground. Her blonde-haired head was resting in the lap of a pale, unearthly beautiful, youthful Pegasus mare with white fur and bright, glowing green eyes, with slits for pupils. The pale mare, her magnificent, long black mane, tinged at the ends with red highlights spilling down her shoulders, sat quite still upon the ground, pressing her fingers to Junebug’s forehead, her pillowy, crimson lips set in a firm line of concentration.

Professor Deborah’s eyes met those of the Pegasus mare, and the Pegasus mare recoiled. She opened her mouth, showing long, sharp fangs, and gave an ear-piercing, keening shriek. She spread wide her wings with a sharp snap; they were awful, bat-like things with sharp claws, leathery and tough, buffeting the Professor with a blast of wind.

Professor Deborah threw her arms over her head, instinctively bending her knees and leaning forward combatively. She furrowed her brows, eyes narrowing behind her spectacles, her teeth bared in a snarl.

“What are you doing to my student?” she shouted, her voice ringing off the walls of the quadrangle. “You have no right to be here! Unhand her at once!”

“Shan’t!” the Pegasus mare screeched at her, in an uncanny, whispering shriek. She leaped up to her hooves, leaving the unfortunate Junebug.

“Why? What on Equestria did she do to you, you freakish looking mare? And why, pray, are your eyes slitted like that? Why do you have wings like a bat? Answer me!” she commanded the Pegasus Mare, staring her down icily, her gaze unblinking, unyielding. She knew the answer to her question, but she prayed, just this once, that she was wrong. “Anything but this. Let it not be what I know it is-“ Professor Deborah thought.

She could smell pumpkin spice and apples wafting from the Pegasus Mare, and a murkier scent beside that.

“Wretch!” bellowed the Pegasus mare, hands twisted into enraged claws, fingers bent, her arms spread at ninety-degree angles at her sides. Her head lolled to one side, her long, forked, fruit-bat ears twitching.

She was wearing a tight leather corset, a black leather thong, and calf-length boots, clinging to the supple curves of her thighs. A bright falchion – a long, curving, evil-looking weapon with a blade akin to an overgrown meat cleaver and a black steel handle – hung naked at her right hip.

“You address me in such familiar ways! And such a temper you have! Making such dangerous assumptions! You already know what I am, then.”

“Yes, Draculina, I do,” Professor Deborah muttered darkly. She slid one hoof back, resting one hand upon the hilt of her dueling rapier. “An accursed Fruit Bat Vampire. A darkling, the creature of the Abyss; the creeping terror that rises from the depths of the Shadow. I heard my students talk of your ilk, but dismissed it as mere girlish fancy. It’s nearly Nightmare Night, and I thought to myself that they were having some seasonal holiday fun. But it’s you…and you’ve been making yourself felt, haven’t you? Kidnapping students and stealing apples, I vow. Why? What do you seek? What are you looking for?”

“I seek slaves to work my will upon this city, mortal,” the Pegasus Vampire hissed, baring her long teeth at Professor Deborah, bending over in a crouch. She thrust her long, serpentine tongue out at Professor Deborah, who recoiled slightly in disgust at the muscular, glistening pink length of agile muscle. “Above all else, I desire power, and these young mares you shepherd shall further my goals. Will you not ask me my name?”

“It matters little and less to me what your selfish desires are, Draculina!” shouted Professor Deborah.

“Do not call me that!” the Pegasus Vampire mare shrieked.

“I shall call you what I please, Draculina,” Professor Deborah admonished her sharply. “Leave this place. I am done bargaining with you. I do not wish to bandy words with Tartarus-spawn such as yourself.”

“My name is Claret!” the Pegasus Vampire mare protested. “And you will obey my order! I had no wish to take more than two victims, but if it must be so, I shall take you as well! Heed my command, mortal! You cannot resist-“

In a flash, Professor Deborah ripped her dueling rapier from her scabbard and raised it before Claret. The keen edge of her blade sang in the cold October air.

The tip of the sword lay just before Claret’s pointy little nose. The Vampire Pegasus mare nearly went cross-eyed trying to track the nearly invisible point of the impossibly sharp rapier.

“Do not make me repeat myself.” Professor Deborah’s voice was low and grim. Her sparkling red eyes narrowed.

Deborah was in a fencer’s stance, her legs spread, one arm raised, the other firmly gripping her rapier.

II

Claret did not leave.

She threw her head back and screeched: “Julia! Poppaea!”

A rustling sound above made the Professor gaze upward; in that instant, Claret leaped back with superhuman speed.

She effortlessly executed a backflip – her slim fingers barely touching the ground as she spun head over hooves, landing three meters away from Junebug’s prostrate body.

The Professor bared her teeth, clenching her jaw angrily. “Damn it- I should have pinned her down before she could do that. You’re getting soft…” she thought to herself.

She straightened, occasionally stealing a glance at the Quadrangle’s sharp grey roofs.

A shadowy, bat-like form was skulking along them rapidly, skittering across like a great dark spider. It shot towards the Professor, rapidly becoming visible.

It was another long-eared, bat-winged Fruit Bat Vampire Pegasus pony with a dark blue coat and a long, shimmering black mane.

She flung her wide, silken wings outward, gliding earthward soundlessly, landing lightly upon her hooves, and strode forwards to Claret’s right side, grinning maniacally.

Her icy grey irises were nearly the same color as her filmy white sclera; her dramatic black eyeshadow and black lipstick only made her seem even fiercer.
Her long, straight black mane flowed like ink down her shoulders, touching her lower back.

She had wide hips, large, full breasts, and long legs, with thick thighs and plump flanks. She wore a black leather bikini and calf-length black leather boots, her wrists adorned with silver bracelets; a silver necklace bearing a silver crescent moon rested upon her bosom. Upon her magnificent, black-maned head was a silver crown with long, evil-looking spikes not entirely unlike nails; there were six of them, spread out in a perfect semicircle.

While the Professor was taking all of this in, a Fruit Bat Vampire pony materialized at Claret’s left; another long-legged, full-breasted, wide-hipped, slender-armed mare with wild red hair like a flame burning up her head and shoulders, with yellow irises.

Her coat was a peach color.

This one was wearing a glistening, sharp-bladed suit of armor that hugged the curves of her breast, hip, and thigh, as slender as sheet metal, intricately cut, hinged and folded to avoid pinching her flesh while revealing her body to a certain extent. Metal gauntlets covered her hands, with keen, sharp blades at her fingertips.

Her steel boots had sharp, genuine blades lining the backs of the heels; a real stiletto heel, one could say. They clacked sharply upon the ground when she strode over to Claret.

Claret nodded pleasantly at the two Vampire Fruit Bats mares. “How nice of you to join us, Julia. Poppaea.”

Julia, the bikini-clad, blue-coated, black-haired, crowned mare, whose full name was Julia Cornelia Scipio, giggled, glancing down at the prostrate Junebug, then at the Professor, who was watching them with a scornful eye, her head tilted back ever so slightly. “Having problems?”

“A teacher, how nice.” Poppaea Sabina, the red-maned mare, lifted her gauntleted hand to her muzzle, thrusting her tongue out and licking the keen edge of the blades upon the fingertips.

“Where is Natascha?” Claret asked, peering over Julia’s shoulder.

“Here, your Grace,” rasped a low female voice, and another Vampire Fruit Bat pony stepped out of the shadows.

This one loomed a full head over the other three, her arms and legs thick with muscle, jutting forth beneath her skin like steel plating. She was wearing a white cloth vest, tan leather pants, and brown leather boots. Her short white mane was closely cropped around her ears, and seemed as if it hadn’t been combed in days. Her eyes were purple.

Claret pointed at Junebug. “Take her,” she snapped. “Poppy, take down that professor! I’ve had enough of her interrupting my plans! Julia, keep watch!”

Julia, Poppaea, and the huge, heavily muscled Natascha sprang to obey.

Poppaea threw herself at the Professor with such sudden ferocity that the Professor’s heart pounded momentarily. The red-maned mare ran towards her, hooves pounding the ground, then she lunged, her right arm outstretched, fingers pointing at the Professor, ready to skewer her upon the blades on her fingertips.

Professor Deborah suddenly felt relaxed. This was merely a problem of dueling. She needed no further prompting; she fell into an en garde stance, arm raised, rapier at the ready, legs spread, feet well apart, gathering strength in her broad thighs to defend herself.
Poppaea closed the gap with her; the Professor sidestepped neatly and prepared to counterattack.

The Professor’s blade whistled towards Poppaea’s breast.

Poppaea’s eyes widened in shock; she parried the blade at the last moment.

The Professor came down upon her like a wolf in the fold; her blade flashed and sang as it jabbed at Poppaea’s body.

Poppaea struggled to defend herself, the Professor’s blade ringing sharply as she parried each thrust. She swiped at the Professor’s face, seeking to blind, but the Professor was not there; she was at Poppaea’s left and came at her again with a vengeful lunge. Poppaea was forced to jump back, fluttering her wings to give herself more altitude and speed as she did so. “Is that all?” the Professor barked at her, voice dripping with contempt.

She was not as calm as she sounded; Natascha had picked up Junebug and was rapidly leaving with the unconscious mare.

“I need to put this annoying Draculina down before they get away!” the Professor thought to herself, frantically, but Julia and Claret, who clearly seemed to be the leader of the operation, were retreating as well.

Before she could think of anything to save the unfortunate Junebug, Poppaea had gathered herself, crouched, and sprang at the Professor like a pouncing cheetah; she leaped skyward and came downwards with a brutal swing of her steel claws. “I’ll tear you to shreds, mortal!” she shrieked.

The Professor effortlessly turned Poppaea’s blades aside with a dismissive flick of her blade, but Poppaea struck at her with her other hand; the Professor bent to the side smoothly, dodging Poppaea’s bladed fingers, but they passed so close to the Professor’s skin that she could feel the breeze they made tickle her coat.

Professor Deborah thrust at Poppaea’s neck and Poppaea ducked rapidly, swiping at the Professor’s belly with her bladed fingers, forcing the Professor to sidestep yet again.

By now, Julia, Natascha, and Claret had crossed the quadrangle and disappeared through a door.
The Professor growled between clenched teeth, her face twisted with fury. She launched a furious attack on Poppaea, blade whistling and whipping through the air like flowing liquid mercury. Poppaea found herself fighting to simply survive the Professor’s furious onslaught, blocking with her steel-clad upper arms, her fingers, her palms. The point of the Professor’s blade was moments from her tender belly or chest.
Poppaea’s nerve was breaking under the attack, her resolve melting away as she found herself alone with the Professor, who showed no sign of relenting.

She began to grow incareful; once, she took a moment too long to parry the Professor’s blade.

That was all Professor Deborah needed. She lashed at Poppaea’s partially exposed bosom, and Poppaea barely evaded it at the last possible moment. The blade nicked her flesh.

“Ngh…” Poppaea’s eyes narrowed, and she ground her jaw. Blood welled from the small cut, thin red fingers oozing down her coat.
She turned and ran with supernatural speed, sprinting up the side of the wall, spreading her wings, and shooting into the sky like a stone launched from a catapult. In moments, she was gone.

“Damn it all!” the Professor shouted, throwing her blade to the ground. She stamped with one hoof, nostrils flaring, hot tears prickling her eyes.

“I can’t let them hurt Junebug! I must find her! Even if I die in the attempt…I’ll get her back. I swear it.”

III.

The Villa Potentia is an old, decrepit manor situated a short walk away from Oxbridge University, ringed with high walls and iron gates, constructed with well-worn red sandstone, with dark tan-tiled roofs and large, luxurious windows.

However, it shows signs of age; ivy wreathes nearly 75% of the walls, the grounds are overgrown and wild with weeds, the trees look like angry green giants guarding the property, and the gates are blood-red with rust.

The interior is surprisingly clean and neat, with beautiful light wooden parquet flooring, eerily wallpapered red-and-black walls with intricate coffin-print. Ornate golden fixtures, plush, gilded chairs, vast tables, towering armoires lay here and there. Crystal chandeliers suspended in golden chains, blazing with taper candles give off a harsh, glittering light.

Claret was in the dining hall, sitting at the head of the table in a vast chair decorated with carvings of ponies clad in the armor of Celestia’s Royal Guard, fighting with each other, her boots on the table, her bare thighs crossed. She had her chin in her hand, her brows furrowed deeply in thought, her lips pressed in a severe line.

Beside her was a wooden bathtub large enough to hold at least three ponies at once, filled to the brim with milk.

The unconscious Junebug lay upon the table, spread out upon her back, her arms outstretched in a cruciform pattern.

There was a timid knock on the large oaken double-doors at the end of the hall - it resonated throughout the large room, the sound bouncing off the walls.

Claret looked up. “Enter,” she called, a little testily.

Julia swept into the room, with Poppaea in her wake. Poppaea’s wound had healed long since, with no indication of scar tissue. She seemed visibly abashed and avoided Claret’s gaze.

Julia and Poppaea approached Claret and knelt quietly before her, making their obeisance before speaking.

“Your grace,’ Julia began, “We successfully extracted yet another student from the University.”

Claret allowed for a short silence.

Then she spoke: “And what of that professor? Dead, I hope?”

Julia swallowed visibly. “N-no, Your Grace. Poppaea was forced to retreat.”

“Is this true, Poppy?” Claret’s voice was dangerously sweet. She uncrossed her legs, planting her boots on the floor, and leaned forward in her chair, hands closing around its large wooden arms.

The red-haired Vampire Fruit Bat mare in form-fitting, bladed armor licked her lips, nodding slowly. “Yes. She is obviously an expert duelist; I was unprepared, I-“

“You are incompetent,” Claret stated, with a sniff, her nostrils flaring. “She will try to seek us out, now. We are in very grave danger, Julia! Poppy! She has seen us; she no doubt knows what we are trying to do, and I am certain that she will try to kill us all if she reveals us! If not that, her allies will do the same. You know of whom I speak; that ancient enemy of all our kind; Her!”

Both Julia and Poppaea shuddered. Claret stood, walking over to Poppaea, who squeezed her eyes shut nervously as Claret raised her hand…

…and caressed Poppaea’s chin.

Poppaea opened her eyes, looking surprised, but pleased.

“Therefore, Poppy, we must kill her. That is your new task. Find the Professor and kill her. Then we can return to our duty to our Party.”

She moved closer to Poppaea, pressing her body against Poppaea’s, her slender white belly rubbing against Poppaea’s peach-colored one, her breast squeezing up against Poppaea’s own, and lowered her head, her lips meeting Poppaea’s ruby-colored ones.

Poppaea let out a low moan, lifting her head, as Claret placed her hands upon the red-maned mare’s waist, stroking her bare flesh with her fingers.

Then Claret drew away; Poppaea was blushing darkly, her mouth open, panting slightly, her ears pricked forward, her tail switching back and forth.

Julia crossed her arms under her vast blue breasts, laughing elegantly with one hand covering her mouth. “Ohohoho….silly Poppy, you’re so excitable. What a typical redhead!”

Poppaea leaped at Julia, thrusting her muzzle into Julia’s muzzle. “What’s THAT supposed to mean?” she cried.

Julia gave Poppaea’s nose a teasing kiss. “Nothing, Poppy. Don’t worry about it.”

Poppy glared at Julia, with an angry huff.

“Girls, please,” Claret cooed. “Save your wrath for the Professor.”

“Oh, yes, I can’t wait to get my claws into her,” Poppaea murmured, lifting one gauntleted hand, and clicking her blades against each other, one after the other. “I shall strip the flesh from her bones and boil them! She’s caused enough trouble for me as it is! I won’t let her get away with embarrassing me like that!”

“How all too terrifying of you, Poppy,” Julia said, mockingly pretending to be frightened. She yawned, stretching her arms over her head. “Hadn’t you better have your bath?”

“Indeed, Poppy,” Claret said, crossing her arms. “I ordered the servants to draw it for you the moment I returned, so that you may have a reward for all your hard work.”

The Professor returned to her modest townhouse in the outlying city borough surrounding the Oxbridge university at about the same time Claret had returned to the Villa Potentia.

It was a cozy little two-story affair, Tudor-style, with a tan roof and sturdy wooden walls painted a pleasant white color, with dark timber framing.

The Professor entered her living room, and shut the door. She shuddered violently; now that the fight had passed, she was gripped with horror at what might have happened if Poppaea’s evil claws had opened up her stomach.

And now they’d all seen her. And they’d want vengeance; she’d drawn blood, it was in the nature of these evil creatures to retaliate swiftly and violently.

“Madame is troubled? May I ask why – if you would give me the liberty of doing so – the long face?”

A light, piping male voice came from the hall; Cheese Sandwich, her butler, shimmered over to her. He mouth twitched ever so slightly upon delivering his joke.

The Professor managed a weary grin.

“Nothing…nothing for you to worry about, Cheese.” She looked up into the honest, pleasant cheesy yellow face of her butler, and a fresh pang of guilt tore at her heart.

Good Celestia, the Professor thought, I’ve put them all in harm’s way. Poor Cheese and Pinkie Pie…they don’t deserve this. To think they could come to harm because of me…

She fought to keep a sob from her throat, and spoke, slightly tremulously. “I’d like a glass of Laphroaig if you would be so kind. Where is Michael?”

“Very well, Madame,” Cheese Sandwich murmured, bowing low, and he began taking the Professor’s coat off, folding it neatly over his arm and retreating from the living room. “Sir is in the Drawing Room, waiting for Dinner and, if I may add, Madame. The head maid, Miss Pinkamena, is overseeing Supper as we speak. I shall now obtain the drink for Madame…”

He flitted away.

The Professor fell into a chair, her legs feeling rubbery. Why? Why am I so afraid, all of a sudden? It’s not like this is my first encounter with Vampire Bats.

Yet she felt cold fingers stroking her spine. She hugged herself violently, shoulders shaking.

“Deborah?” A warm, deep voice, like a double bass.

Sir Michael Bladefield Bowes-Lyon, Commander of the Equestrian Monarchy (C.E.M.) stood in the doorway, watching her.

This was a tall Pegasus stallion in his prime, with a steel-grey mane, wide shoulders, a slender waist, thickly muscled arms, and broad thighs, wearing an elegant black suit with a tailcoat, a monocle, and a fluffy white cravat. He had great feathered wings like that of a heavy bomber aircraft.

He had an army general's firm gaze, his golden eyes flecked with light blue.

“Michael!” Deborah gasped, springing to her feet and throwing her arms around him. “I’ve done a terrible thing…”

IV.

“What is it? What has happened, Deborah?”

Sir Michael gazed down at Professor Deborah with eyes full of concern, holding her firmly in his powerful arms.

At that exact moment, Cheese Sandwich returned with a silver plate; he had thoughtfully brought two glasses of Laphroaig instead of one.

“Your drink, Madame. Sir,” he announced, setting the plate down upon a nearby table with a low bow. He then tastefully retreated from the room, leaving Professor Deborah and Sir Michael alone in the room.

“Here. Drink this,” Sir Michael urged, passing Professor Deborah a glass.

Professor Deborah accepted gratefully; she took the glass and tossed back the whiskey in one gulp. Sir Michael watched her slender throat bob up and down, with a half-smile.

“Feeling better?”

“A little,” Professor Deborah admitted, with a small hiccup.

Sir Michael produced a case of cigars from his jacket pocket, passing Professor Deborah one; he took one for himself and set to clipping the tips for her and himself with an elegant golden cigar-cutter.

He then produced a golden lighter shaped like a tiny dragon; lighting Professor Deborah’s own, then his, he sat down in a chair and gestured for Professor Deborah to do likewise, which she did gratefully.

When they had smoked a while, he said, “Now, tell me what happened.”

Professor Deborah leaned back in her chair, exhaling large blueish-white clouds from her mouth and nose, looked up at the ceiling for inspiration, and began.

“Well, Michael, I was leaving the classroom, when….”

Sir Michael listened to her sordid tale with a grim look upon his handsome muzzle, his brows furrowed deeply in thought. When she had finished, he steepled his fingers and said, “This is, indeed, a disturbing business.”

“And I’ve brought their attention to us! We shall certainly be ruined!” Professor Deborah wailed.

Sir Michael waved a hand, noncommittally. “No. We shall fight them, Deborah! We shall fight them, and we shall win.”

“How?” Professor Deborah asked, brokenly. “I am no legendary hero! I can’t fight an entire army of vampires on my own! I didn’t even manage to save poor Junebug from those evil creatures…”

“I believe I may have a solution,” Sir Michael said. He reached in his jacket pocket, bringing out a business card, and presented it to Professor Deborah, who accepted it. She squinted at it curiously.

“What’s this?”

“The card of a mercenary company. I want you to contact them. We need all the help we can get, Deborah, and the man who commands that company I would trust with my very life,” Sir Michael declared.

“The Bandolero Comanchero mercenary company? Sounds foreign,” the Professor said, quizzically.

Sir Michael laughed, and settled back in his chair, puffing away on his cigar. “Don’t worry about that, Deborah. I assure you that they will defend our home from any and all threats that would shatter our peace. There is another pony I wish for you to speak to; a survivor of an attack similar to the sort you described.”

“Who would that be?”

“An Equestrian Limitanei Space Marine.”

The Professor rose from her chair, ready to protest.

“Is this one of your barrack-room friends, Michael? I warn you; mess-hall scuttlebutt will not suffice!”

Sir Michael raised a hand soothingly.

“Oh, she’s little more than a glorified truck driver; one of those charged with piloting the resupply craft to the colonies in orbit, but I think you will find her information useful. She may yet be of some use to us. Any intelligence we can gather on the enemy will prove crucial in our campaign. I warn you; she is a Zebra, so you must be as cordial as possible. You know what they’re like.”

“Making friends with those black-and-white striped crew now, Michael?” Professor Deborah said, raising an eyebrow in semi-amusement.
Sir Michael laughed, emitting clouds of smoke. “Well, you certainly seem to be in a better mood! Don’t worry about that right now. We’ll have dinner and then you can carry out your mission tomorrow.”

“Come to think of it, I am starving,” Professor Deborah admitted.

“The shock of battle does that. I’ve seen it numerous times.” Sir Michael rose from his seat, extending a hand towards Professor Deborah, who accepted it gratefully; she laced her fingers between his own, gripping his hand firmly. “Shall we, then?”

At the Villa Potentia, Poppaea was busily preparing for her bath.

She stripped off her light metal armor. A mere touch of her finger upon the collar at her neck loosened the grips of the armor, causing it to fall away with a clatter.

Claret rose from her chair, clapping her hands together. “Maids!” she shouted.

The twin doors to the dining room swung open.

In strode four hollow-eyed, grinning pony skeletons, dressed in neat black-and-white maid uniforms.

“Pick up Poppy’s armor,” Claret commanded them, and the skeletal maids hastened to obey, with a great jangling and clattering of hollow bones.

Poppaea strode over to her milk bath, sliding one leg into the warm white liquid. “Ah, it’s nice and warm…”

Julia watched her with a leering grin upon her lips, arms crossed under her heavy breasts.

“Julia!” Claret snapped.

Julia wrenched her gaze away from Poppaea, and approached Claret. “Your grace?”

“Our guest is showing signs of life. Turn her now, before she can rebel against us,” Claret commanded, gesturing at Junebug, who was starting to stir.

“With pleasure, Your Grace,” Julia purred, moving to Junebug’s side.

Junebug was starting to shift and move upon the table, frowning in her sleep.

Julia placed a slender hand upon Junebug’s chin, caressing her flesh with her fingers, bending over the unfortunate Unicorn mare. She brought her lips to Junebug’s neck, breathing lightly upon Junebug’s flesh, and opened her mouth, baring long, cruel white fangs.

Then she buried them in Junebug’s neck. Her icy eyes glowed like lamps.

Claret watched as Julia closed her lips ‘round Junebug’s neck. The bright pink color of Junebug’s coat began to fade, turning a light, sickly pink.

Suddenly Junebug’s eyes snapped open, and she began to scream in agony, arching her back, but Julia’s hands gripped her body, pinning her down mercilessly. Junebug’s cutie mark began to change, melting away, as a white skull with a red apple and a golden dagger materialized. Her eyes changed from a pleasant blue to a fierce electric blue, her pupils narrowing into catlike slits.

Then Junebug collapsed back upon the table. Her eyes closed, her body going limp.

Julia withdrew her fangs from Junebug’s neck, straightening, turning to Claret with a triumphant grin. “The process is complete, Your Grace.”

Claret walked over to the table where Junebug lay in a swoon, running a hand over Junebug’s muzzle, lips, and cheek slowly, admiring the newly minted Vampire Fruit Bat unicorn.

“Splendidly done, Julia. When she wakes, I want you to take her into the third bedroom with the other girls. Introduce her to her role; make her understand that she is now in my power, and must obey my will.”

Poppaea was sumptuously reclining in her bath of milk, the warm liquid trailing down her flesh. She had her head resting upon the rim of the tub. At Claret’s words, she opened her eyes and gazed over at the unconscious Junebug, her yellow eyes glittering. “What a pretty little slave she’ll make! I’m jealous, Julia! It’s not fair! You should let me touch her first…”

“It is Her Grace’s will that I should do so, Poppy. Perhaps, if you’re good, she shall see fit to let you train our next slave,” Julia said, not a little proudly.

“It is as she said, Poppy,” Claret agreed, moving back to her chair, and sitting down. “Besides, there shall be no lack of new slaves for you to sample, Poppy,” she reminded the red-maned mare. “Soon enough, all of Equestria shall be mine. We shall wipe out these inferior mortals. They are a plague upon our existence; life unworthy of life, fit only to be chattel. My solution to their unworthy little lives is simple.”

She made a fist, closing the fingers of her right hand firmly. “Little by little, we shall extend our reach over this city. We shall topple Her; we shall throw her down from her golden throne and turn her subjects into glorious Fruit Bats. Ah, we are truly superior, indeed, Julia, Poppaea – we are strong, powerful, intelligent, bold, and noble; everything these filthy mortal ponies are not. A monarchy filled with lesser creatures like these mortals ought not to exist at all. We shall recreate Equestria in our image and it shall cease to be Equestria. There will only be Night’s Imperium, and our reach shall span the entire globe itself!”

Claret grew pensive, and she let her hand fall upon the arm of her throne. “I will not allow anything to stand in our way; especially not some third-rate professor.”

“How shall you bring her to heel?” Julia asked.

“Easily enough, Julia,” Claret declared. “Dog!” she shouted. “Dog, come here! I have work for you.”

The doors of the dining room banged open.

In bounded an awful creature – a stallion, running on all fours, covered in thick, matted brown fur, with paw-like hands, long, sharp claws, twisted black horns stabbing up from its temples, slavering, gaping jaws ringed with shark-like, pointed rows of jagged white teeth, thick, heavily muscled limbs, staring, rolling, bloodshot eyes with burning red irises like coals. The stinging scent of brimstone and ash clung to its flesh, its long, lion-like tail snapping at the air.

The creature ran to Claret’s side, throwing itself down upon the ground and panting like a dog, its long red tongue hanging from its mouth. “What would you ask of me, Your Grace? I am here,” he rasped.

Claret carelessly pushed at its head with her hoof; it snuffled, lapping at the leather of her boot and the sharp heel with its tongue, leaving a trail of slimy saliva. “Hellhound! I want you to take your pack to Battle College in the Oxbridge University! Find a grey-maned, golden-furred Pegasus mare there, and destroy her. Crack her bones; eat the marrow within. Drink her blood. Eat her flesh, and satiate yourself.”

The Hellhound bowed his head. “It shall be as you command, Your Grace! My pack hungers; I am glad you offer us mortal flesh.”

He caught a glimpse of Poppaea; the red-maned, heavy-breasted, wide-hipped mare was languorously rubbing the nice warm milk into the bare skin of her arm. She had submerged herself low enough in the milk for the liquid to cover her plump breasts, but, upon catching the Hellhound’s gaze, Poppaea lifted one elegant leg from the milk with a small splash. Milk ran down the supple curves of her calf and thigh.

Julia strode over to the tub, the better to observe Poppaea’s body, baring her teeth in a wicked grin.

The Hellhound panted, ears pinning back, eyes blazing. Poppaea grinned wickedly, and allowed her leg to submerge itself once more.

Claret interrupted sharply.

“Go, then, and see to it tomorrow. And one more thing!”

“Your Grace?” The Hellhound’s ears pricked upward.

“You and your pack can start with her students. I want you to tell me what her face looks like when she sees her precious students being ripped apart in her classroom. I’ll teach her what it means to oppose us.”

V.

The next day, Professor Deborah’s classroom was host to furiously whispered discussion. Poor Deborah, who had slept badly, had her hands full trying to control her unruly classroom.

The conspicuously missing Junebug’s name was on everypony’s lips and tongue; where was Junebug? Here one day, now an empty chair sat in the center of the room, looking forlorn and lost, like the socket of a lost tooth. The students could not help but gaze at it curiously.

“Did you hear? About Junebug, that is.”

“Yes, she’s not here!”

“I wonder what happened to her…”

“I bet she flunked out,” a chubby white-coated Earth pony mare with square eyeglasses, a short, straight red mane, and a superior attitude announced. “Blondes, am I right?”

Professor Deborah snapped the cover of her book shut. “Students, please! Be silent! No talking! The lesson has not ceased, and I am still here if you please!”

Her students quieted down, looking at her nervously. The tension in the air was palpable.

“The matter with Junebug is being addressed; that is all you need to know for now. Rest assured that nothing has happened to her and I expect her to return to our class before long.”

There was a low, mutinous muttering among the students, but they did not challenge her. Professor Deborah’s insides felt as though they were twisted into knots; she hated lying to her beloved students, but what could she say? That a group of lethal, maniacal killers had abducted a student – right under Princess Celestia’s royal snout, no less, in the heart of the Oxbridge University of Canterlot City?

The government of Equestria would issue the order for the University to be closed until further notice, for sure. Professor Deborah felt sick just to think of it.

Now that order had been restored, Professor Deborah opened her book, cleared her throat imperiously, and fixed her students with a steely glare.

“Let us now attempt to perceive what the playwright meant with their portrayal of these warring families. The two lovers, caught in this furious battle between the noble houses that they belong to, are gripped with a sense of foreboding…”

Professor Deborah slowed. She hated this. It reminded her all too well of the war she’d just inadvertently stepped into.

At that moment, the windows of the classroom shattered. Shards of glass and metal flew across the room, cutting skin and flesh.

Professor Deborah gasped and clapped a hand to her face; warm, sticky red blood covered her fingers, and a stinging, white-hot pain filled her cheek.

An ear-piercing, throbbing roar filled the room. It was so deep and loud that the Professor felt as though she’d been physically punched in the gut.

Screams and shouts of panic rose from her students, and they immediately rose from their desks, some covering their ears with their hands, mashing their long, equine ears flat against their skulls, others looking about nervously, some clutching their classmates, some running for the door.

Panic had set in; the Professor watched one of her students tumble on the floor, and another young mare stepped on her fingers with a crunch. The student with the crushed fingers began to howl plaintively and curled into a ball; more ponies tumbled over her and went sprawling upon the ground, and she began to cry as their legs struck her back, her head, her arms, and legs.

“Oh my Celestia, what was that?!”

“What just happened?”

“Help! It’s a bomb!”

“No, it’s Changelings!”

“No, the Griffons are attacking!”

“It’s a dragon!”

Professor Deborah’s book slid from her trembling fingers.

Not here, not now…please, no, not this….this can’t be happening! I knew she’d exact her vengeance, but…why so soon? Why are you doing this?

“Please stay calm! Don’t run, you’ll injure each other! Remain where you are!” Professor Deborah shouted, over the chaos of screams, yells, stamping hooves, snorting, and crying, flapping her wings helplessly. Tears ran down her cheeks.

Then the assailants came.

Huge creatures, half dog, half pony, covered in matted, shaggy, long brown fur, save for bald patches upon their bellies, flanks, lower arms, and calves showing dark umber flesh, with horns like long black spikes, lashing, whip-like tails tipped with spade-like barbs, eyes like burning red lanterns, heavily muscled upper arms, hard, V-shaped torsos with visible, hard, ridged abdominals, powerful hind legs, and teeth like rows of glistening, drooling knives cannoned through the windows, landing on the floor and leaping at the students. The air was filled with growls, roars, screams of terror, and snarls.

The scent of brimstone, ash, and male musk rolled off the creatures. They pinned any student down that they could catch, some forcing the thighs of the students apart, other opening their massive jaws and biting down on their limbs or bodies, others lashing the students with their tails, others clawing and swiping at the students.

One of the big creatures hurled itself at Professor Deborah, who was brought to the floor in a twinkling. It planted its knees between the Professor’s thighs; she screamed and forced her thighs together as hard as she could, her muscles burning, but the creature was as strong as an ox, and held her arms outward to prevent her from resisting.

It brought its muzzle to hers, its hot breath steaming against her face. Slimy, clear drool dripped upon her muzzle, and she closed her eyes in disgust as it thrust its long, dagger-like red tongue, seemingly a foot of muscular flesh.

She strained with all her might, pulling her right arm free of the creature’s paw. It grunted and snarled and stabbed at her face with its tongue.

The Professor wrenched and yanked and pulled at the creature’s paw as its slippery tongue licked her face; then with a strength born of desperation, she managed to yank her hand free. The creature was so fascinated with licking her flesh that it had gotten complacent.

She ripped her sword from its sheath and thrust it through the creature’s exposed abdominal muscles; it slid forth with a wet slurping sound and penetrated its spinal cord, parting muscle and nerve effortlessly, thrusting out the back of the creature’s torso.

It whined, almost as if surprised, and went limp, the big, heavily scented body collapsing atop Professor Deborah. She rolled it off her, pulling her sword free.

In the midst of their carnal pleasure, the creatures suddenly found themselves with a terrifying vision; the Professor, streaming with blood, sweat, and the oozing drool of the creatures, her face set in a mask of rage, every muscle standing out under her skin like cords of steel, her mouth opened in a war-cry, her dueling blade held aloft.

She lunged at one of the creatures and took its head off with a single furious swipe; rounding on another creature, she lopped its arm off at the shoulder, then cleaved its skull in two with another.

She became a furious whirlwind, darting to and fro, slicing up the bestial creatures like so much meat. She was panting, sweating, bathed in hot, coppery blood.

She thrust one creature off a student, and flung it to the ground, stabbing at its heart. Another creature leaped at her back; Professor Deborah whirled about and raised her blade, impaling the demonic being upon her blade through its belly. She withdrew the blade and stepped aside as its body collapsed to the floor and slid a few inches leaving a trail of blood upon the floor.

The remaining creatures dropped the students they’d been clutching and fled out the windows, yowling and yapping like beaten dogs.

Professor Deborah watched them leave, breathing hard, blood rolling down her arms and legs in thin crimson fingers. Her blade was covered in blood, shreds of flesh, viscera, and other gore; she wiped it effortlessly upon her leg, and twirled the blade. She had gone into a state of no-mind during the battle; no thought impugned the tranquility of her brain, allowing her to react instantly, her reflexes commanding her body, a blissful purpose banishing the fear from her.

Later, the Professor lay in a bed in the Canterlot General Hospital, having her cuts, bruises, and scrapes attended to by dutiful nurses. Princess Celestia herself sat at her side, surrounded by her retinue of ministers and her Royal Guard. In this case, she had opted for her elite guard, the proud SCHOLAE PALATINAE of her inner citadel, commanded by Princess Twilight Sparkle herself.

“You…you’re going to close the University, won’t you?” the Professor asked, choking back a sob.

“No.” Princess Celestia smiled warmly. “I have ordered my Minister of Information to put it about that you were the subject of a fire. It caused an explosion and injured some students.”

“But…the beasts…”

“Hallucinations induced by smoke inhalation,” Princess Celestia said, off-handedly.

“And the injuries?”

“The fire did that as well. The smell of those creatures lends credence to our decree; even after the bodies were removed, the smell of ash and brimstone remains.”

The Professor had to admit this made sense.

"How much is the butcher's bill?" she asked, steeling herself for the answer.

"Nopony is dead," Princess Celestia assured the Professor. "Your students are being treated for their wounds as we speak. However, a few of them are very badly hurt and will take some time to recover from their injuries. It may be a while before they can return to class."

"That is fine...I'm just glad nopony was killed. There's been enough loss of life."

"Loss of life?" Princess Celestia repeated, sharply. "Do you mean to say that these things attacked before? Have they been killing students, then?"

"No, no. But I saw something strange last night..."

Professor Deborah told her story to Princess Celestia, who listened with a frown.

She thought for a while after Professor Deborah had finished. Then she said, "Sir Michael told me something of the sort. I would help you, Professor Deborah, but until we have more information about these mysterious creatures, I can do nothing. My Ministers would never approve of me posting guards at your university without a formal council being held on the matter, and by then your students would be in further peril. As such, I give you my Royal approval to seek these enemies down and destroy them. Sir Michael tells me you have mercenary forces in reserve to protect your household, and that you have sought out a Zebra intelligence officer to locate and observe the foe. Should you require any further help, please send word to my castle straightaway and I shall lend what aid I can."

"Thank you, your Majesty." Professor Deborah bowed her head.

"My pleasure, Professor. Now I'd better get going. Sir Michael and a friend of yours await you without; we shall talk later. I myself will visit your university if possible. I implore you; find these evil ponies and deliver justice to them before they can cause further harm to the existence of our monarchy."

To access the inner sanctum of the Villa Potentia, one must walk down a winding iron staircase in the Triclinium, or Dining Room, past cobwebbed, damp, drafty stone corridors twisting left and right in a labyrinthine style, the stone walls old and decrepit, covered in a clear centimeter of dust, with pits and crevices swarming with insects – beetles, cockroaches, centipedes, ants, and other stinging vermin. Here and there, rats dart out of the shadows; large, fat, big-bellied grey-furred monsters with wriggling pink worm-like tails, blunt snouts with long yellow teeth and red eyes, squeaking, gnawing, and scratching away, crunching worms and cockroaches between their jaws.

Ethereal blue flames atop corpse candles in the walls provide an eerie, flickering light, although Claret and her ‘sisters’ can see as well in the dark as you and I can see in broad daylight; conversely, bright lights fatigue their vampiric gaze.

Once one exits the corridor and enters the cellars proper, a great, musty, wet stone cavern dug many feet into the heart of the mountainside upon which the Villa rests, one finds a stone dais three steps high.

A Dark Altar sat upon the dais; an awful, looming monster of granite worn smooth with age, covered in dust and abandoned spider webs, depicting a horned demon planting its cloven hooves upon the chest of a prostrate Earth pony, its teeth bared, on a wide, rectangular plinth. At the corners of the plinth are iron candlesticks with more corpse candles, the wax a pale white mottled with green and blue, the color of dead flesh, with flickering blue flames giving off a stench of rot.

At the foot of the altar are three coffins – two tombstone-grey, hulking, massive affairs with huge, humped lids and bright silver handles, and one slender, angular coffin done in black and golden, with gold scrollwork, gold handles, and a pointed lid.

A tiny crowd has come to observe the coffins; empty-eyed, horribly grinning skeleton ponies, resplendent in their maid uniforms, their white bones glimmering in the blue light of the corpse candles, and the remainder of the demonic beasts the Professor had defeated; lathered in blood, perspiration, and the gore of their comrades.

With a low, resounding “THUD”, the lids of the coffins swung upwards.

The skeleton maids hastened to the sides of the coffins; Poppaea and Julia lay in their two tombstone-grey coffins with their arms folded over their breasts in purple silken sheets and pillows, with Countess Claret in the center, upon black silk sheets and a red pillow.

Claret’s burning green eyes snapped open.

The skeleton maid at her side, holding a single shiny Red Delicious apple, perked up hopefully; she had no facial flesh to convey expression, but one could almost imagine a look of excitement upon her bony muzzle.

Claret lifted one elegant leg, extending it from the coffin, the blue corpse-candle light glittering off her sleek black thigh-high boot, clinging to the supple curves of her thigh and calf. Her boots were platform-soled, six-inch heeled studies in shiny black vinyl, the tops squeezing the supple flesh of her upper thigh, forming a shallow indentation in her skin.

She exited the coffin like liquid being poured from a tumbler, all in one fluid movement, her slender back arching; then she bent forward, her arms bent, hands twisted into claws. She snatched the apple from her skeleton maid’s bony fingers, bringing it to her lips; she breathed on its skin, panting.

“Hah…ah…”

She opened her mouth, thrusting forth her long pink tongue, licking the red curve of the apple, soaking it in her saliva, then she buried her fangs into its flesh. In seconds she drained the apple of all its juice, leaving a withered, faded looking thing behind, which she handed off to the maid at her side. Two other maids ran forward, bearing a makeup kit. Claret remained still as her maids began combing her long black-and-red mane, applying rouge to her cheeks, earthy, dark green eyeshadow to her eyes, and dark, blood-red lipstick to her full, pouty lips, her eyes closed.

While this was going on, Julia and Poppaea had exited their coffins and had fed; their maids were busily applying makeup to their faces and attending to their manes.

“Julie, does my mane look alright?” Poppaea fretted.

"No! It looks like a red rat's nest."

Poppaea gasped, wide-eyed. "Noooo! Someone get me a mirror!"

“It’s fine, Poppy,” Julia responded, gazing fondly at the red-maned vampire. "I was merely teasing you. Besides, you can't see yourself in a mirror. No vampire can."

"Oh," Poppaea said, sounding embarrassed, with a silly smile. "I'm glad my nice red mane looks good, at any rate,” Poppaea cooed, clinking the blades on her fingers together. “I wonder if Her Grace will take us out tonight again…”

Claret’s maids withdrew from her side. She strode forward towards the cringing demonic beasts waiting upon her, running her hands over the supple leather of her tight black corset, hugging the swells of her wide hips and round breasts.

“Well? Where is Hellhound? I hope that blood upon your fur is that of the Professor, then? Is he busy sucking the marrow from her bones and, therefore, too occupied to present his report in person?” she snapped.

The demonic beasts looked at each other nervously. Finally, one whimpered, “He’s dead, Your Grace.”

“Dead!” Claret screeched. “How did this happen?”

She raised her left boot and planted it squarely upon the beast’s belly, causing it to whimper weakly as her cruelly sharp, spiked metal heel dug into its flesh, and she narrowed her eyes, furrowing her dark eyebrows.

“Explain yourself, cur,” Claret growled, her long white fangs bared, as the beast squealed in pain beneath her; she ground her hoof back and forth in response, causing the beast to howl afresh.

“The…the Professor wiped half our pack out! Hellhound didn’t stand a chance…I saw her sword go right through his belly and out through his back! Then she set upon us…”

VI.

“I’ve heard enough,” Claret snapped, withdrawing her hoof from the unfortunate demon-beast. She folded her arms under her breasts, flicking a stray lock of her black-and red mane from her muzzle with one long, elegant hand. “Get out of my sight, you wretched creature. I’ve just had a meal and I do not intend to watch you and your pack licking their wounds here. Go.”

The beasts hastened to obey, dragging their bleeding, wounded bodies out of the room.

Claret turned to her two associates, who had just finished having their makeup done, and were standing behind her with no small amount of trepidation upon their faces. “Well, there you have it, Julia, Poppy. The Professor has scored several hits against me. She clearly intended to send a message.”

Julia stepped forward. “Might I speak, Your Grace?”

“Why not? It’s not as though you could hurt my feelings much more at this point. What is it, Julia?”

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Julia, the Vampire Fruit Bat mare with a long, flowing black mane like liquid shadow pouring down her back, neck and shoulders, providing a stark contrast to her light, corpse-like blue coat, strode over to the center of the dais, her high-heeled shoes clacking sharply upon the cellar floor, producing a hard, hungry sound that rang off the walls.

She turned to face Poppaea and Countess Claret, placing her hands upon her wide blue hips, resplendent in her steely crown tipped with sharp metal rays, like spearpoints arrayed about her head, her black bikini straining to contain the swells of her astonishingly huge blue breasts, her black leather thong clinging to the swells of her hips, her round, juicy flanks, her bare thighs spread.

Julia cleared her throat imperiously, and then began:

“Sending the Hellhound and his pack was a mistake. Your Grace, at first you said that we were to eliminate the Professor ourselves; later, you changed your mind and delegated the task to the Hellhound instead. He was ill-suited to such a task, as I’m sure you’ll agree…”

“Never send a dog to do a Fruit Bat’s job, eh?” Claret smiled thinly, twitching her leathery wings.

“Indeed, Your Grace. Let us do the task! We – that is to say, myself and Poppy – will corner her one dark night, when she is alone, when she is unsuspecting…Poppy will slip her blades between the Professor’s ribs, or perhaps under her throat, and the matter will be over before long.”

“A charming idea, Julia.”

“Then you’ll do it, Your Grace?”

“No.” Claret shook her head. “Now is not the time for nervous, knee-jerk reactions, Julia. You would snap at the Professor’s bait like a wide-mouthed fish. She’d capture you and cut you to bits like a Hearth’s Warming Eve ham.”

She moved towards Poppaea, placing her hands upon the shallow curves of her collarbone, caressing her flesh with her fingertips. Poppaea colored visibly, her eyes widening, nostrils flaring as she drew in a sharp breath.

Claret admired the aroused look upon her face, and then spoke:

“Sisters, the Professor has initiated a war against us. She intends to force my hand; attacking blindly is exactly what she expects us to do. Therefore, I shall bide my time for the next week and make the necessary preparations for the counter-offensive. In one, swift stroke, I shall destroy the Professor and all her allies, and regain the initiative. So, Julia, I want you to summon more demons.”

Julia lowered her head. “As you command, Your Grace.”

“Poppaea, I charge you with training them.”

“Hmph. Not as fun as training the new slaves, is it? Still, I enjoy a romp with some dogs from time to time.” Poppaea grinned widely, showing her sharp little white teeth.

Claret continued.

“Natascha and I will continue our operation with the acquisition of ripe, tender mares. I had intended to do this later, at my leisure, but the Professor leaves me no choice; I must win the hearts and minds of the mortals of this city, and turn them against her. She will be encircled entirely, her and her allies both. There will be nowhere for her to escape this time. There is precious little time for us to bring this plan to fruition – success rests upon a knife-blade, and should we allow any interlopers to move it a fraction, we are certainly lost. Failure is certain to cost us our lives – that much we know now from the crushing blow she dealt my dogs. That Professor will mount our heads upon pikes and display them on the gates of that accursed great barracks of a castle-town she calls a university.”

Claret laughed bitterly. “It wounds my pride to be driven like a staring-eyed, snorting cow before the Professor’s whip, but I must admit I am slightly relieved that it has finally come to this. If it must be war, sisters, then let it be war, with all the horror, despair, and destruction that entails. I shall lay plots and dangerous inductions among the noble families of the city; draw them to my side, hold them in thrall before my will, for what mere mortal can resist my charm? The feel of fingers upon their flesh, the sight of my body, the warm, honeyed words I shall speak in their presences…it is child’s play to entice mortal creatures to turn against their principles. They are flawed, weak creatures, pulled to and fro by their petty little mortal cares, squirming in the residue of their lives like so many slugs in an overgrown garden.”

Claret bent over Poppaea’s muzzle, her plump, full lips meeting Poppaea’s own. Poppaea shivered slightly, half-lidding her eyes, her wings raising slightly, and she raised herself upon her hooves slightly.

Julia watched them, her eyes gleaming hungrily. Claret drew away from Poppaea, and gazed at Julia reflectively.

“And so, I am determined to prove a villain…and hate the idle pleasures of these days. I shall awaken the darkness that lies within the hearts of these mortals, and turn them in bitter hatred against each other. If I am subtle, false, and treacherous enough, they may very well wipe each other out. Now! Julia, prepare your arts. Open the Gate; summon forth more of the devilish creatures. Reinforce my army with a nominal auxiliary unit.”

Julia bowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“When you have recovered your strength, by next moonrise, you must summon another unit, and then another. I want a full regiment at the ready before I make my move! I’m counting on you, Julia.”

Having said that, Claret moved to stand behind Poppaea, sliding her arms under Poppaea’s own, encircling her upper body, and placing her hands palm-down upon Poppaea’s bare, trim abdominal muscles, kneading them slightly with the palms of her hands; Poppaea licked her lips and shivered, raising her hips a little, pressing her plump thighs together, her eyes half-lidding. Claret smiled thinly, and drew Poppaea off the dais, a little ways behind Julia.

“Let’s give Julia a little room. Her incantations can be a trifle messy, aren’t they, Poppy?”

Poppaea settled back against Claret’s body, resting her head upon Claret’s chest, savoring the feel of her warm flesh against her back. “Mmmh…indeed, your Grace,” she purred, sounding like a contented cat, her tail swishing back and forth.

___

The door of the Professor’s hospital room swung open, and Sir Michael Bladefield Bowes-Lyon began shouldering his way in through the crowd of guard ponies, nurses, and ministers filling the room. “Deborah! Where are you?! Let me through, you lot! Stand aside!”

Princess Celestia gathered up her skirts, preparing to move from the Professor’s bed. “He sounds quite worried. I shall allow the two of you a little privacy.”

She swept out of the room elegantly, her ministers and guard in tow, the nurses scurrying along in their wake, as Sir Michael entered the room, hastily making for Professor Deborah’s side; with him were a young Dragon male and a Human male.

Princess Twilight Sparkle, who was shepherding her detachment of SCHOLAE PALATINAE guard ponies, or SCHOLARIANS, resplendent in their heavy gold-and-white armor, white cloaks, and blue helmet crests, stopped and stared at the young purple Dragon.

“Spike! Since when did you become a hot Mercenary lieutenant?”

Spike (for it was he) halted on his way over to Profesor Deborah’s bed, looking a little embarrassed under Twilight’s gaze. He approached her in a visibly uncomfortable way, his hands clasped behind is back.

“Uh…hello, Twilight. Fancy meeting you here, eh? Ha ha…”

“So this is what you’ve been doing with yourself the past few years! Rarity has been worried sick about you. I suppose you’ve been campaigning across the whole of Equestria, making millions of ill-gotten bits.”

“Ha! I wish. It’s been kind of rough at times…we barely have the bits for new gear, we’ve just been stripping the gear from our fallen enemies and repurposing it for our own use.”

“That explains why your mail shirt’s missing rings,” Twilight admitted, with a quirk of her eyebrow.

Spike nodded, flicking his pointed tail from side to side. “Yes. There’s other problems, too. It’s difficult to draw our pay from our clients at times, because they don’t trust us. A lot of mercenary companies abandon the field when the battle’s going against them. I’ve heard it said that they aren’t personally invested in the fight, and they don't want to die for some ill-gotten bits. I can’t really say I blame them, either – these great lords and ladies put us in the hottest sections of the battle to shore up places where the line is most likely to crack, and since we’re not part of their own garrison, they’re quick to commit us in the opening stages of the battle. Some mercenary companies are little more than armed bandits, too, and they inspire even more distrust where we’re concerned.

Technically, we’re within a grey area of Equestrian law – we aren’t supposed to engage in conflicts and can be killed outright if we’re captured on the field of battle. Other mercenaries tell us of entire companies that were wiped out entirely in a single battle – ridden down by Equestrian knights, chased as they were trying to flee the battle. One company was killed by the very same Lady that hired them; she fell into a rage when they retreated under withering longbow fire and ordered her mounted knights to chop them to pieces.”

Spike rubbed his nose. “I’ve heard it said from the Commander that this new lord – some knight called Sir Michael, he’s called - intends to garrison us within his own roof, though. I’m looking forward to getting some proper quarters for once, Twi. He seemed friendly enough. I think things are really turning around for us. I might even be able to draw enough pay to see Rarity again…”

“I’m sure she’ll be very glad to see you, Spike,” Princess Twilight said, kindly. “Let me look at you. Stand over here,” she said, indicating a spot just before her.

Spike moved closer. He was wearing a beaten-up, dirty old chainmail hauberk obviously made for a taller and larger owner that hung nearly to his knees; he was slim and athletic, but showed signs of not having had a proper, square meal for a while, the bones protruding under his purple scales. His dark brown leather breeches showed tears and slashes here and there; his longsword bore patterns of rust, and the grip was merely some tightly woven black cord.

Princess Twilight viewed him fondly, her eyes growing a little moist. “I hope you and your Commander enjoy yourselves with your new client. I know Sir Michael; he visited Celestia’s School from time to time. He is both wise and very brave. You have my word that he shall take very good care of you all. And, Spike?”

“Yes, Twi?”

“It was very good to see you.” She raised on tip-hoof and pressed her lips to Spike’s snout briefly, smiling. Then she left the room before Spike could react.

The purple-and-green dragon colored visibly, raising his hands to touch where Twilight had kissed him, gazing at the open door at her retreating back.

Sir Michael embraced Professor Deborah warmly. “I came as soon as I heard the news. You’ve been hurt! What did they do to you?”

“A few scratches. These nurses are all heart,” Professor Deborah smiled. She grew pensive rapidly enough, however. “Michael, my students were not so lucky. Some of them are really badly hurt. I failed them again.”

“Don’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could have done to prevent it,” Sir Michael urged, taking her hand in his own. “We’ll be ready for them this time, Deborah!” He squeezed her slender fingers. “I have made contact with the Commander of that mercenary company we chose! He insisted I take him and his executive officer along the moment word came of their attempt on your class. Let me introduce you to him. This is Leo Serrano de La Cruz.”

The human male at Sir Michael’s back approached the Professor’s bed, allowing Deborah to get a better look at him.

A youthful man with shaggy black hair the color of a moonless night, he appeared to be barely out of his twenties, with burning red eyes, a heavily muscled body; wide shoulders, a slender waist, thick arms with jutting, prominent, steely biceps, ridged, rock-hard abdominal muscles clearly defined under his swarthy, dark skin, prominently displayed with the way he wore his black leather jacket open.

His faded blue jeans seemed barely capable of containing his prominent quad muscles, drawn tautly around them. He clearly seemed to be a capable fighter. He had an open, carefree face, with black brows, a narrow, sharp nose, and sensuous lips; when he smiled at Professor Deborah she blushed and tore her gaze away from his muscular belly.

Leo took the Professor’s hand, and briefly brushed his lips upon the back; Professor Deborah colored even deeper. “A pleasure,” he said, his voice a firm baritone. It seemed to resonate in the pit of the Professor’s belly, kindling a warm fire.

“D…delighted to make your acquaintance,” she murmured.

Leo let go of her slim hand, and sat in a chair, carelessly kicking his tan leather boots upon a nearby table, gazing at the Professor. “San Miguel tells me you have a foe in need of killing. Care to tell me about it?”

“Four foes, even, Mister Leo…or Lord Leo, if you’d prefer.”

Leo laughed. “Just Leo is fine. Don’t call me a Lord, either. I’m just an ordinary soldier.”

“Very well, Leo,” the Professor said, furious at herself for blushing so readily. She fluttered her wings slightly to steady herself, glanced up at the ceiling for inspiration, and began to tell her tale again; having repeated it before she knew the words down pat, not that she was likely to forget such a horrible experience.

VII.

In the hospital room, the Professor, Sir Michael, and Leo began to talk terms, with Spike hovering about nervously nearby.

Sir Michael produced a large map, which he spread on the table. It showed Canterlot City, carefully delineated into five boroughs – Princess’s Landing, Crown Heights, Fairbrook, New City (which had formerly been a separate city before being absorbed into the Canterlot City megalopolis), Prince’s Leap, and Edgecomb.

“Deborah, would you do us the honor of assigning our bold mercenary commander his task?”

“No, you do it…” the Professor said, bashfully.

Leo watched the two pegasi in amusement.

“Very well,” Sir Michael said. He indicated a section of Crown Heights, stabbing a finger at the map. “Here is the Oxbridge University. We shall consider this the middle control point currently being contested by those scurrilous Fruit Bats. It’s a large, fortified university with a surrounding curtain wall. I believe it is obvious why Claret wants it: if she can capture that university and garrison her forces within it, it brings her within striking range of Princess Celestia’s castle. There are lots of students there she can turn into loyal soldiers in an instant. Once she gathers her forces there, she needs only to march on Princess Celestia’s castle, and the war is over in her favor; Equestria shall be under her control.”

Sir Michael fixed them all with a stony gaze. The big, wide-shouldered Pegasus stallion planted his broad arms upon the table, palms spread, looming over Professor Deborah’s bed. His gold-flecked blue eyes glinted.

“There will be no Pegasids; no Earth Ponies, no Unicorns…no dragons, no griffins, no humans…only the Fruit Bats. Think you’ve got what it takes to defend the entire monarchy this time, Leo? We aren’t hiring you to have a grudge match over somepony marrying my daughter, or some pieces of land that couldn’t possibly mean anything to me. This contract is written on the skins of all of Equestria itself, Leo.”

“Oh?” Leo folded his hands in his lap, casually.

“That’s right. We’re all counting on you. I shall have weapons and armor procured for your personnel so that my forces will recognize your own, and to protect you and yours from harm.”

“I’m sure the girls will approve.” Leo grinned, showing sharp white teeth.

“You will garrison your forces here.” Sir Michael indicated a block just a little ways away from the University. It’s just a little townhouse-“

“Call this a garrison, San Miguel?” Leo rasped, raising his swarthy black brows incredulously.

“But, dear, we can’t keep an entire mercenary company in our house! There’s no room!” Professor Deborah protested.

Sir Michael straightened, raising his hands soothingly. “Let me finish, please. I obtained the rights for the properties surrounding our home and have called up my own Auxiliari Architecti from my personal forces to start building a fortification.”

“You built a castle around our house, Michael?” The Professor said, disbelievingly.

“Calling it a castle is a bit of an exaggeration, really. It’s more like a fortified military camp. For now, it’s just wood and earth; over the next few days it should be reinforced with stone. My intention is to dismantle everything and return our home to normal once this is over,” Sir Michael clarified.

He strode over to the window, brushing at his steel-grey mane with one hand. “Give me your professional opinion, Leo. How long do you reckon this campaign should take?”

Leo gave it some thought. “It should be a six-day-war at most, San Miguel. With luck, it might only be three. We need only for the enemy to attack your home; from there, we’ll pin them down and destroy them. I’ll bring you Claret’s head myself, with any luck.”

“I say, steady on there, Leo,” the Professor protested. “I don’t want to hack her to pieces! I only want her to give her instrument of surrender and leave!”

“You think so?” Leo said. He leaned forward, planting one powerful hand on the table, and swung his legs off, placing his boots on the floor firmly. The Professor blushed, and looked away from him; Leo’s gaze did not waver.

“I know how these Fruit Bats operate, Professor. Let one in and they multiply rapidly; in days they can take control of an entire province. We’ve got to cut them down root and stem, destroy them all…it’s the only way we can ever be sure.”

Sir Michael abruptly turned from the window, glaring at Leo curiously. “How did you know that? Who has told you these things?”

“A little zebra told me,” Leo said, carelessly. “Never mind that right now. Professor, if you let her go, you go back to your home…days pass, maybe even a month, and before you know it, you’ve got an entire formation of Fruit Bats knocking on your front door, and the whole process begins anew. If these Fruit Bats are as vicious and crazy as you imply, Professor, I’m sure a lot of lives will be lost at the end of this sortie; do you really want to have to commit yourself to another bloody war, and another, and another, simply because you don’t want to destroy this Claret person I’ve been hearing so goddamned much about? Besides, it’s a point of professional pride with me, too: I like to ensure my clients get their money’s worth. You’ve set me to a task that could decide the fate of this entire country – or so you and the good Knight over there insist – and you want me to hold back at the final moment?”

“I see your point, but…” The Professor bit her lip, tears springing to her eyes. “Damn it…I only wanted to save little Junebug. Why did this have to happen? Why am I being forced to decide?”

Sir Michael strode over to Professor Deborah’s side, placing a large, powerful hand on her shoulder. “You can do this, Deborah. I trust you. I am sure Leo trusts you as well.”

“I have to, actually. I’m her responsibility now,” Leo said, with a smirk. He settled back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head, and continued to watch Professor Deborah curiously.

The Professor gripped her blanket in her hands, closing her fingers into fists, breathing hard. She willed herself to speak.

Sir Michael and Leo watched her, expectantly. A second passed. Then another.

“Very well. Do what you must, Leo,” she said, finally.

Sir Michael procured three cigars from his waistcoat box, and began snipping the ends off them with his cigar-cutter, distributing them around, along with flames.

“You smoke, boy?” he asked Spike. Spike nodded, cowed by the gigantic male Pegasus.

Sir Michael produced a cigar for him as well and lit it. They all began producing thick blue clouds from their mouths and nostrils. The Professor, after enjoying some of the crisp, strong tobacco smoke, calmed down enough to start elbowing Leo in his side in a familiar, matronly manner.

“So, what do you do with yourself when you aren’t fighting and killing and leading your merry band across the wilds of Equestria, hmmm? Are you studying?”

Leo chuckled appreciatively, a warm, throaty sound.

“Why? Would you like having me in your class?”

“Heavens, no,” the Professor said, mockingly pretending to be afraid, and she batted her eyelashes at him outrageously.

Leo nodded, puffing away on his cigar. “Fair enough. It’s not like I’d get a chance to hit the books when we’re getting shot at or stabbed or ridden down by companion cavalry. Did I tell you about the time an intergalactic bounty hunter held me at gunpoint?”

“You’ll have to tell us all about it over dinner, bold warrior,” the Professor said.

“Beg your pardon, Deborah. Leo. I hate to interrupt, but I have the contract here for our illustrious mercenary commander to sign…my signature is already upon it…and you as well, Deborah,” Sir Michael broke in, reaching into his pocket, producing a parchment scroll and unrolling it atop the map on Professor Deborah’s table.

Leo glanced at it briefly, then snatched it up, staring at it in no small level of shock. “Let me see that…” Leo’s jaw moved soundlessly. Finally, he croaked, “500,000 bits, hermano? You…you can’t be serious. You meant to put a decimal before the last two zeroes, yeah?” He dropped the parchment, his hands shaking slightly.

“My dear fellow, I could not be more serious if I tried!” boomed the massive Pegasus stallion, clapping a huge hand on Leo’s back. “I’ll give you an extra 100,000 when the job’s done, too, and if you play your cards right, my friend, I’ll give you a knighthood as well.”

Spike brightened visibly. “Commander, this is our big break! We really needed the money…with this, I could even retire….”

“Yes, if you’re still alive to enjoy your pay, after all this is done. I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Leo growled.

“You heard the lady – fierce vampire ponies are running rampant around the city. They’re arming themselves and raising their invasionary forces. Worse, this is going to be a civil war. Civil wars are always ugly affairs…I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the great Lords and Ladies declared for her. There’s always a few malcontents who are unhappy with the incumbent order. She won’t need to tell them twice.”

“That is correct.” Sir Michael folded his arms over his chest, frowning, his great brows creased in thought. “Bello Civili, the ugliest sort of war. This Claret person’s launching an insurgency; who knows how many ponies she’s subverted to her cause already?”

Sir Michael rounded on Spike, who cringed up at the big Pegasus stallion. “Your Commander is quite right.”

“S…sir?” Spike whispered, licking dry lips.

“You’ll be very lucky to survive this. We’ll all be lucky to get out of this one alive. I am well-suited to repelling outside threats from foreign nations, but I never thought I’d have to stand by my oath of service in an internal dispute. Princess Celestia does not seem to notice it…or perhaps in her royal bearing she refuses to let her concern know, but her head is also on the line. Claret won’t think twice about putting her head on a pike…yours, mine, Leo’s, Deborah’s…we have initiated a fight with a very ugly and vindictive enemy indeed. Attacking innocent civilians to prove a point!”

Sir Michael struck the table with one huge fist. Even Leo tensed slightly; the big Pegasus stallion was breathing hard, cords of muscle standing out under his flesh, his wings half-raised.

Sir Michael rounded on Leo. “Six days, you say?”

“Yes, hermano, with a little time to prepare. A week should do it,” Leo said, grimly.

“Then…then it’s settled,” the Professor said, faintly. She picked up Sir Michael’s golden pen, and set the tip to the mercenary contract. With trembling hands, she lettered her name carefully in cursive, upon the dotted line.

Leo took the pen from her and did likewise. “Done.”

Sir Michael took Leo’s hand and shook it firmly; Leo returned it with a tight grip.

“I’ve prepared temporary quarters for your soldiers in a few inns within range of our house,” Sir Michael said, walking over to a chair and settling himself down next to Spike. “I shall be personally assisting you in the battle. Your company will be stiffened by my personal complement of Pegasus Triarii; the finest veteran soldiers Equestria can offer you, the core of our armies. When the Hastati, the young girls who make up the bulk of our infantry, find their morale broken in the heat of battle, they retreat behind the older, stronger, seasoned Principes; should the Principes break under the strain, they retreat behind us. My Triarii are comprised only of the strongest and most experienced veterans of the army Princess Celestia has to offer me. I admit that I have mostly involved myself in consular missions and diplomatic visits under Princess Celestia’s orders, but I can still give the order to close with and destroy the enemy. I won’t let Professor Deborah fight alone…and neither will you, Leo.”

Sir Michael raised his voice slightly. “Gloria! Bring your maniple forth.”

The doors to the Professor’s hospital room opened again. In strode several heavily armored Pegasus mares, covered head-to-hooves in heavy plate armor, beautifully adorned in gold and blue tint; the floor seemed to shudder under their weight, their armor clanking and clattering. They carried heavy spears half again as tall as themselves, and great shields with the golden sun of the Princess Celestia painted across the front.

“Gloria? Not little Gloria from my class, all those years ago?” The Professor slid off her bed, and approached the leader of the Pegasus Triarii, boldly lifting her helmet.

The Pegasus Triarii leader blinked in the suddenly brighter light, tossing her magnificent, golden-maned head. Her grey coat bore the slashes and scars of past battles. “Ave, Professor,” she said, with a slightly abashed grin.

“I remember you! You were a horrible crybaby back then,” the Professor said.

Gloria reddened visibly; the Triarii at her back fought back snorts of amusements. She glared fiercely at them, batting her spear against her shield. “Silence in the ranks there, you lot.”

“So you’re a Triarius captain now, Gloria? How time flies…and there I was thinking you were going to settle down with a nice stallion and continue your academic career…”

“Money was tight, Professor,” Gloria protested. “I couldn’t even afford a square meal, at one point…so I thought there was nothing for it, and went away to become a soldier. A lot of things happened.”

“I could very well say the same,” the Professor said.

Leo sat up in his chair, examining Gloria’s heavy armor closely. Then he turned to Sir Michael. “Well, hermano, if you’re going to present your troops for inspection, I may as well summon.

He raised one hand and snapped his fingers sharply.

In strode two Earth pony mares; slender, powerful looking girls in black leather jackets, red shirts, blue jeans, and brown leather boots; one of them had a crossbow slung over her shoulder, the other had a longsword strapped to her belt.

Leo introduced them to the room. “My other lieutenants – Jennever Windup, leader of my crossbowmares, and Giulietta Sprint, tasked with my swordsmares.”

Jennever, a green-haired mare with bright golden eyes, dropped to one knee. “Here to serve, Commander.”

Giulietta, who had bright blue hair and red eyes, took a bit longer to kneel, staring at the Professor the entire time. “By my sword…you can’t possibly be the Professor!”

“I am she,” the Professor said, a bit curiously. “Why do you ask?”

Giulietta stammered helplessly. “I…you….I never thought I’d see Equestria’s strongest swordsmare in the flesh! When I was a filly, I wanted to grow up to be just like you!”

“You do me far too much credit,” the Professor said, fluttering her wings in embarrassment.

“Giulietta, control yourself,” Leo admonished her. “You aren’t a giddy teenage filly at a concert! This is strictly business, so don’t think you’ll be allowed to pester her.”

“Oh, please, Leo, don’t scold her,” the Professor implored of Leo, moving over to Giulietta and hugging her. “What good friends you are, all of you. I’m so glad you’re here with me.”

VIII.

In the dark belly of the Villa Potentia, Julia Cornelia Scipio, the light-blue coated, black-maned Vampire Fruit Bat, was preparing her vile magic to summon forth more of the hellish demonspawn for Countess Claret’s needs, as Claret and Poppaea observed from the foot of the dais in the large main body of the Villa’s cellar.

Julia approached the Dark Altar, surveying it with her colorless eyes like chips of grey Winter ice, a perverse smile tugging at the corners of her full lips. A flat stone table, the altar had a vast stone beast, horned and hooved and covered in the shaggy, matted fur typical to the demonic creatures, crushing a pony beneath its paws; the beast’s jaws were open and showed long teeth, the pony’s face twisted in a silent, endless scream of utter panic; the expression of one who is in the grips of mortal agony.

Before this awful tableaux, Julia Cornelia Scipio looks like some sort of dark, evil goddess, with her batlike wings spread wide behind her, her pointed Fruit bat ears aloft like two horns. Her ethereal, deathly beautiful face and muzzle were pale, pointed, angular in shape, with a small, slender nose, plump, enticing lips covered in midnight-black, wet-look gloss lipstick, fearsome black eyeliner surrounding her icy grey eyes, smoothly curving, high, noble-looking cheekbones, and a slim, elegant jawline.

Upon her magnificent head rests a silver crown with long, pitiless spikes like the nails of a coffin, spread out in threatening rays; her long, sleek black hair pouring down her shoulders, flowing about her slender neck and down the supple curves of her icy blue back, stopping just short of her hips.

Her body is a study in lithe, juicy flesh, her arms thin, elegant, and completely bare, with small humps of muscle under her smooth blue coat, her hands slim with long fingers and sharp, lacquered nails like purple talons.

Her breasts are absolutely gigantic blue spheres, perfectly round, buoyant, heavy globes of soft, pliable blue flesh, thrusting out proudly from her slender chest; her tight black latex bikini top barely seems capable of containing her enormous blue melons, the mountainous blue orbs squeezed firmly together and lifted by the woefully stretched latex top.

Her stomach is bare and smooth and flat, baring the faintest hints of taut abdominal muscle beneath her blue coat; lower, her slender waist expands into wide, luscious hips, with thick, pillowy thighs. She has an arrestingly large, juicy rump with round, juicy half-moons of soft, yielding, quivering light-blue flesh, her long, smooth black tail hoisted enticingly above, her snug, tight-fitting black thong clinging to her flesh.

Merciless sleek, black shoes with steely, six-inch-high heels adorn her hooves.
Julia lifts her elegant arms, pressing the backs of her wrists together, her fingers extended like rays of power, her elbows slightly bent, and she spreads her thighs, her hooves well apart.

The air around her begins to hum and sizzle with power; Claret felt the hair on the back of her neck rising, her skin prickling slightly. She could practically taste the power in the room, a tangy, sharp, metallic flavor and scent like that of the smell of an approaching thunderstorm, the bitterness of ozone that heralds the lightning. Poppaea gripped her arm with one hand, her fingers digging into Claret’s upper arm slightly.

She swallowed, her throat feeling tight, her long ears pinning back against her skull, and held Poppaea’s soft, nubile, warm body against her own.

Sparks of red light, like flying embers, whirled and spun around Julia’s slender belly, her heavy breasts, her broad thighs, congealing with each other, forming bright red bands; tens of them appeared, then hundreds of them, till it seemed as if Julia was surrounded by flames licking at her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, and then opened them; her eyes were bathed with red light. She tossed her head, a fierce snarl upon her face, her juicy lips drawn back from her long, sharp white teeth.

“I call spirits from the vasty deep!” Julia shouted.

A point of red light blinked into existence atop the Dark Altar; bolts of red lightning crackled, spitted, and sizzled around it as it grew, revealing a black, bottomless, yawning void within its center, approximately a hand’s span in size.

Julia trembled and sweated, beads of perspiration rolling down her icy blue skin, tracing clear fingers down the swells of her hips and thighs, her taut, slender belly, her shoulders, her neck; the muscles stood out under her skin as though she were physically exerting an effort to lift something up. Her thighs shook, and she furrowed her brows intensely, straining visibly.

Claret and Poppaea watched as two heavily furred paws thrust their way through the dark portal, gripping at its edges, fumbling for purchase; two more pushed through, and then another pair - then, abruptly, the portal was yanked wide open.

Demonic beasts, snorting, panting, stare-eyed monsters like the Hellhound and its pack, half-pony, half horned canines with snapping, drooling, wet jaws, powerful, heavily muscled limbs, and lashing, bladed tails began pouring into the room through the portal. Claret and Poppaea were surrounded by them in a trice, walled in by huge, powerful bodies with matted dark fur. The hot breath of the creatures, their wet saliva, and the scent of male musk oppressed their senses.

Julia paid all this no heed. She allowed her hands to fall to her sides, breathing hard, her plump blue breasts rising and falling as she sucked in air, her brow streaming with sweat, her black hair plastered to her body. Her makeup had run slightly, giving her a maniacal, crazed look, with fingers of black marking her cheeks.

The portal blinked out of existence as rapidly as it had appeared, and the red beams of light faded from Julia’s eyes.

“Lie down,” Julia shouted at the largest and most powerful of the hellish beasts; it did so almost immediately, cringing at her sleek black shoes.

And, just like that, the other beasts halted their frenzied bounding about the cellar, instead sitting down obediently and gazing steadily at Julia for further instruction.

Julia lifted her arms, describing a vague “S-shape” with them, and shouted, in ringing tones, “Zanny! Zanny! Zanny! I demand your presence! You are to come forthwith!”

Claret heard a low, soundless hum; it hit her more in her belly than her ears, and was ‘felt’ more than heard, like very distant thunder.

A door between worlds faded into view at the top of the Dark Altar, approximately the same height and width of a normal door, but unlike a normal door, it had no frame and was impossibly thin if viewed from the side. It was like an empty slash cut into the very reality of the cellar room; it made Claret slightly dizzy to look through it, the same sort of vertigo one experiences on gazing off an exceptionally high precipice.

Then, like a television channel suddenly blinking on, Claret, Julia, and Poppaea found themselves looking at a cityscape in a tormented, scorched, volcanic land, with rivers of glowing red lava, jet-black rocky ground littered with grey pumice stones, craggy outcroppings of rock jutting upwards from the ground at odd angles, and no vegetation in sight.

The city’s buildings were shining black metal towers thrusting into the sky with pointed spires and glass walls. Its streets teemed with the furry, hulking beasts currently occupying the cellar, and blue-coated, black-horned beings with the bodies of young mares. Their eyes, however, were an odd black color with yellow irises, flecked with silver.

Julia stepped back from the door, as though afraid she might be pulled in, and crossed her arms under her heavy breasts. “Well, there it is; feast your eyes, my friends. Therein lies the city of GEHIRN in the Sixth Circle.”

“There’s always something new to appreciate every time we see it,” Poppaea remarked. The red-maned Vampire Fruit Bat mare climbed up onto the dais to get a closer look at the door, rolling her wide hips as she did so. “Looks like they finally finished that building in the western district. Busy little devils, aren’t they?”

“Very funny, Poppy,” Julia allowed, with a sartorial grin.

“Still, I’d hate to live there. It’s got kind of a hellish atmosphere,” Poppae continued, tossing her head.

“Oh, what a shame. Does that mean you won’t be stopping by for tea anytime soon? You wound me, Poppaea. And after all the things we’ve done for you! How could you possibly be so ungrateful? Besides, you don’t know what it’ll be like. We may just well have a splendid time!”

Julia, Claret, and Poppaea all glanced up sharply at this new voice; a thin, musical, piping sound.

One of the blue-skinned, black-horned, faintly equine demonesses was sitting on the edge of the doorway, swinging her legs and watching the three Vampire Fruit Bats with a detached grin on her face, her long, whiplike black tail undulating like a serpent. She was slender, with wide hips, plump thighs, round, heavy breasts, and large, plush buttocks. She was wearing a tight black-and-white jacket with a tall, unbuttoned collar, plus a most curiously-shaped pair of skin-tight trousers that left little to the imagination, clinging to the curves of her thighs, her buttocks, and her calves on one leg; the other leg was bare, as her pants were asymmetrical and only covered one leg. On her hooves were black leather boots with tall heels.

The demoness was calmly smoking a long, thin pipe with a small silver bowl.

“I didn’t see you come in, Zanny,” Julia said, accusingly.

Zanny ignored this entirely, spreading her hands disarmingly. “I was here the entire time, listening to you lot wittering away like idiots. I’ve always been here. I will continue to be here long after you two are dead. Are you having lots of fun with your nice new puppies?” She inclined her head at the hulking, furry demonic beasts still huddling at the sides of the Vampire Fruit Bats.

Claret nodded. “Of course we are. There’s a dangerous foe on the horizon, however, and we may need your help in the matter. Can you spare a moment to lend us your aid? That is, if you aren’t enjoying yourself with all the jokes, Jamborees, and other jollity going on over there too much to spend some time topside.”

“Oh, yes, we have a lot of fun over here,” Zanny said, leaping off the ‘frame’ of the door and landing lightly on her hooves upon the dais. She began to approach the three Vampire Fruit Bats, balancing her thin, wooden-handled, long metal pipe between her fingers. “Everyone’s got jobs, immigration is still up, business is booming, the economy is strong, and quality of life hasn’t been higher. The Demon Princess has been merrier than ever recently; I was just on my way over to one of her Jamborees at the palace when you lot came long, actually. I don’t suppose I could tempt you with an invitation, perhaps?” Zanny said, cocking her head to one side teasingly.

“Another time. We’re very busy right now, actually, Zanny,” Julia said, importantly, although one could sense that she was deeply uncomfortable in the presence of this lush, blue-skinned, black-horned demoness; she was steadily avoiding Zanny’s strange black-and-gold eyes.

Zanny dismissed this with a wave of one of her slender hands, a mocking smile upon her lips. She stared at Julia steadily, narrowing her eyes.
“You know, that’s the problem with you topsiders, Julia. You don’t know how to relax and take things at as they come; you’re always panicking about one thing or another and worrying about totally unimportant things. Whereas, we Southerners understand the virtue of waiting. We have all the time in the world, and I could not be more serious about that if I tried.”

Zanny insinuated herself in between the three vampires in a very annoyingly familiar way, glancing this way and that at their faces, coiling and flexing her long, smooth black spade-tipped tail this way and that, sliding it between Poppaea’s thighs; Poppaea gasped and colored visibly, squeezing her plush peach-colored thighs together, but this only trapped Zanny’s thick, muscular tail more tightly between her legs.

“So what are you three little mischief-makers up to now, hmm? Someone sent the Hellhound back to us rather abruptly. Some mare thrust some steel through his gut. He was indisposed for a while,” Zanny said.

Claret pursed her lips, irritably. “Yes, exactly! And my girls are busy, so I can’t send them after the person responsible for it. I had considered it, but we must ensure that we fulfill our duties, and I’m a little short-handed right now. So I was wondering, dear Zanny, if we could enlist your help with ensnaring a particularly troublesome mortal for us. That’s what you Demonesses do so well, isn’t it? Snatching mortals away?”

Zanny stretched, raising her arms over her head. “Actually, we need only to suggest; mortals are good enough at making mistakes and finding themselves at our gates all on their own. It’s really very funny how your little topside morality plays show us trying to get mortals to do things. Why spend time topside when we’re having so much fun down here?”

“You won’t do it, then?” Claret said.

“I didn’t say that,” Zanny said, quirking her plump blue lips at Claret, her golden-black eyes glittering, and she withdrew her long, whip-like tail from between Poppaea’s thighs, thrusting it around Claret’s wrist; Claret gasped as Zanny’s tail wrapped firmly around her wrist-bones and squeezed. “Ah! You’re…you’re hurting me,” Claret groaned, her cheeks coloring.

“Oh. Beg your pardon, Little Miss Countess,” Zanny said, grinning widely, not seeming remotely sorry for what she’d done.

Despite her lush, curvy frame, Zanny seemed quite strong and sturdily built. Her hair was long, straight, a violent Ultramarine blue color, falling in one long curtain down her back, long, straight tresses framing her narrow, elfin face and muzzle, long, black, twisted horns thrusting up from the top of her head, with cruelly sharp tips. Her ears were similarly long and elf-like, but shaped like thick-bladed daggers, with small points at the ends. She has an unusually youthful, soft face, with wide, innocent-looking eyes, plump blue cheeks, a thin, pointed chin, soft blue lips, a small, delicate nose, and severe black eyebrows above fluffy black eyelashes like feathers; she could not possibly be more than seventeen or eighteen years old, yet her self-assured, confident attitude suggested that she was much older than she appeared; the word ‘eternity’ made itself felt with this odd juxtaposition of youthfulness and great, deliberate, infuriatingly self-absorbed age.
Tiny pearl earrings adorned her earlobes.
She wore a short jacket colored in four large check patterns of black and white, open-chested, exposing the shallow curves of her collarbones, her slender, ladylike neck (which bore a black leather choker collar, and the vast blue swells of her enormous breasts, barely contained by a tight white bustier that lifted and squeezed the massive blue orbs together. She was wearing a string of pearls around her neck; the pearl necklace filled the valley of her cleavage between her huge blue breasts.

Her toned, flat blue belly was bare, showing her slender waist and the ridges of her abdominal muscles. Zanny’s hips are wide and lush, curving outwards into her thick, muscular blue thighs, and the swells of her juicy rump-cheeks; to accentuate the plump curves of her buttocks, she’s wearing skin-tight Spandex pants; cut off almost at the crotch at her left leg, leaving her sumptuous, enticing blue thigh and calf bare. Her boots are tough, solid-looking black leather affairs with thick soles and tall heels, clearly meant to withstand a great deal of wear.

Zanny thrust an arm around Claret’s shoulders, snuggling the Vampire Fruit Bat to her side in a intimidatingly friendly manner; Claret could not wiggle away or extricate Zanny’s arm from her side. Zanny brought her face nearly to Claret’s cheek, her warm breath misting on Claret’s skin. Claret could smell lily-of-the-valley perfume, burnt ash, the sooty scent of a furnace, a hot, bright tang like metal in a forge, and female flesh. She shuddered, her skin growing warm in spite of herself, feeling Zanny’s lush body against her own, the demoness’s flesh warm and pliable to the touch.

Zanny cupped a handful of Claret’s ripe body, her fingers sinking into Claret’s flesh as she squeezed maliciously, making Claret groan and roll her hips. “I accept your proposal. Describe the nature of your contract, Vampiress,” she said, in her light, fluting tones, her golden irises shimmering as she examined Claret’s blushing face.

“The…the one to be taken is a swordsmare of Canterlot City,” Claret gasped.

Zanny made a slightly disgusted face, tilting her head back and furrowing her sleek black eyebrows. “You want me to slum it, eh? Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. Sounds boring and dull, actually. I suppose I could arrange such a thing quite easily, though I wonder why you should want me to do it! Can’t you handle your catfights by yourself? What did you do to get her in a snit with you, anyway?”

“Zanny, please be serious,” Claret cautioned her, frowning. “You may wish to be careful. Canterlot is a city full of legendary heroes and heroines, and this Professor is quite dangerous. Unless you want to show up at your next Jamboree with the Demon Princess carrying your head under your arm.”

“Actually, she’d like that,” Zanny said, easily, not seeming perturbed by this visual. “It could prove an annoyance in the near future, however. Besides, how would I smoke?” She emphasized this by taking a draw on her long silver pipe. “Fine, fine. So you want me to enter this canyon of heroes, if you will, and snatch up this fly in your ointment that’s causing you all these headaches.”

“I’ll give you a reward, too,” Claret said.

Zanny cocked an eyebrow at her, looking doubtful. “What could you possibly offer me that I don’t already have, Countess?”

“When I take the City, I’ll have a Gate built between your world and this one, and you and your Demon Princess can enter Equestria. You’ll have tons of mortals to shackle up and have fun with. Just think, all that soft pony flesh for you and your sisters and brothers to slap and squeeze and bite and tear and lash and prick.”

Zanny’s tail clenched sharply, and the demoness hissed, thrusting her long, blade-like purple tongue forth; her eyes widened, and she began to breathe hard. “Now that, my friend, is something like! I’m gonna getcha your Professor for sure if that’s what you’re planning.”

“I want you to utterly humiliate her before you do so,” Claret commanded her. “You’re handy with a sword, aren’t you?”

“Most of us are, yeah,” Zanny said, carelessly.

“Fight her with one. Then when you’ve destroyed her in single combat, take her.”

“What do you have to offer me of the mortal in question, Claret?” Zanny demanded.
For answer, Claret produced a shred of the The Professor’s jacket that had gotten caught upon one of the claws of the demonic beasts. “I offer you a cloth that has been laced with her sweat.”

“Sweat is precious,” the demoness said, with her eyes glinting sharply. “Give it to me.”

Claret did so; Zanny consumed it as easily as you or I might eat a small bean bun, swallowing the scrap of cloth. The demoness’s eyes glowed. “The contract is made, Countess. I shall be off now to assemble a few of mine own sisters to help with this. We’ll never enter a task alone.”

IX.

The next day, the Professor woke up to the sound of hammers banging away, saws tearing at wood, the squeaking and screeching of heavy wooden cranes hoisting away, and stone grinding against stone.

The gold-coated, silver-maned Pegasus mare turned aside her lovely white silken sheets and rose from her bed, leaving the prostrate form of Sir Michael, who was snoring away calmly as if nothing out of the ordinary.

Bloody old campaigner…he’s used to all this commotion early in the morning, she thought to herself, half-irritably, half-fondly.

She walked over to her armoire, opened it, selected a comfy purple robe, and flung it about her shoulders.

There was a timid knock on her door.

The Professor walked over to the door, unlatching it, and found Cheese Sandwich standing there obsequiously, the brown-maned, cheesy-yellow stallion resplendent in his black butler’s uniform, a towel over his right arm.

“A very good morning to you, Madame,” he said, soothingly. “Miss Pie is overlooking the kitchen maids preparing breakfast for you and your honored guests today. I have taken the liberty of drawing your bath for you; would Madame like a fresh of tea to clear her head?”

An exceptionally loud crash of stone and stone echoed from without; Cheese Sandwich manfully pretended not to hear, in spite of the quivering of his long, equine ears.

The Professor kneaded her brows with her knuckles. “That would do splendidly, Cheese. Jolly good show on the bath, as well. If I’m not going to work today, I may as well treat myself. Besides, I’d like to look my best before we depart for the Royal Palace.”

“The Palace, Madame?” Cheese inquired, with restrained curiosity, politely allowing a minute lift of his brows.

“Yes, the Princess Celestia has convened her Council and demands my presence.” The Professor was careful to leave out exact details, instead remarking in a forced airy and vague manner, “Something about students disappearing around the University.”

“Ah, yes, quite…you know, Madame, the papers have been talking about young teenaged mares being kidnapped elsewhere in Equestria.”

“Before, or after the recent things that happened?” the Professor asked.

“Oh, quite a while before the disappearances at school, Madame,” Cheese Sandwich insisted. “Might I be permitted a question, Madame?”

“Fire away, Cheese,” the Professor said, brushing a hand through her disheveled silver mane absently. There was another clash and a clang of stone on stone outside, and the shouts and whoops of ponies outside. “Can those bloody Auxiliari Architecti do anything quietly?” she complained. “It’s been nothing but crashes and booms and bangs and clattering noises since sunup! It’s enough to drive one distracted!”

“Indeed, Madame,” Cheese Sandwich said, nodding fervently. “Miss Pinkamena does not mind, of course. I’m surprised she isn’t out there causing a racket with the rest of the Auxiliari.”

“It’s just as well. Party ponies aren’t builder ponies for a reason. I’m already harboring my doubts about there being a castle around our house; I don’t need the thing falling down around my ears because Pinkie Pie decided she’d like to try her hoof at architecture. What were you about to ask me, though? I’m sure you didn’t come here to chit-chat with me about the noise outside,” said the Professor.

“Well, you see, Madame, there’s been reports in the “Canterlot Chronicle”-“

The Professor made a face. “Terrible newspaper, Cheese. I never read it. I much prefer “The Crusader”.”

“Be that as it may, Madame, the “Canterlot Chronicle” recently began to run stories about these cases of kidnapped young mares, about a month or so prior to the incident at the Oxbridge University, and I thought – in fact, a few of us had thought - that the prior kidnappings are related to the cases at your University.”

“But that’s very important, Cheese Sandwich!” the Professor cried. “Why weren’t these things being looked into? It’s a very serious oversight! If the matter had been explored to its fullest extent the culprits might have been caught before they could filthy up the hallowed grounds of my beautiful Oxbridge!”

Cheese Sandwich was looking at her very oddly, and did not say anything.

“What’s the matter, Cheese Sandwich?” the Professor said, testily.

“Ah. Er. Beg your pardon, Madame, but the reports don’t say whether there was one culprit, or many culprits. Yet, you said culprits, which would suggest you know something the newspapers do not-“

“Just a guess,” the Professor assured him hastily.

Cheese Sandwich nodded slowly. “Indeed, Madame. I believe the disappearances went unnoticed because they were mainly poor, orphaned fillies who would not be noticed if they went astray, and were chalked up as mere death by misadventure, as per the usual when one dwells in in poverty-stricken, rotten boroughs…”

“Well, well, Cheese, it would seem we’re all paying the price for our inattention,” the Professor said, bitterly, feeling very tired even though she’d just risen from her bed. “I shall mention this detail at Council today.”

Leo, the youthful, masculine Human mercenary commander under Professor Deborah's contract, was crossing the courtyard, having helped himself to one of Sir Michael’s fine cigars, and was enjoying its crisp, aromatic smoke while watching the Auxiliari Architecti ponies from Sir Michael’s van sinking the walls and raising the gates of the fortifications surrounding Professor Deborah’s house; the ruins of the demolished houses surrounding it lay looking rather forlorn.

His mercenary soldiers were busy training in the early morning air, the smacks of wooden swords striking practice armor resounding throughout their camp.

One of the young, fresh mercenary recruits, a raven-maned Unicorn mare named Melara Nightfall, with a white coat, was knocked to the ground by a larger Earth pony mare, known as Remy Braun, with a short-cropped brown mane and a light tan coat. Another recruit, a skinny Unicorn colt called Jean Silverhoof, with a silver mane and a blue coat, was watching them; he hooted in amusement as the Unicorn mare collapsed.

Leo strode over to her and pulled her to her hooves roughly. “Get up. We stand tall on the field of battle – all of us.”

“They hurt me,” the Unicorn mare, Melara complained, sucking a bruised knuckle.

“That they did, ” Leo said, sternly. “And that’s nothing compared to what the enemy would do. Now come, all of you. Attack me with those sticks.”

“That’s not fair, Commander,” the little Unicorn colt complained. “Three against one? It’s suicide, even for an experienced soldier.”

“Listen here, muchacho amigo, you sound like you’re Princess Twilight Sparkle herself, talking of odds,” Leo ribbed him, amusedly. “I’m glad to know my successor’s already been chosen and everything. I can retire happily knowing you’ll lead the company to a rich, prosperous future, being as you’re a genius military leader without having even fought in one battle. I won’t even bother turning up at our next sortie; you can tell everyone what to do instead, alright?”

He fell into a fighting stance, one foot before the other, legs well apart, his torso turned side-on to the three to provide less of a target for them to hit, his red-gauntleted hand raised before him, fingers formed into a flat knife-edge, his other hand protecting his body.

“Aren’t you going to get a practice sword?” Melara insisted.

“You must be joking,” Leo said, raising his brows incredulously.

Remy, the bold Earth pony mare, was the first to charge; she threw herself at Leo with a furious cry, Melara and Jean at her hooves.

Leo effortlessly side-stepped her wooden sword; to him, she seemed to be moving slowly, like someone bound in jelly, allowing him to take in every detail of her face, twisted in a battle shout, and the tense coil of her limbs, the pounding of her hooves on the soil.

Then he snatched her leather jacket and threw her to the ground. She impacted the firm topsoil with her full weight, an audible ‘thud’ accompanying her; she gasped and went limp, her eyes rolling skyward, her sword falling from her limp hands. She shook her head and found Leo kneeling on her chest, his gauntleted fist minutes from her face.

“You’re dead now, girl, and it’s two on one now,” Leo informed Remy.

Then he leapt to his feet, and grasped Jean’s sword; the Unicorn colt gasped as Leo tore it away and then grasped his neck. “I’ve just torn your throat out, kid. Now it’s just one on one.”

“No fair! I didn’t even see it!” Jean wailed.

“Too bad, dead boy. That’s how death comes at you sometimes – quickly, before you even know you’ve stopped breathing. I’ve seen it a lot.”

Leo parried Melara’s blow with his armored forearm as Melara chopped at him; he noticed that she closed her eyes in fear as she did so. This one will need more training or she’ll be meat, he realized. I should put her to cook food or work the papers for the company – she’s certainly no warrior.

He dropped his arm and raised his other arm as he twisted his hips and flung his right leg up into a brutal roundhouse kick, slamming the blade-edge of his booted foot into Melara’s belly; she cried out in pain and fell on her back.

Instantly Leo was above her, with two fingers of his armored gauntlet aimed at her eyeballs. “Now all of you are dead,” he pronounced grimly. “Fight several others at once, you three – it’ll make good practice for reality when you can’t tell the enemy to please wait a minute while you kill their friends before they attack you.”

He left the three new recruits, relighting his cigar. Damn little idiots distracted me so much it went out, he thought to himself, irritably.

“Boy!” a sharp, commanding female voice sounded, behind him.

Leo pretended to ignore this.

“Commander,” the voice persisted. “Leo.”

Leo slowly turned around and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, glaring at the mare addressing him; it was Knight-Captain Gloria Victrix, the leader of Sir Michael’s Pegasus Triarii, the heavily armored Pegasus mares who bore spears like small telephone poles and shields like castle walls. The armored, wide-shouldered, blonde-maned, grey-coated, scar-faced Pegasus mare was flanked by two of her Triarii Pegasus mares, equally as tall, muscular, and clad in thick plate armor, their hooves crashing on the ground like sledgehammers at each step.

Leo barely seemed fazed by this. “Yes, Knight-Captain, how can I help you?”

Knight-Captain Gloria Victrix seemed amused. “You’ve had your fun beating up little slips of girls. Now give me a taste of your skill.”

“Easy there, girl, do you desire me that much?” Leo mocked her, folding his arms behind his head.

“Oh, I’m sure your flesh is hardy enough to withstand a kiss or two from the butt-end of my spear, Commander,” Captain Gloria said, smugly. She tossed her heavy spear skyward and snatched it out of the air as though it weighed nothing. “Or are you afraid?”

X.

Word spread rapidly among the mercenary camp, the Professor’s household, and the Pegasus Triarii of the combatants preparing to square-off in the yard.

Whispers ran from ear to ear, and even a few of the Auxiliari Architecti set down their tools and ran to the newly laid courtyard to watch the spectacle.

“Did you hear? Leo’s about to take on the Knight-Captain!”

“She’s almost twice his size! He must be insane!”

“She’ll crush him into jelly!”

“I don’t envy the fellow,” a rotund, big-bellied Auxiliari Architecti stallion declared to all who would listen. “Those Triarii charge like wildfire and weigh near the same as a wayn with a full load. What was he thinking, challenging one of those advancing giants? You know, the Triarii only accept the largest ponies that they can find. It’s suicide, taking one of them on.” He scratched his stubbly chin.

“Leo’s tough!” Jean Silverhoof, the tiny Unicorn colt, shouted back at the Auxiliari Architecti. “You don’t know what you’re saying. He’s gonna kick her flanks, you just watch.”

The Auxiliari Architecti, whose name was Plumb Bob, sneered. “You wanna bet on that, kid?”

“Sure thing, chump,” Jean said. “How much?”

“You’ve got a lot of stones, kid. Let’s see…how about twenty bits on the Knight-Captain?” Plumb Bob said.

“Fine! I’ll raise you forty bits if Commander Leo wins!”

“Damn, kid, you’re really caping hard for that human, aren’t you?”

“That’s right! He’s going to wipe the floor with that tin-can wearing mare, you see if he doesn’t!”

Melara, the timid young Unicorn mare, clutched at Jean’s shoulder. “Oh, do be careful, Jean. You know the Commander doesn’t like gambling.”

Plumb Bob snorted. “You oughta listen to your little girlfriend, kid. I’m gonna enjoy taking your bits. Easiest money I ever made today.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Jean insisted, shrilly. “She is one of my fellow soldiers of our Company and a loyal sister-in arms!”

The little Unicorn colt snapped sharply to attention, bringing his hooves together, his left arm held stiffly behind the small of his back, his right arm bent in a 90-degree angle above his chest, his hand balled into a tight fist.

Melara blinked, and then also assumed the company’s attentive stance. Remy, the large Earth pony mare, ruffled Jean’s mane with a gloved hand amusedly. Then she stood at attention as well, slamming her fist against her chest.

The little Unicorn colt glared fiercely at the Auxiliari Archecti builder. “We won’t back down!”

It was the Auxiliari Architecti’s turn to ruffle Jean’s mane. “This one will make a fierce mercenary captain someday, ladies. You keep your eye on him,” he said, good-naturedly.

A crowd had gathered around Leo and the Knight-Captain mare, Gloria Victrix, to watch them spar – Auxiliari Architecti builders, Triarii Knights from Sir Michael’s detachment, and mercenary soldiers from Leo’s company.

The Professor watched the ponies milling about in her courtyard from the balcony of her house, frowning in disapproval, gripping the railing of her balcony so hard the bones of her knuckles stood out under her golden skin. “This isn’t a game, Michael. I want you to go out and stop them. I don’t need this kind of stress before I go to the Princess’s Council. I’ve had quite enough to deal with as it is.”

Sir Michael was comfortably sprawled out in a chair, hooves up on a cushy ottoman, reading the Canterlot Financial Times, a cup of tea cooling on the small table at his elbow. He was barely paying attention to the courtyard. “Don’t worry about it, Deborah,” he assured her, soothingly. “They’re both experienced fighters, they won’t hurt each other. Besides, I’d like for you to see that you’ve gotten your money’s worth with this mercenary company. A little melee will take the edge off, as well.”

The Professor wrung her hands. “All this fighting and violence…can’t we have at least a little rest before the real push begins? I’m sick of it! I want my life back, Michael. I never wanted to fight a war! I didn’t think this was ever going to happen to me! I never foresaw this! Why did it end up like this? All I wanted was to save poor little Junebug. Now my house is destroyed, I’m at the frontlines of a battle against an evil Vampire Bat and her ilk, and Princess Celestia’s charged me with the protection of her city!”

“What we want and what actually happens are, like as not, two different things, Deborah,” Sir Michael said, rustling his papers. “We have no choice but to press on now. We must fulfill our duty.”

The Professor made her way to a chair, collapsed into it, and watched the courtyard, wearing a look of gloom. “I don’t know how you do it, Michael. If I had to do this for a job, my nerves would be frazzled to bits.”

“Hark who’s talking,” Sir Michael teased her gently. “You can settle down an entire classroom full of giggly teenaged mares. At least my soldiers are usually disciplined and obedient before they report to me for their orders.”

He set down his newspaper, and caught the Professor’s slender, ladylike hands in his own larger ones, warm and firm to the touch, his blue, gold-flecked eyes meeting the Professor’s large, liquid, red eyes. “Why are you so afraid all of a sudden? It’s not like you to be this nervous. It’s hard to see you suffering like this. What troubles you so badly?”

“I don’t know – that’s half the problem, Michael. I can’t decide,” the Professor admitted. “I do know that one thing has been bothering me since the start of all this. I looked into Claret’s face when she attacked my university, Michael. She sneered at me and mocked me. She was confident I would lose. And Princess Celestia won’t take my warning seriously…I’m afraid, Michael. I don’t know if I can succeed. I don’t want to die. I don’t want any of my friends to die, either. I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe Claret was right…what chance have we mortals got against overwhelming evil like her?”

“Deborah, it’s Claret’s intention to destroy your composure by mocking you. If she breaks your will to fight, she has already won. She wants you to flee the city and turn your back towards her. Once you’ve fled, she’ll take the city and everything within its walls,” Sir Michael insisted. “She is not the first enemy commander to try to cow her foes into surrendering with mere words; that’s her strategy. She wants you and the other ponies to deliver yourselves into her hands as the conquered. She has planted seeds of doubt in your heart with the intention to undermine your confidence. She wants you to hesitate and second-guess yourself.”

“I was hoping Princess Celestia would step in and change all this: take this bitter cup from me and assume the mantle of command but I decided there would be no way she could do it. She won’t risk it. I’ll never cry, though, Michael. You’re right. I must stand firm.”

“Besides,” Sir Michael put in, “you have a chance to present your case to her councilors today. If you can win some of the Elector Princes and Princesses over, there is a chance, however slight, that they will appeal to Princess Celestia to bring her city to war footing, summon the legions from their respective provinces, set up the blockade, then seek out and destroy this Vampire Bat countess, along with her pretensions to the throne of Equestria.”

“You’re right!” The Professor brightened. “Princess Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville will declare for me, she is one of the first to respond to any potential threats.”

“Good. Are there any other Electors who will support us?” Sir Michael let go of her hands, allowing her to draw away from him.

The Professor laced her fingers together and sat back in her chair, thinking deeply, furrowing her silvery-gray brows. “Princess Rainbow Dash of Cloudsdale, as well…Princess Megan O’Marea should rally to our cause as well. I’m unsure about Prince Kastor, one never knows where they stand with him. I won’t bother trying to convince Princess Hanoveria, she never budges no matter what.”

“In that case, you should have nothing to be worried about. While this is certainly no time for complacency, there is no cause for undue alarm, either,” Sir Michael said, picking up his newspaper, spreading it out, and settling back in his chair in turn.

There was a timid rap on the door.

“Enter,” Sir Michael boomed grandly, setting down his paper.

Cheese Sandwich, their loyal butler, came shimmering in through the door, in the usual unearthly, ethereal manner he had; he barely seemed to walk – one thought he floated, rather, instead. “Master Spike of the Mercenary Company to see you, Madame. Sir,” he announced, bowing very low to the Professor, then to Sir Michael. His expression was that of faint dismay, as though he could barely believe the ragged dragon mercenary had the gall to insinuate himself within the Professor’s immaculate household.

“Show him in,” the Professor said, sitting upright in her chair, her spectacles glinting. Sir Michael smiled to himself at Professor Deborah’s suddenly businesslike attitude. She can conceal her worry well, he thought. Truly, she is beautiful even in dire adversity.

Spike came wandering through the door, cringing somewhat at Cheese Sandwich’s obsequious air; it was obvious that he knew he was out of place in their spotless, clean, cheerful little household. The purple, green-crested dragon knelt before the Professor and Sir Michael obediently. “Sir. My lady,” he said, haltingly.

“You may rise, Spike,” the Professor said, accommodatingly. “You look hungry. Please, eat.” She gestured grandly at the tea tray Cheese Sandwich had laid out upon the table for her and Sir Michael: a steaming, huge pot of delicious lemon ginger tea, a large cake, hot, fresh-baked bread with a stick of the finest salted butter, cheese crumpets, and kippered herring, with a few slices of bacon.

“Can…can I really?” Spike said, barely believing it.

“Oh, stop being silly, you…you…ridiculous purple dragon!” the Professor said, stamping an elegant hoof and snorting. “Stuff yourself. It’s not like I’m at a loss for food. My problems are somewhat more complex than that, at the moment. At any rate, you are our honored guest – indeed, our lives may very well rest upon your capable shoulders, Captain Spike,” she declared.

Spike bobbed his head, rising to his paws. “Yes, my lady!”

“Now, why did you come?”

Spike hurried over to the tea tray and began scarfing down hot, fragrant slices of bread as quickly as he could manage, slathering cold butter upon each slice eagerly; the butter melted instantly, soaking the bread in delicious, salty yellow liquid. “Mmmmph…beg your pardon, my lady.”

“None of this ‘my lady’ stuff, I’m a Professor and that’s what you’ll call me,” the Professor said, placing her hands on her hips. Sir Michael fought back a chuckle and rustled his newspaper, though he was not really reading it; he was watching the Professor and Spike interacting over the top of it, and merely pretending to read.

“Yes, Professor. Sorry, Professor,” Spike said, apologetically, between bites of hot, crispy bacon. “I heard you were heading for Princess Celestia’s castle today. Professor, I ask you let us accompany you as a vanguard. We’ll form a protective body around your vehicle, and run up our banners. We’ll shield you from any of the attacking enemies who might try to stop you from attending Princess Celestia’s council.”

“A splendid idea, Captain Spike,” Sir Michael said, approvingly. “Have a cigar, my boy!” He broke out his pocket case of cigars, passing one to Spike. “Well, what do you think, Deborah? Shall we accept their offer? I think I may even command my Pegasus Triarii to fall in behind them. The display of our military power may very well convince Princess Celestia and her Electors to take our plea seriously.”

“Or they may think us paranoid idiots,” the Professor muttered. “I hardly think charging up to her castle gates with an armed retinue is any way to win her over.”

“Be a sport, Deborah,” Sir Michael begged. “It just might work!”

“I don’t like making a fuss!” the Professor insisted.

“Just this once, Professor? I swear we won’t do it again,” Spike said, half-wincing a little as he said so, as though aware that he might have spoken out of turn.

Professor Deborah crossed her arms under her chest and frowned mightily, glaring through her spectacles at Sir Michael, then at Spike. “Really! You two are worse than little colts with a new Hearth’s Warming eve toy! Fine, I’ll agree to your…your ridiculous show. I was just telling Sir Michael that you lot aren’t taking this seriously! You all think this is a jolly Nightmare Night game, don’t you? Hunt the scary vampire bat and everything will be fine, is that what you think?”
“With all due respect, Professor, we won’t rest until we take her down!” Spike said, making a fist with his scaly paw. “We heard all about poor little Junebug. Our illustrious Commander has sworn himself to pull one of their heads off with his bare hands for this wrong they’ve done you.”

The Professor blushed furiously, her shaggy grey tail lashing her flanks. “I hardly think it’s necessary, but if he wants to…”

“He will! He’s burning with determination!” Spike said. “Why, he’s so fired up, he just challenged Sir Michael’s subordinate to a duel!”

“And a good thing, too,” Sir Michael said, lighting a cigar. “Gloria needs to learn a lesson in humility. I would like proper cohesion in the ranks when we enter the field, too; real camaraderie amongst the troops, do you follow?”

He began puffing away on his cigar, and steepled his fingers together, the masculine, broad-shouldered Pegasus stallion watching Spike closely, his gold-flecked blue eyes narrowed.

“It is best to let Gloria experience a little humiliation now. If she does so, she will charge into the fray with great vim and vigour when the press comes, Captain Spike. She will be eager to ingratiate herself towards the commander of the mercenary company. It will also do her good to be overmastered by a human, which may clear up any…er…prior misconceptions she may still have allowed to linger upon the horizon of her mind. Let her get a little bloodied and injured; it will inflame her passion.”

A chill rose up the Professor’s back; she studied Sir Michael’s face, and saw only a cold, calculating, sterile look upon his face. “I take it back,” she said, in a small voice. “You have been readying yourself for this, Michael. And to think I’ve put you all to so much trouble…”

“Deborah, we Anointed Knights of Princess Celestia are sworn to guard the most beautiful and serene Monarchy of Equestria against all threats, foreign and domestic, or die in the attempt,” Sir Michael boomed, in his resonant baritone voice. “You did nothing untoward that you should feel guilt or sadness about. In fact, you have done us all a great credit; you espied the enemy and rose the alarm before anything truly untoward could have happened. You should have been a Knight,” he joked lightly, his eyes sparkling with admiration for the beautiful, dashing, courageous Professor.

The Professor blushed, and glanced downward, running her hands along her skirts in faint embarrassment. “Oh, I could never! But…it seems like you’ve gotten your wish anyway, Michael. Princess Celestia has seen to that.”

“The Princess works in mysterious ways, indeed,” Sir Michael said, looking thoughtful. “Though, I fear we Knights have failed in our duty.”

“How so?” The Professor looked confused, her ears pinning back against her long equine skull.

Sir Michael frowned, blowing thick blue clouds, his steely grey brows furrowed deeply in thought. “From what I understand, Deborah, Junebug has been lost to the enemy. At its heart, our work is a rescue mission; find and retrieve Junebug, yes?”

“That’s right.” The Professor nodded. “But…we don’t even know if she’s alive or dead,” she said, in a small voice.
Sir Michael continued. “This parfitly evil Vampire Bat Countess, Claret, has snatched and absconded with more than one Equestrian citizen, if what our military intelligence says is true. I intend to penetrate this matter further, before we launch our attack. Commander Leo claims to have a spymaster of great repute in his company; I suggest we use her to gather intelligence on the exact nature of the situation. I want to find where this Countess is hiding, Deborah. Then you must launch the attack!”

“Me?” The Professor squeaked.

“You! You’re the general in the field that Princess Celestia has chosen.”

“I would rather not fight at all,” the Professor said.

“In that regard, you are a fine strategist, Deborah,” Sir Michael said, leaning forward in his chair. “I am glad Princess Celestia chose you to see to the defences of the city, and not one of the wild young colts or fillies currently calling themselves Princes and Princess-Electors. Had she chosen one of them, the city would have been aflame already…and had she chosen Princess Hanoveria, my Pegasus Triarii would have still been in their garrisons at the Princess Celestia’s castle. You have shown great restraint thus far – yet, you have made the necessary preparations to secure our fair city against the enemy. I’m very proud of you, Deborah.”

In the courtyard, a sizeable crowd of ponies – Mercenaries, Triarii Knights, Auxiliari Architecti, and even a few maids from the Professor’s household – had gathered around Leo, the youthful human male Mercenary Commander, and Gloria Victrix, the blonde-maned, grey-coated, scarred, fierce-looking Pegasus Mare Knight-Captain of Sir Michael’s detachment of Pegasus Triarii, so that they might watch the human face off against the towering giant mare in heavy armor.

Jean Silverhoof, Melara Nightfall, and Remy Braun, the three fledgling Mercenary recruits, had managed to push their way to the front, with the help of the gregarious, pot-bellied Plumb Bob, the middle-aged Earth pony stallion belonging to the Auxiliari Architecti. Bob had actually put Jean on his shoulders, the better for the tiny Unicorn stallion to see what was going to happen.

“It’s not too late to back out, kid,” Bob said, glancing up at the defiant Jean seated atop his shoulders.

“No way! You wait. You just watch,’ Jean Silverhoof declared. “The Commander’s got this in the bag. He’s really good with big enemies, you’ll see.”

“Kid’s got a point, you know,” Remy, the strapping, muscular Earth Pony mare declared. “All that armor’s going to slow Gloria down. This isn’t a spear charge, this is close quarters combat, and I’ll grant that Gloria’s a terror when she’s in formation with her Triarii, but alone, and with a light, fast foe? I’m sorry, but she’s going to get torn to shreds, Bob. There’s nothing for it.”

“You kids think Triarii are that weak? Think again, you three. She’ll make your precious Commander bleed, see if she doesn’t,” Plumb Bob scoffed, hands on his hips.

Gloria and Leo faced each other, the crowd of ponies surrounding them hooting, yelling, shouting, bellowing, applauding, and kicking up an ear-shattering racket. The roar of them was like to split the air.

Gloria, the gigantic Pegasus mare, looked like a colossus of gleaming steel armor tinted a beautiful blue and gold; thick metal plate encased her from head to hoof, a bright white cloak spilling down her shoulders almost to the ground, a pot-like great helm on her head.

Her shield, a gargantuan wooden monstrosity, stiffened with bands of steel, depicted scenes of the history of Equestria upon it, done in bright colors, the figures and artwork stylized, like the stained-glass windows of a church, or of the Bayeux Tapestry. It showed a Pegasus, a Unicorn, and an Earth Pony joining their hands together; below that was Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, and below that, the Six Heroines of Equestria – Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, each holding their respective Elements in their right hands.

In her other hand was a spear that could easily have been a telephone pole in the human world. The Pegasus mare’s body itself spoke of tremendous, bone-shattering power; her torso was wide and thick, her shoulders broad, her arms wide and heavy, her thighs like columns of flesh, bone, muscle, and sinew, her hooves like anvils.

The giant Pegasus mare swung her spear; Leo could actually hear the whoosh of air from the enormous wooden shaft as it spun through the air. It seemed as though the gleaming spearhead was about two feet long, from where he could see it.

Gloria pounded the butt of her spear upon the ground. “Mercenaries have no bloody honor!” she bellowed. She had a voice like the silver trumpet of Judgment.

The mercenary soldiers around her booed and howled at her, shaking their fists at her, stamping their hooves, tossing their heads angrily, and she grinned triumphantly under her helm. Gloria’s Pegasus Triarii comrades laughed mockingly, leaning on their huge shields, the tips driven into the dirt of the courtyard..

Leo could see Knight-Captain Gloria’s bright golden eyes glinting like headlamps behind the ocular slits of her greathelm. He could smell her; the scent of mareflesh, perspiration, steel. She continued to vent her spleen at the human Mercenary commander in loud tones. “You won’t fight me in single combat, you merchant of death! You’re used to sneaking up on the enemy in the dark of the night! I am an Anointed Knight of the Most Honourable Triarii of the Princess Celestia-“

“Shut up already. You’re gonna run out of breath in that tin can you’re wearing.” Leo rubbed the back of his neck, looking utterly bemused, as though the Triarius Knight-Captain had failed to say anything remotely making sense.

Leo was a full three heads shorter that Knight-Captain Gloria, but the hot human male Mercenary Commander seems to radiate just as much menace as the giant Pegasus mare in all her armor; indeed, he seems to blaze like a furnace with pent-up energy and rage.

He is youthful, only in his late teens or early 20’s, with a thin, muscular, athletic body, dark, swarthy, smooth skin, and shaggy black hair adorning his head, like slashes of shiny black obsidian,; the picture of a dashing, studly Human male Mercenary captain in the flesh.

And what a sight he makes before the crowd! His short, rough-cut black hair glints in the sunlight, and, as if to entice the ponies viewing him, he runs a large, strong hand through his crown of luscious black hair slowly, combing the sheeny black locks with his fingers.

He has an overtly masculine, pointed face with a sharp, angular nose, and a powerful fighter’s jaw, giving him an easy, self-assured, overly confident look. His dark, glittering eyes, like chips of grey slate, glint with aggression; he is looking at the armor-clad Pegasus mare and clearly examining her, analyzing the best place to whack the big behemoth and bring her earthwards, his full, sensuous lips coiled in a knowing smirk. His head rests upon a broad, supported by the thickly muscled pyramid of his shoulders, the arches of his collarbones.

Unlike the Pegasus Knight, he’s wearing a simple black leather jacket, well-worn, scuffed, rubbed smooth by years and years of use. It is stretched tightly around his muscular upper body, worn open to allow visibility of his rigid, rock-hard, squared pectoral muscles jutting out under his smooth, dark skin, and the shallow curves of his defined, sharply sculpted abdominal muscles; there is almost no bodyfat percentage to be seen there, and his dark skin is drawn tautly over the bunched, hard, stony muscle thrusting out under his flesh. He has a large red gem half-sunk in the dead center of where his breastbone would be located. His jacket’s left sleeve is stretched skin-tight around the prominent, bulging bicep and forearm muscles of his left arm, but his right arm is clad in heavy red-colored armor.

The red armor, shot through with lines of yellow and black, that encases his right arm seems to be wrought of many small parts, a complex array of machinery; the minute pistons, camshafts, and pushrods give it a faint resemblance to an internal combustion engine, but there is also a device bearing some similarity to a jet turbine engine in the palm of his red gauntlet, glowing with a faint red light, whirring and humming softly. There is a much larger turbine the side of a saucer on the shoulder-plate of the gauntlet – it hadn’t been spinning earlier on, but now that Leo is facing the Knight-Captain it has begun spinning up, first with a low hum, raising a warm, stiff breeze.

Leo’s hard, defined torso has a distinct V-shape, his shoulders wide, his waist toned, trim, with well-worn blue jeans riding teasingly low on his hips, the thick muscles of his quads and calves bunching under the tautly drawn, faded fabric of his jeans. He is wearing tough black leather boots, covered with the scuffs and marks of frontline combat.

Leo falls into a fighting stance, spreading those thick, muscular thighs, placing one foot before the other, raising his arms before his head, bending his back a little like an Olympian preparing to shoot out from the starting blocks of the racetrack, presenting just the side of his body to Knight-Captain Gloria. “I’ve never had tinned horsemeat in white wine sauce before, but I’ll gladly have a slice now for breakfast.”

Long red fins extended from the shoulder plating of his gauntleted right arm with the scream of metal rubbing against metal. By now, the turbines on the shoulder plating and the gauntlet have spun up to half of their maximum speed, emitting tangible gusts of wind, kicking up clouds of dust and thrown-up earth from the construction underway.

Melara, the young Unicorn mare mercenary soldier, let out a little cry of surprise and covered her head with her arm. Murmurs of astonishment rose from the Triarii Knights watching the two; the artifice upon Leo’s shoulder and right arm were entirely unfamiliar to them, but most of the seasoned, experienced mercenary soldiers were familiar with Leo’s ability.

“I don’t get it. What is that? What’s he going to do?” Plumb Bob, the Auxiliari Architecti laborer carrying Jean, the little Unicorn colt, peered curiously at Leo’s right arm from his place in the crowd gathered around the Knight-Captain and the Mercenary Commander.

“Kicking Gloria’s flank, that’s what,” Remy, the Earth pony mare mercenary said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He’s just lying in wait. He’s preparing to unleash his power on her. Watch.”

Knight-Captain Gloria of Sir Michael’s Pegasus Triarii snarled with rage. “You…you….”

She launched herself at Leo with a wordless bellow of fury, sounding like an angry bull, her hooves cannoning against the ground; he swore he could practically feel the ground shaking under her hoof-beats. The huge Pegasus mare had couched her spear and lifted her shield before herself, her armor shining in the sunlight, her cloak streaming out behind her like great white wings, clouds of dust rising from her pounding hooves; her own wings are clenched tightly against her body like closed fists, trembling with the effort, the rigid muscles along her wingspan quivering.

To Leo, it was like being caught before the advance of a main battle tank at full speed. He barely had enough time to activate the boosters of his red armor. Its pistons churned and shook, the turbines spooling up to full power with a mighty blast of hot wind, the fins along his shoulder and upper arm spinning like a propeller; in an instant he shot several feet to the side, sliding to a stop in a crouch, his boots skidding across the ground.

Gloria charged past him like an enraged bull, nearly tumbling headlong. Before the dizzy, disoriented Knight-Captain Pegasus mare could regain her balance and turn to face him, Leo shot forward like a bullet from a gun in a great jet of hot propeller-wash, battering Gloria’s body like a solid wall of air slamming into her at high speed.

Gloria barely had time to raise her shield before Leo began raining blows upon it; the jets and pistons of his gauntleted right hand allowed him to make blurringly fast punches, his right arm like a stream of liquid fire as he slammed and struck at her at speeds too fast for any mortal eye to follow, the turbines and machinery screaming and roaring like that of a fighter jet with its afterburners in full cry.

Gloria screamed in pain as Leo’s blows rained down on her shield. Imagine being shotgunned repeatedly with large buckshot loads, again and again and again – that is what it felt like to her. Each impact made her huge ornate shield ring hollowly. Half-blind with pain, she swung her spear; Leo saw it a moment too late and the wooden shaft struck him full in the leg, sweeping him aside. He roared with agony, sliding a good many feet away from Gloria upon his back, but he was on his feet again in an instant, gritting his teeth irritably as Gloria turned to face him, favoring her injured shield arm.

“What is that toy, child? Put it down and face me with a sword and shield!” Knight-Captain Gloria screamed at him.

“No deal. I’m kind of attached to it,” Leo said, brushing dirt from his jacket, and lifting his arms before his body.

And he shot towards Gloria. Gloria raised her shield, bringing her mighty lance to bear and found –

Nothing. She looked up, and found Leo had flown skyward. “Come back, you coward! I haven’t spread my wings yet, so you can’t fly!”

“I haven’t,” Leo answered. It was true; he was descending towards Gloria at a tremendous rate, his body rolling, spinning, throwing his full weight into a savage punch.

He struck her right shoulder with a resounding thud and a ring of metal striking metal, sending her reeling backward, swaying on her hooves. There was an awful crack, and the crowd gasped as Gloria screamed, her arm sliding bonelessly from its socket. She dropped her shield, and it hit the ground with a hollow ‘boom’, falling face-first, the naked, unpainted underside exposed. The handles had actually bent somewhat under Leo’s earlier blows.

Leo landed lightly upon the ground some feet away from her, flexing his armored fingers, the machinery along his arm humming and whirring softly, emitting little puffs of warm wind, the turbine upon his palm slowing.

Knight-Captain Gloria’s shoulders heaved as she sucked in air, panting for breath. “Hah…hah….”

She grasped her disjointed arm with her other hand, and rammed it back into its socket with a wet squelch and a crack of muscle and bone grinding against bone. She flexed her arm as though nothing had happened, picked up her shield, her spear, and began to walk towards Leo.

“I see I’ve underestimated you, human boy,” the Knight-Captain declared, her voice grim. “I won’t do that again.”

“Ech….” Leo grimaced, rubbing his mouth with his left hand. “Didn’t think you were going to pop your arm back in.”

“Child, I’m a twenty-three year veteran of Equestria’s army in the field. I did not survive to become a Triarius by yielding just because my arm was put out of socket, and we are all familiar with basic medicine, to a certain extent,” Knight-Captain Gloria declared, a bit of her old boastfulness trailing back into her voice.

A hush fell over the crowd. Knight-Captain Gloria was advancing slowly on Leo now, shield raised, spear couched. She began striking at him with the butt of her spear, forcing him to block the blows with his armored right arm.

He grunted under each blow – it was like someone swinging a sledgehammer at him over and over, and the machinery of his gauntlet could only absorb so much of the blows; a small amount of the force was still transferred to his body. He began to perspire freely, beads of clear sweat rolling down his brows, the hard bunches of muscle under the flesh of his neck and shoulders, the hard bulges of his pectoral muscles, the ridges of his abdominals, his skin glistening wetly in the sunlight.

Suddenly he lashed out with his armored right hand, grabbing Gloria’s spear-shaft out of the air, kicking off from the ground with a powerful jet of air from the turbines in his armor, the fin-blade propellers whirling; he spun in a somersault, and struck Gloria’s helmeted muzzle with both boots, sending her stumbling backward, spitting thick streams of blood from the gashes in her lips.

Gloria stumbled a few steps, then fell her full length on the ground with a solid, earth-shaking ‘thump’, her armor clattering against itself, her spear and shield tumbling merrily from her numb hands. The Pegasus Triarii shouted in dismay and ran to the side of their knocked-out captain, as the mercenary soldiers streamed forward to receive their victorious commander, hoisting him skyward amidst the riotous cheering, stamping, and applause.

“Wasn’t that exciting?” Sir Michael said, from the balcony.

The Professor had to admit it was so.

“Good old Leo! He’ll help you get Junebug back, you’ll see,” Spike said triumphantly.

“Right you are, m’lad,” Sir Michael said, approvingly, the Pegasus stallion ruffling Spike’s green fins in a familiar manner. “We’d better get going, Deborah. I’m sure Princess Celestia’s expecting you, and we’ve spent enough time resting on our laurels. Spike, why don’t you go send word to your commander, there’s a good chap, and make ready your troops for departure. I shall have one of my surgeons look over Gloria and tidy her up; make her look presentable.”

“Oh, but her poor face…she’s bleeding,” the Professor said, fretfully, rubbing her hands together.

Sir Michael dismissed this with a shake of his head. “’Tis but a scratch. Gloria will tire us all out telling us about how she got this newest scar on her muzzle from perilous single combat with a human soon enough, you’ll see. I’ll be surprised if they aren’t fast friends now.”

XI.

A few of the big Pegasus Triarii hauled Gloria’s unconscious form back into the Triarii Camps, on a rack of boards big enough to bear half a carriage-load of gear. It took six of the Triarii Knights to carry her in her full armor plate.

The Professor, who could not help feeling partially responsible, joined the little retinue as they proceeded down the half-built camps, along with a few of the Mercenary soldiers; Jean, Remy, and Melara wanted to see what the armored monster looked like with her helmet off, for you must remember that the Triarii Knights and the Mercenary Soldiers did not mingle much with each other.

Leo came along merely to see how much he’d reshaped Gloria’s muzzle.

The Auxiliari Architecti resumed their task of building the fortification around the Professor’s house, with all the accompanying clashing and grinding of stone upon stone, the hammer and clatter of stone and woodworking tools, the squeak and groan of wooden cranes, and the grunts of exertion from the workers at their task.
Sir Michael disappeared mysteriously as he usually did, though not before leaving his newspaper with the Professor.

“Why?” she had asked, taking it from him with a bemused look.

“There’s a story in there about your disappeared Junebug,” Sir Michael explained, pointing to one of the columns. “It looks like your Vampire Fruit Bat Countess is starting to attract attention. Some colts and fillies say that three beautiful ladies have been seen talking to them and enticing them with gifts of flowers, toys, and candy, too. I’d stake my title on them being your Fruit Bats. Though why they should be trying to turn youngsters into vampires is mostly beyond me. They must be trying to build up a reserve force hidden in the shadows in case their current plan fails.”

“I’d hardly call those evil underclothed harlots ‘beautiful’,” the Professor said, with a scowl. “I don’t blame those silly little colts and fillies; they don’t know any better, and wearing tight clothes and sticking one’s rump and breasts out is not what makes one ‘beautiful’. They look like brothel workers from Prance.”

Sir Michael struggled not to laugh, and pretended to clean his monocle with the sleeve of his immaculate black tailcoat. “Ha! Ahem…yes, indeed. I wonder if we’ll get a look at them up close soon.” He caught sight of Professor Deborah’s scowl, and hastened to assume a serious look. “Be that as it may, I shall leave you and your companions to it, while we wait for word from the castle.”

“What are you planning to do?” the Professor said, incredulously, her silvery eyebrows climbing up her head.

“I feel like having a pleasant post-breakfast walk through our fair city, Deborah. You really ought to accompany me – it clears the head and aids the digestion.”

“No, no…I’d better check on poor little Gloria.”

Sir Michael chuckled appreciatively at the Professor calling the huge Pegasus Triarius mare ‘little’.

The Professor continued. “Leo really smashed her head in…I could feel that blow all the way up here on the balcony. It’s not funny,” she remonstrated Spike severely, as the young purple dragon began laughing uproariously, slapping his thigh, his scales a-rattling with amusement. “She could have been very badly hurt.”

“Bloodying her nose is hardly a great injury, Deborah, be reasonable,” Sir Michael said, spreading his hands in a conciliatory manner. “Those Triarii Knights experience worse in daily training. She’ll be as right as rain in a jiffy, you mark my words - and the better for it.”

“Whatever you say,” the Professor grumbled, half-fondly, half in exasperation, folding her arms under her chest, the newspaper clutched firmly in one hand. “Will you be back before lunchtime? I should hate to have to proceed to the castle alone.”

“Yes, surely, my dear,” Sir Michael said. He strode over to the Professor, taking her in his arms, pressing his lips to hers briefly. The Professor reddened slightly, her wings lifting a few inches. Then he let go of her, and smiled roguishly. “You never know who you might encounter in these city streets. Perhaps that infamous spymistress Leo spoke so highly of…a magician, an apple-seller, a baker, a tinker, a tailor, or even a scantily-clad Vampire Fruit Bat girl.”

“Don’t be absurd, Michael,” the Professor said, with a half-smile. “You’re out of luck if you intend to ogle some Vampire Fruit Bats, anyway; they don’t wander around until night falls.”

“I certainly hope so,” Sir Michael snorted. “Not all of us are fantastic swordsmares like you, Deborah. I’d hate to have to take up arms against them directly.”

“Why go out alone, then?”

“No one will notice me then. I’m just another Canterlot lordling out for a stroll.” He gave the Professor a quick kiss on the cheek, and left her quite alone with Spike.

“Come on, Spike,” the Professor said, taking the young dragon’s paw in her hand. “Let’s go down to them.”

“Yes, Professor,” Spike said, cheerfully, wriggling all over like an eel.

The makeshift hospital for the Pegasus Triarii in the courtyard was a great wood-and-stone affair, a single story high. The Triarii bearing Gloria’s makeshift littler dumped her rather unceremoniously upon one free bed, and the party following her rapidly surrounded it.

Sir Michael’s camp surgeon, a grim-faced, white-coated, red-maned Unicorn mare in her middle ages, called Doctor Sagittarius, pulled on a pair of gloves and set about sliding Gloria’s battered helmet off. She grimaced; Gloria’s face was covered in bruises and cuts, and her jaw seemed to have broken in the impact Leo gave her. Both of Gloria’s eyes were blackened and swollen, and blood ran from her nostrils, her lips, and the cuts on her muzzle.

Melara covered her eyes with her hands; Jean looked a little ill and looked away from the smashed ruin of Gloria’s face. Remy put her hands on her hips, and looked closer, sniffing at the scent of blood, sweat and female horseflesh the big female Knight-Captain exuded.

“Well, Commander, you’ve stoved in her head like a rum puncheon, that’s for sure,” Doctor Sagittarius declared, pulling Gloria’s bruised eyelid open and peering at her eyeball. “She doesn’t seem concussed, thank Celestia. I’ll have her as right as rain in a jiffy. Observe, everyone,” she snapped at the little audience of mercenaries, Triarii Knights, the Professor, and her new friends. “I shall knit her jawbone back together with magic, like so…” the Doctor said, sounding as if she were putting on a show in an operating theater.

Doctor Sagittarius placed her hands on Gloria’s broken jaw, and her horn glowed red. A beam of light shot from her horn to her hands, then to Gloria’s jaw. A wet, squelching, cracking sound came from Gloria’s jawbones as they fused back together, and Jean Silverhoof, the young Mercenary unicorn cadet, gagged a little, sounding visibly sick.

“Don’t like medicine, boy?” Doctor Sagittarius said, smiling. “Make sure your commander doesn’t place you in the healer’s section of your mercenary outfit.”

“I will,” Jean said, swallowing hard.

“Now I shall wake her,” Doctor Sagittarius said, placing her hands on Gloria’s chest. A beam of light shot though Gloria’s chest, and the big knight’s body jerked on the operating table.

Gloria’s eyes snapped open. She noticed Leo standing above her, and began to cry in fear. “I yield,” she sniffled, tears running down her bloodied cheeks. “Mercy, sir. Don’t kill me.”

The Professor rolled her eyes. “Still as big a crybaby as ever, I see. You’re all mouth,” she complained, tweaking Gloria’s long equine ear teasingly.

“Don’t be stupid, Gloria,” Leo muttered. “I just wanted to see the look on your big dumb face when you got up and realized you got knocked the buck out.”

And he thrust a hand – the naked one, not the armored one – forward, taking Gloria’s much larger hand in his own. “Get up, ya big lug. Feeling better now?”

“A little. Good Celestia, my face hurts,” Gloria complained, levering her giant body upwards with Leo’s help. Surprisingly, the smaller Human male was capable of pulling her to a sitting position.

“Yeah, well, my whole leg’s killing me,” Leo said. “Your canned horsemeat is too goddamn tough. I’m going to have a word with San Miguel about his choice of breakfast platters when he gets back, you can be sure of that.”

Spike, Jean, and Remy burst into laughter. Even Gloria smiled slightly through her tears; the Professor shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose and groaned in disgust. “Really, you lot are just like little colts and fillies! I suppose you’re all going to kiss and make up, now, like good little children?”

“I had no intention of kissing the girl, Professor, but if you insist…” Leo said, his dark eyes flashing.

Gloria colored visibly, and shook her head. “No need,” she said, hastily. “I’ll be good now. My spear is all yours to command, Leo, and so are those of my sworn sisters of the Triarii.”

“Forget it, kid,” Leo said, brushing her offer away graciously. “I won’t hassle you with my problems. Just make sure you keep close to our backs when we launch the attack on those vampires.”

“I will,” Gloria promised.

“I did tell you to remain at our university, Gloria,” the Professor said, folding her arms under her chest and levelling Gloria with a very stern look. “Just look what’s happened to you now. You know very well you could have asked us for help if you were experiencing difficulties at home I-“

Jennever Windup, the green-maned, carrot-coated Earth pony mare who served as one of the mercenary captains reporting directly to Leo in their mercenary company, burst through the hospital room doors with a loud “BANG”, her leather-shod hooves pounding on the floor as she ran towards the operating room table where the others were crowded around Julia.

“Commander! I bring word from the Spymistress! She has returned!” she shouted, skidding to a halt before the table and standing at attention, her legs spread, hooves planted well apart, one arm held at an angle behind her back, the other bent at a firm 90-degree angle over her chest, her closed fist held over her heart.

“I shall go,” Leo announced, letting go of Gloria and striding towards the door.

“I, as well,” the Professor announced, striding up behind him, glaring at Captain Jennever through her spectacles.

“Don’t leave me here!” Gloria wailed, crawling off the table. She got to her hooves, wobbling somewhat – Doctor Sagittarius, Spike, and the three mercenary recruits sucked in their breaths and visibly tensed up as she did so, their hearts pounding.

Leo turned back and strode towards the tottering Pegasus mare; he swiftly thrust an arm under Gloria’s own, grasping her lower back with a firm hand. “Easy there. You’ll throw yourself head first onto the ground and crack your skull.”

“Wait!” Doctor Sagittarius protested, as Leo began hauling Gloria away, half leading, half-carrying the giant mare. “She needs to have her wounds disinfected and bound! Steady on there, you lot! Hey! Come back!”

But they were all already gone. Doctor Sagittarius sat disconsolately on one of her hospital beds, folding her hands. “Oh, well…”

XII.

A small detachment of the Triarii Knights had been posted as gate guards; Sir Michael himself had given the order for them to patrol the main gates of the fortification being raised around the Professor’s house. They stood at opposite ends of the unfinished gate, decked out in their heavy blue-and-gold tinted steel plate armor, bearing their spears and shields.

Amidst the shouts, clamor, and general uproar in the courtyard, one of the Triarii gave the crowd a quick look over her shoulder. “Well, they’re certainly having fun,” she remarked dryly, fluttering her enormous wings.

“Huh! Glad someone is. They call this a garrison?” scoffed the other Triarius on the opposite end of the gate, hefting her shield.

They continued to watch the streets ahead of them. The noise of the crowd behind them in the courtyard diminished as Leo put Gloria flat on her face, and sent her packing to the field hospital.

The Triarius on the right leaned on her shield, sighing contentedly. “Ahhhh. Peace at last.”

The hammering and banging and clatter of the Auxiliari Architecti resumed.

The Triarius allowed herself a muttered curse, and said, “Spoke too bloody soon.”

“Too right you did. I have the feeling it’s going to be somewhat of a long day,” agreed the other Triarius. “If the situation is as dire as Sir Michael implies, we shall probably have to form a vanguard when Professor Deborah makes for the castle. That could get messy fast if the Vampire Bats send some of their force to ambush us. I hope those mercenaries know what they’re doing, or we might as well not have them protecting us at all.”

“Wait a sec. Do you hear that?” One of the Triarii lifted her head, looking this way and that.

“I don’t hear anything,” the other Triarius confessed. She waited a few moments, then tilted her head to the side. “Sounds like…music?”

“Look at that.” Another Triarius walked over to the front of the gate, pointing at the street before them. “I just saw the sun glinting off something in the distance. Say about 300 yards, directly in front of us, approaching at a high rate of speed.”

The Triarius at the right hand of the gate raised her spear. “Close ranks! Form line!”

The Pegasus Triarii Knights hastened to obey; their heavy, steel-shod hooves crashing down upon the ground, armor plates slamming against each other with ringing, bell-like clashes and clangs as they pressed their shoulders against each other, digging their hooves into the ground firmly, their shields meeting end-over-end with firm, deep ‘thuds’.

Nosing through Canterlot’s city streets is a huge, long, low-slung classic muscle car – slab-sided, two-door, with what seems like nearly a mile of hood length, and an equally long, cavernous trunk, a fierce chrome grill like a snarling mouth full of metal teeth. The car’s body is painted black, with a custom hood ornament, wrought in bright steel, of a bird with its wings spread, talons outstretched, the roof covered in ornamental black leather. Its wheels are decked out in bright chrome rims.

It’s a Ford Thunderbird from the 1972 model year, its huge 429 cu in (7.0 L) 385 V8 engine juddering, roaring, making the car’s hood vibrate steadily, gasoline exhaust fumes wafting from the trembling exhaust tip.

Loud, high-energy HI-NRG-influenced electronic dance music with a high BPM count throbs and booms from the interior of the car, its sound system turned to maximum volume. Some of the ponies in the Canterlot city street cannot help but stare curiously at the car rolling past them, others scowling irritably,

The car rolls up to the Triarii guarding the Professor’s gates, and instantly the Triarii form a circle around the car, every single spear aimed for the car’s cabin. The driver shuts the car off; abruptly, both the music and the heavy engine note cease.

The driver’s side door swings open.

A zebra mare steps out of the driver’s seat, young, obviously about eighteen or nineteen years old, her mane combed away from her skull in a large, fluffy, black-and-white afro, forming a perfect sphere around her head. Her face is gently rounded, with a stubby, short muzzle, a blunt, flat nose, and large, plush lips bearing the vaguest hint of an irreverent smirk. She’s wearing large, mirrored black sunglasses, the tips of her equine ears pierced with gold rings.

She has wide, strong shoulders, a slender neck, and large, heavy, round breasts thrusting out at the front of her skin-tight black-and-red bodysuit; the stretchy fabric of the suit clings to the swells of her round breasts, lifting and squeezing the large globes together.

Her waist is slender, her belly firm and flat. Her hips are wide and lush, her thighs broad, soft, pillowy, inviting to the touch, her glossy white-and-black tail swaying this way and that above the gigantic globes of her round, juicy rump, the soft, pliable half-moons pulling the black-and-red fabric of her bodysuit quite taut, allowing one to observe the enticing curves of her rump clearly.

She’s wearing the usual black leather military boots favored by the mercenaries in Leo’s company. The aroma of sandalwood incense, violets, and massage oil clings to her, along with the alluring scent of young, supple, female Zebra flesh.

As she approaches the gates, one of the Pegasus Triarii Knights stands to block her path. “No further, miss. State your name and business.”

The Zebra mare snorted, and placed her hands on her hips, ears pinning back irritably against her skull.

“Don’t be a bloody fool, m’dear. Can’t you see my uniform? Can’t you see the ponies I’ve got with me? I’m part of the Mercenary Company attached to your outfit. Why are you wasting valuable time on this comedy show? Every second we spend here, engrossed in idle chit-chat, that Vampire Bat Countess is growing in power.”

She had a clear, ringing, bell-like voice.

“How do you know about that?” the Pegasus mare Triarius demanded.

“Oh, I know a lot of things. It’s kind of my job, you know,” the Zebra mare stated airily, waving a hand airily at the Triarius. “Fine, I’ll oblige you. My name’s Alsvid and I’m here to report in to Professor Deborah of Canterlot University, Sir Michael of the Princess Celestia’s Own Pegasus Triarii detachment, and the mercenary Commander Leo. I also know your name, Centurion Valeria, Leader of the Second Century of the First Maniple of the Pegasus Triarii.”

She took off her sunglasses with one hand, snapping them closed expertly with a tiny flick of her wrist, revealing two brilliant green eyes like glittering emeralds, flecked with a faint blueish tinge.

“Sir Michael isn’t here right now,” Centurion Valeria declared. Having been put out by Alsvid’s control over the situation, she settled for a loft, detached, disdainful attitude.

“Thought so,” Alsvid said. “I figured it was worth a shot, anyway. Now step aside and let me see the man I love.”

At that exact moment, Jennever Windup, the crossbow mercenary captain in Leo’s company, ran up to the gates, clutching a stitch in her side with one hand. “Let…her through,” she puffed, the green-maned Earth pony mare breathing hard.

She bent over, placing her hands on her knees, ears pinned back against her skull, sweat rolling down her brows, her breasts rising and falling as she sucked in air, her mane plastered to her forehead with perspiration. “Leo and the Professor are….expecting her. You’ll…you’ll regret it if you don’t let her in…” she panted.

Alsvid slapped her on the back, appreciatively. “Jolly good show, matey. Go on. Off with you.”

Jennever spent a few moments catching her breath, and then saluted Alsvid in the style of the Mercenary Company, slamming a fist against her chest. “It shall be done!”

Alsvid returned the salute, spreading her legs, shoulders well apart, knees straight, one arm folded behind her back, the other coiled against her chest, fist raised over where her heart would be located in her ribcage.

Jennever took off running back towards the camp.

“What does that mean?” Centurion Valeria asked Alsvid, as they watched Jennever sprinting back towards the main body of the fortification.

“What does what mean?” Alsvid placed her sunglasses back on her nose.

“That salute you mercenaries do. That thing with the closed fist over one’s heart. What does that signify?”

Alsvid ran a hand through her big, fluffy white-and-black afro, leaning on the side of her car. “Glad you asked. It’s very simple in its meaning, matey; it symbolizes our willingness to give the very flesh of our hearts over in service to Commander Leo. That’s what that means. We will stop at nothing to fulfill our duties to him! We are sworn to obey every order he issues for us. Excuse me a moment…I’d better let my associates know they can get out of the car now.”

She strode over to the car window, rapping her fist on the door. “Titanium! Jade! Come over here and say hello to the nice Centurion.

The doors swung open again, and two Unicorn mares exited the vehicle; Titanium, who was a short, silver-coated, white-maned young mare; probably the same age as Alsvid, with a chubby frame and a plump face that made her look much younger than she really was; her short height added to this effect, as did her choice of clothes; a ripped, worn purple armless vest, exposing her bare, chubby little arms, and tight black leggings, with white boots.

Her hair fell in a messy mane around her shoulders and neck, covering one of her eyes. A whip hung off a belt tied around her plump little waist.

The other mare, Jade, was also quite short, but her dark-green coated frame was much thinner; her light green mane was sharply styled in an isolesces triangle shape, pointing skyward. She wore an armless v-neck green bodysuit and green leather boots, and was grinning in barely contained amusement at the Centurion.

“Morning, loser,” Titanium, the fat silver-coated unicorn mare said, folding her arms behind her head and glaring at the Pegasus mare Centurion insolently. She had a coarse, gruff voice for such a young mare.

Alsvid ruffled Titanium’s mane amusedly. “At least try to be nice, ‘Tania. We don’t want to hurt her feelings.”

“Quite right,” Jade, the green-maned, green-coated Unicorn made said, importantly. “I’m Jade, subordinate to Alsvid. How are you today? You look well! I suppose you’ve already had your breakfast? I haven’t! I’m ruddy well starved, I tell you! I wonder when lunch will be served? I can’t wait to see what kind of grub they’ve got in this place. Have you heard about those Vampire Bats? Dreadful, absolutely dreadful! I hope we can contain them eventually, or it’ll get ugly fast. Truth be told I think things are already getting ugly if it’s come to this. Just think, all sorts of supernatural monsters are running around Canterlot City unchecked! It’s enough to make your blood run cold…”

Jade spoke at a breathless, breakneck speed, barely allowing the Pegasus Triarii Centurion a word in edgewise. She had a high, squeaky, piping voice.

The big Pegasus mare rested her shield upon the ground, rubbing the back of her neck with one heavily armored hand. “Er…yes, quite,” she muttered, not following at all, but she valorously pretended that she understood the torrent of words coming from Jade.

“Anyway! You’ll have to tell me all about your knightly adventures when we get inside,” Jade continued. “I’ve never seen a real Triarius Knight before! What do you guys do all day when you’re not questing and adventuring on the Princess’s business? Do you get breaks on the holidays, or…”

Jade was interrupted by the Professor, who was hotly pursued by Leo and the rest of her retinue. The silver-haired Pegasus mare looked positively furious; she strode up to Alsvid and planted her hands on her hips, glaring at the Zebra mare. “You certainly took your time coming! Must you always arrive fashionably late? I have never known you to do anything that did not engender a great deal of waiting! Honestly, it's like you enjoy keeping others in suspense!"

XIII.

The companions reconvened in the Professor’s drawing room to hear Alsvid’s report. Leo dismissed Jean, Melara, and Remy to their duties, with his captain Jennever attending to them; Alsvid’s assistants, Titanium and Jade, were taken away with them to get some refreshment. Gloria meandered back to the field hospital to have her cuts and bruises bandaged up.

Cheese Sandwich, the Professor’s stolid, reliable butler soon had a merry fire blazing away in the fireplace, providing the room with a comfy warmth, and chased off the maids who were still busy tidying up the place, drawing the curtains back from the spacious, roomy windows, dusting the furniture, the tasteful marble statues of various ponies from Equestria’s history, adjusting and re-arranging books in the bookshelves, ensuring the decanters in the cabinets were full, and clearing off the table in the center of the room.

Once the last maid had scurried forth from the room, the Professor strode in, with Leo and Alsvid in her wake. Cheese Sandwich murmured something and retreated from the room, shimmering away as he always did, in this truly ethereal way, like fog rolling away in the morning sunlight, seeming rather to float rather than walk over the floor.

Leo eased himself into a chair, the human male sprawling out comfortably; Alsvid sat in his lap, wrapping her arms around his body.

The Professor sat herself in her favorite chair, the one closest to the fire, crossing one elegant leg over the other, placing the tips of her fingers together, and giving Alsvid a very level stare through her spectacles. “Why don’t you begin by telling us everything you know about these Vampire Fruit Bats, then?”

“Gladly,” Alsvid said. “This happened about three years ago. The Princess Celestia had commissioned a space station, you see, called the Ecumene, in order to advance Equestria’s scientific standing with the other nations, and we Limitanei Space Marines were charged with staffing and maintaining the station while her finest scientists carried out their experiments. I, myself, had been attached to a rocket tasked with shipping fresh luxury goods to the space station…”

“Could the scientists not have grown their own food and produced their own water, however?” the Professor cut in. “Space isn’t my –forte-, but I understand from what I’ve learned of our space exploration program that the goal is to achieve self-sufficient habitats. Your ferrying supplies to the Ecumene Station suggests this goal eludes your exploratory arm of the Equestrian government somewhat.”

“Yep.” Alsvid admitted, nodding her head. “They could grow the basics up there – potatoes, grain, carrots, and so on, and we set up a system to produce water and breathable air, which wasn’t too hard, but if you wanted really delicious things, like apples or cider or candy, you have to send for it from the ground, and that’s kinda dangerous and expensive, so we’d go for weeks at a time without apples. And it was awful...you can’t imagine how good it feels to just walk over to someone and buy an apple off them without having to wait for it. There’s always equipment and gear that needs to be shuttled up there, too, because they don’t have factories to make stuff yet; it’s just a small outpost, it isn’t that self-sufficient. So they’d set up a group of Limitanei Space Marines to fly rocket ships up and down the space-lanes, bulk-carrying goods for the Marines and the scientists on the Ecumene.”

Alsvid continued: “I started piloting those big rocket ships when I turned 16. Ponies were dying like flies out there on the space-lanes, although nobody talked about it much, and the advances we were making out there in space far overshadowed the risk. Oh, I might be exaggerating, too, because about 55% of the time you’d launch from the ground station and dock with the space station safely.”

“Same thing getting back. But every now and again, you’d pass by a wrecked rocket ship that hit something that was going too fast…you’ve got really quick asteroids and comets hurling past you at hundreds of miles an hour, but usually due to the calculations of our scientists and the mission controllers at Her Majesty’s Space Center in Manehatten, and the rules every pilot must follow, you can avoid getting smashed to bits. I still saw some rocket ships rolled over, stranded in the dead zone next to the space lanes.”

“You’re supposed to be safe if your ship gets pulled into that zone, but it’ll also probably roll your ship, and you don’t want that to happen. Just the lateral motion can kill you. Or something flies up into your skull or chest…or you get thrown clear out of the ship. I saw some really fresh young Marines crawling out of the wreckage of a rolled rocketship. They were scrambling through the window. I’ll never forget that. The door wouldn’t open, so they had to exit the ship through the window. That’s one of the things that will happen to you if you roll your ship. ”

Alsvid’s voice grew small, and Leo noticed that she had tightened her hands into fists. She was staring at the ground. The Professor’s eyes narrowed behind her spectacles, but she said nothing, even though she could not help thinking what would possess the young Zebra mare to put herself in such grievous danger.

“Our scientists took the time to calculate the odds for Mission Control and the sponsors of the space project. They informed us, after researching the matter, that there was a 45% chance you would suffer a fatal injury each day, just from a rocket ship impact. It was safer in the space station, though not much more. That had its own problems – I ain’t gonna get into them right now. Flying the routes from station to station though…a lot of the others used to say 45% odds of fatal injury were meaningless, and a lot of pilots used to brush it off as meaningless, but some of the girls grew permanently afraid. Couldn’t fly anymore. They’d get horrible panic attacks if they even so much as boarded a rocket ship. They’d talk about how they couldn’t breathe, their chests were getting tight, they would pass out…or some girls would swear off piloting entirely and only ride along.”

“Weren’t you frightened?” Leo said, quietly.

Alsvid thought this over. “I don’t know. I was aware I was playing with death just getting into the ship and piloting it, and I used to be really scared sometimes, but then when I was piloting the ship, I used to take a lot of risks. It was a lot of fun, too. If I hadn’t gotten my walking papers from the Marines I’d probably still be riding the spacelanes. I was also really good at piloting the rockets – the big ones, mind you, not the little two-seater spacecraft, the big, roomy, passenger-carrying rockets that have a lot of space to carry cargo. Those are even harder to control; a lot of the time they’ll run away with you if you don’t keep an eye on the spacelane and watch the commands from Mission Control. They take longer to stop, because they’re larger and heavier.”

“They don’t adjust course well; you’ve got to be gentle with the wheel and ease her around turns, and you’ve got to decelerate a lot or the rocket will roll on you. I used to run the engines really hot, though, and boost the thrust to about 70% power. I used to steer the rocket carefully enough that most of my girls, and a great deal of the scientists riding along, fell asleep while I was at the wheel, even ones that said they wouldn’t dare closing their eyes while someone’s piloting the rocket they’re on. A lot of the girls liked riding with me because I got them to the station quickly, though I gotta say I wasn’t as quick as some of the other kids. They’d blow by me in the next spacelane at 80% and 90% power, and the shock from their ship passing mine would shake the whole cabin of my ship.

“So we’d be running cargo and fresh detachments of Marines and Scientists to replace the ones on the Ecumene. They’re expensive jobs, because each rocket takes a lot of fuel. That’s why it costs so much to put something into space, or to go into space, or leaving space when you’re tired of it and want to feel actual gravity instead of the forcefields they have up there keeping objects and of course yourself stuck to the floor. So you board your rocket and ride the lanes, hoping you won’t hit anything, and most of the time you don’t, or it’s something relatively uneventful like dinging your hull against the docking port.

“When your rocket does hit something, though…it splinters into a million pieces in an instant…you and your friends get hurled into space at hundreds of miles an hour, and you don’t stop flying until you hit something, and consequently turn into jelly, or fall back to the planet and burn up in mid-atmosphere. Or let’s say you manage to stay inside. You get to enjoy being cut out of a blazing hot rocketship by Recovery Marine Engineers while your skin and muscle melts off and your eyeballs turn to jelly, and if you’re lucky maybe you can walk after that, or just have excruciating pain in your back and neck. If not, you’ve probably died or gone into a coma. Or the whole cabin’s deformed and your steering column just got lodged through your sternum.”

Alsvid sighed, pulling her knees up against her chest, and curling into a tight ball on Leo’s lap. “About every day you’d hear of a wreck on the official comm transmissions each day. They’d go something like… Specter Two’s thrown her rocket into a roll and it crumpled under its own weight, or Ghost Five struck a meteor at full speed and got turned into jelly along with her passengers and crew. It was still a lot of fun, though, and I’d still be doing it, but the Marines let me go after my last cruise up to the Ecumene. I think I saw one of your Vampire Fruit Bats then, Professor.”

“How did you come by her?” the Professor asked, her red eyes glinting behind her spectacles. The silver-maned Pegasus mare leaned forward in her chair, staring at Alsvid intently.

“We were carrying a load of fresh apples and some scientists who were due to replace the team that was currently on board the station.” Alsvid closed her eyes for a moment. “It was a nice day out for a flight. Sunny and mild, with no clouds. Visibility for miles. I was in the space dock getting ready with the rest of the other Marines, and we’d just been cleared to take the HRG-6 out…”

“Sorry – the HRG-6?” the Professor asked.

“That’s the model name of the rocket we were using. It was colored a nice white and blue, with golden décor. It had a long body and a pointed, sharp, needle-like nose; that’s where the Launch Escape Control was located, in case Mission Control changed their mind about us going into space, or we had a malfunction of some kind. I don’t remember what the acronym stood for, but I do know the HR stood for “Heavy Rocket”,” Alsvid said. “Its name was the “UNITED”.

HER MAJESTY PRINCESS CELESTIA’S SPACE CENTER, MANEHATTAN

LAUNCH OF THE HRG-6 “UNITED” ROCKET SHIP

0800 HOURS CANTERLOT STANDARD TIME

The spacedock in which the huge, tower-sized HRG-6 rocket sat was a hive of activity; Limitanei Space Marines, all nubile young mares in their teens, wearing tight, form-fitting, hip-hugging blue spacesuits, brown leather bomber jackets, and utility belts bristling with energy weapons – each Marine bore a light-rifle and two lightpistols, one on each him, the rifle slung over their back – leather gloves, and goggles. Some of them were busy tossing crates into the rocket’s cargo bay, others securing the crates to prevent load shifting, others were scurrying up with pallets loaded to the top with even more crates, and still others were guarding the operation.

Scientists, important-looking older stallions and mares of various races, Unicorn, Earth Pony, and Pegasus alike, in lab-coats and suits, clutching briefcases, instruments, and packages, strode past the milling Marines disdainfully, talking amongst themselves, pointedly ignoring the Marines.

Alsvid, a bubbly 18-year-old Zebra mare at this time, her mane pulled back into a tight bun, wearing the uniform of Celestia’s Limitanei, came running out of the command center into the spacedock; she stopped just long enough to greet one of the other Limitanei Marines pulling a pallet loaded with crates – a thin, long-legged, powerful-looking Earth pony mare called Kessler, orange-coated, with a brown mane that shot around her skull in spikes.

“Clock’s ticking, matey! Get those things packed up before we leave you behind!”

“Oi! Steady on, old chap, I’ve still got another pallet to go,” Kessler complained, grunting with the effort. She, like Alsvid, spoke with a merry, musical Northern Equestrian accent.

“Tell that to the Scientists, they just want to get to the Ecumene, old top,” Alsvid said, importantly. “Don’t be a B.F., you’d better stow that cargo away before I get to the cockpit.”

“Oh, I say, that’s a bit much, old thing,” Kessler puffed, still hauling away at her pallet.

“Stow the gab and get that cargo set up, shipmate,” Alsvid advised her, slapping the smaller Earth Pony mare on her flank. Kessler squeaked and snorted in surprise, her ears shooting up, tail flicking back and forth.

A pair of white-coated scientists, both Unicorn mares, passed by while this was happening. Alsvid and Kessler heard them distinctly remark, in low undertones, “So uncivilized, those Marine grunts…”

“Blast them! They think they’re so much bloody better than us just because they’re bloody paid more!” Alsvid growled. “We draw our pay same as they do, and we risk our lives flying their bloody ships…you’d think they would appreciate it a little bit more!”

“Oh, lay off ‘em, shipmate, I’m too tired for all this argy-bargy right now. I’m off – I’m gonna try to get this cargo secured,” Kessler said, hauling her pallet towards the rocket ship’s belly hatch.

“Righto,” Alsvid said, regaining her former cheer. “Don’t forget you’ve been assigned Navigator as well, so once you’ve done that, report to the cockpit posthaste. Hop to, Marine!”

“Oh Celestia, that’s too much,” Kessler groaned, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her gloved hand. “I wanted to catch a brief bit of shuteye before we landed on the Ecumene…”

Alsvid rode an exposed metal elevator up to the “UNITED” rocketship’s cockpit. She struggled with the hatch’s release – a big metal ring that required several counterclockwise turns before the hatch would open.

Gripping the ring with both hands, Alsvid grunted and puffed and tugged away on it until the hatch opened with the hiss of a seal being released. She hopped inside.

The cockpit was large and roomy, with big, comfy leather Gee-couches, complete with arm-rests and cupholders. A dizzying array of brass gauges, switches, levers, and buttons covered the rocketship’s dashboard, with two wheels extended from poles thrusting up from the floor at two couches facing the windshield. The floor of the rocketship was polished wood. There were large, chubby CRT-style telescreens embedded into the dashboard.

Alsvid sat in the pilot’s chair on the left side of the windshield. A brief thrill of fear tugged at her heart, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, and she patted the steering wheel of the ship happily. “All right, let’s get you up and out of here.”

She reached up and flicked on the “MAIN ENGINE POWER” switches, then the “FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM” switch, and the “ELECTRICALS” switch. She spun the “LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM” dial to 50%. The rocket began to hum and judder beneath her, the gauges lighting up, their needles bouncing up to full, then falling back down to zero. More lights flickered to life in the cockpit.

She let her hand hover teasingly over the “IGNITION” button, and withdrew it, waiting for the official command from Mission Control in the flight tower.

Kessler entered the cockpit, panting and wheezing.

“Shut that hatch, matey,” Alsvid said, pointing at the still-open hatch behind her.

Kessler pulled the huge, heavy door shut with a resounding “BANG”, and began spinning the release wheel closed. Then she threw herself into the gee-couch next to Alsvid and put her hooves up on the dashboard. “Ahhhh….” She let out a contented sigh, wiggling herself a little deeper into the cushy leather gee-couch.

The telescreen at Alsvid’s elbow flickered on with a low whirr. A blonde-maned, white-coated Unicorn mare in a white labcoat peered out of it at Alsvid. “Well? What are you waiting for, Specter Six? Power up the rocket and launch! All your passengers and cargo are accounted for, and your consort of Marines are strapped in! You are cleared for launch on Space Expressway 495, Inter-Orbital! Route’s clear, no traffic!”

“Roger that,” Alsvid said, pulling a microphone over to her lips. She buckled herself in, and Kessler did the same. “Ready to do this, shipmate?”

“Ready!” Kessler said.

“Here we go! This is Specter Six to Mission Control! All systems are go! HRG-6 UNITED launching in three…two…one…”

Alsvid slammed her fist on the “IGNITION” button. “Ignition sequence start!”
“Copy that, Specter Six, Control acknowledges ignition sequence start,” the launch scientist in the telescreen verified.

There was an earth-shattering roar as HRG-6 “UNITED”’s main engines fired, and the cockpit shook furiously, throwing Alsvid and Kessler back into their gee-couches.

The rocket engines blazed like the sun, spewing smoke and flame, making the entire rocket’s body tremble and shake, from its nozzles to its nosecone.

“Control, we have liftoff! Setting engines to 50%!” Alsvid grabbed the throttle levers and pushed them halfway up.

“Acknowledged,” the launch scientist said, static fizzing over her screen. “Launch bolts decoupling from your ship!”

“Roger that, Control…nnngh…!”

Alsvid was pushed into her gee-couch by the furious ascent of the rocket. It felt like her organs were being pushed right into her backbone, her limbs plastered to the couch. The rocket shuddered violently, vibrating as it thrust skyward.

The rocket climbed steadily, nozzles flaring.