Bad Compony

Chapters

1. - Amending Flight Plans
2. - Over the What Blue Yonder?
3. - A Rock and a Road Trip
4. - The One Village We didn't Raze
5. - Let's Drive to the Castle!
6. - Hard to Say Nothing
7. - Loud Before the Storm

1. - Amending Flight Plans

I’ll admit that we started off on the wrong foot with this story…

We had just bailed out from a burning half of an airplane—although I can't complain about that too much since we were the ones that wrecked it. Still, parachuting from it could've gone better.

Then again, with our luck, you could strap the four of us together on a zip line and we’d end up in different zip codes. But that’s still better luck than most squads mashed together out of the 222nd Battalion’s B Company. Our squad might just be the longest-lived, as in surviving, unit within “Bad Company.”

Now, to be clear, this B-company wasn’t called “Bad” because… it was bad. It’s the unofficial unit where they dump screw-ups in the army instead of an MP prison cell. You’d be right in arguing that it was some twisted, legalized US army penal unit. But that hadn't been on my mind for quite a while—and as far as I could tell, we weren’t under anyone’s jurisdiction after this landing.

After cutting my chute loose from a tree, I rolled onto the ground. I was a good distance from anywhere anyone else landed.

“Uh…Hey!”

My voice bounced around in the swamped forest.

“ANYONE?” I couldn’t get a clear look through the mess of trees boxing me in.

I heard scuffling in the bushes then. I pulled a pistol onto it. The four of us weren't the only guys on that plane, and I wasn’t too trusting of those Russians personally.

But what surprised me was hearing Sarge call back out of the forest.

“Ay! MARLOW! That YOU?”

His name's Redford—but we've been called him Sarge, since… well, he picked the name. And considering his age and rank, he’d earned it.

I spun around to his voice, screaming back, “YEAH, SARGE!”

“Damn, ‘bout time you spoke up!” he groaned before switching over to our coms, just a simple radio link. “You hearin’ me ok? Come over to me, I’m markin’ my place with smoke. Over.”

“Yeah, I hear… uh, what color?”

“Red… as in, run-your-ass-over red. Now quit dickin’ around and get over here! I’ll try reaching out to those two chuckleheads. Out!”

Normally, he was more of a killjoy than that. But if I was 40-something on the verge of retirement postponed a dozen or so times as of now in this line of work, I might not be so quick on laughing either.

“Understood—out,” I answered, hustling over to the slimmest sight of a bright red smoke plume through the foliage. It helped that Sarge started yelling out for Haggard and Sweetwater while I made my way there.

Other than the rustling in the bushes that seemed to be following me, there wasn’t much else to mention on the trek to Sarge—until… well, it might be best if I went ahead and explained how did we get here part before that bit.

A few days earlier, our squad was reassigned to go on a goose-chase for one man: Arkady Kirilenko. A Russian colonel that was almost straight from a Bond film. Like, literally the one from Octopussy. He was deep into some new WMD research that our sketchy new CIA buddy had a hard-on for.

Our orders were to capture him, but after surviving being sold out by said spook for an act of poorly thought-out revenge, and the loss of our pilot friend we didn't even know the full name of, we found ourselves boarding a massive cargo-jet full of Russian operatives and Kirilenko to finish the job. The superweapon he was building was being mobilized on the plane: A Scalar weapon... bomb thing. From what I was told, it used an EMP to trash everything electrical in a nuke-sized blast radius, except at ground zero. And we'd just help put the final part of the puzzle in Ivan's hands.

But with our superior fighting spirit, we plowed our way through the plane, broke into the weapon’s room, and stopped the Russians where it counted… at a steep cost.

I don’t know what exactly happened up there, only that I blasted some part of the Scalar, disco, death-ball while shooting the hell out of it. There was a blinding flash that knocked us to the ground, and the next thing we knew, our flight was falling apart. We managed to grab a few chutes and bailout of there safely. 12 minutes later of parachuting over what should’ve been Texas, and I found myself in the woods without an awful lot going for me. But—our plan worked out in the end… and we ended up not dying, which was welcome.

At first, this seemed like it wasn't the worst situation we’d been in together.

On the walk, the shuffling noise trailing me stopped.

Only to turn into a deep growl.

It had to be a dog, maybe a wolf, I thought. But in Texas? No… had to be coyotes or something. Did they make that kind of noise too? I… I needed to think fast, whatever it was.

So, I shot at the bush. Not aiming—but trying to scare it. It stopped making noises after that, so I assumed I could start walking again. Bad idea.

I didn't know what it was then--but at the time, my best description was this: a pissed-off pile of sticks.

When it jumped me, I felt that it was dog-shaped with its four legs clawing on me. It had bright and lit green eyes too—but the splintery teeth on it were more immediately important. Somehow, my army experience had just gone from stopping a hostile use of a WMD to being mauled by a wolf made up of sticks in less than half an hour.

The dogwood knocked me on the ground from behind. It sunk its teeth into the collar of my vest instead of my neck, luckily. Unluckily, it knocked the gun out of my hand. I shoved it off long enough to flip myself over and pulled out a knife to even the odds.

I wasn’t trained in dog fighting—but I tried jabbing at all the obvious spots: under the mouth, the neck, the ribs, between the front legs… between the hind legs. But nothing was cutting it. The sticks didn’t snap, and it didn't bleed from anything I did. And if it didn’t bleed... then killing it was going to be an issue. All I could do was push its muzzle away while kicking around in the dirt and yelling back. It started to claw into my chest instead of my face, stopping briefly to howl over me.

I had a doubt about surviving at that moment—until I heard something else rushing towards me from the woods along with the sweet jingle of brass shaking around in a loose belt.

“Holy SHIT, Preston! Th—A Dog? Just, keep it still, I’ll light that bitch up!”

Sweetwater had found his way over to assist me in not dying. He shouldered his LMG and tried training it on the wolf.

Sweetwater... He wasn't meant to be a grunt like I signed up for, per se. He looked like Robert Carradine from Revenge of the Nerds would if you rushed him through boot camp, with his bad posture and thick-rimmed glasses; not very frontline material. But after bricking a few hundred army computers on “accident,” he nailed his place in B-company. Yet, he still held his own weight, either loading lead into guys or suppressing any will to keep living out of them. He’s with no doubt the best brain out of all of us too. Unfortunately, that title apparently comes with a snarky attitude and a cautiousness for everything. To some, it was a sign of cowardice; to me, it was self-preservation—something that wasn’t expected out of a unit like ours from the Brass.

And it would be in pretty bad taste if I called him a coward after this.

With Sweets aiming, I jammed my knife in the roof of the dogwood’s mouth. It rose up and tried yacking it out. It gave him the clearest shots he could hope for.

“Ah HA, Timber!” he shouted out with a smile about on par his one-liner. He dumped a burst into its body, whittling it down to pulp as it lumped over. As the glowing eyes on it burned out next to me, what sticks remained stuck together fell apart.

Sweets rushed over to check me for anything—being that he was the closest thing we had to a medic.

“Christ amore, are you good or what?”

“Yeah- ahh... Just scratches—maybe splinters.” I stood back up on my own as Sweets shifted his focus towards the remains of what he’d just killed.

“Well, shit… guess that thing was all bark and no bite, huh?” Sweets sifted through the sticks with his barrel, and then bent down to grab my knife.

“Guess it was. Looked like it was trying to lick me anyway.” I took it from him and shifted over to grab my gun, wiping the muck off it. I asked him something else, “Hey, do you have any ide–”

“–Oh, defiantly not a fucking clue what that was,” he blurted out. He took a panicked look around us before speaking again, “And… Oh Jesus… if what’s happening is what I think is happening—well...” He let his gun hang from its sling as he spun back with his arms in the air. “Welcome to not fucking Earth, bitch!”

I looked at him like he’d gone mental—which at this point wasn't honestly a stretch.

“Hey, don’t give me that look… I’m serious here, Pres!”

“And I’m waiting on the punch-line.”

“A Punch-line? Really?” He started numbering his points off with his fingers, “So, after being attacked by an ouroboros wolf, the absolute radio silence so far, and the fact that we’re in the middle of some temperate rain forest in Texas doesn’t raise a bit of a red flag?”

“What radio silence? I was able to pick up Sarge a few minutes ago.”

“Oh, ok, that’s cute—but what I’m talking about is a bit worse: Every signal that should be coming in, from FM, XM, HAM, Sat-coms—shit you name it, it’s just not there! Either T.V.decided to finish off the rest of radio, or we really are the most Shanghaied bunch of assholes in existe–”

“–Slow down,” I cut in, “Are you sure that the Scalar… thing never went off?”

Sweets paused for a moment—almost long enough to give me hope that he would stop freaking out. " Well, Pres… that’s the thing. I think it did go off.”

I felt like I went through three stages of grief in three seconds. “No… Damnit! We didn’t go through all of that for… God—then how is our stuff still working if we failed?”

“Annnd that’s the other thing. I don’t think it went off correctly.”

“What?”

Sweets looked dissatisfied at me. “Oh, you’re surprised? You’re the one that shot at it. A lot. Remember all the bangy-bang in the flying thing?”

“I remember you saying that should’ve destroyed it.”

“It’s sure destroyed now,” he muttered, “But… look, I can’t even begin to fathom the possibilities of what would happen if…”

“–IF what?” I pressed on, “What would it do? Sweets, just tell–”

“–Alright, alright!” He cracked, “I was gonna save for when we’re all together, but if you gotta know… Er, how familiar are you with parallel uni–”

Sweets was cut off by the rapid firing of a shotgun, accompanied by a rough, southernly voice yelling, “They’re fuckin’ real!”

“Oh shit, Haggard!” Sweets yelped, and we both ran towards the sound of swearing and gunfire.

As we got closer to where he was duking it out with nature, the sounds from Hags suddenly died down—but not with a scream.

“Wait, what? No! Fuck—there’s no way he’s dead! Doesn’t he, like, wrestle bulls in his free time?” Sweets sputtered.

Hags was... a lot: A loose-cannon, a tough-guy, a Texan, a walking paint-chip PSA, and above all, American. He’s our modern, Burt Reynolds lookalike, cowboy—using C4 and rockets instead of dynamite and six-shooters to get things done. He got his time for lighting up a massive ammo depot, which perfectly segued into him being our demolition “expert.” He was gun-ho in almost every part about him, even his get-up. He'd ditched his helmet for a beanie for Christ's sake. And there was just this “hick aura” that wouldn’t stop oozing out of him. It's like he was designed to be the polar opposite of the big city boy Sweets was—but despite that, the two of them managed to get along well enough.

“Hey—HAGGARD!” I shouted, firing off a few rounds into the air as if speaking his language. In seconds, a few more shotgun shells went off, and we heard him running towards us.

“AY, PRES! Is that you?” he yelled back, only to bust out of the trees into our clearing. “Oh... thank Jesus, dude… this… this place is fuckin’ weird!” He leaned up against a tree as he caught his breath.

“Yeash, tell me about it,” Sweets muttered.

“Oh, heya, Sweets… phew, that’s nice… got most of us together now.”

“And Pres said he’s heard from Sarge too, so we’ve got that in the bag.” Sweets patted me on the shoulder before continuing, “You are, of course, invited to join us as we travel, if you’d like,” he gestured to Hags.

“Yeah—I think I might just bear your pissy-lil company for a bit. ’Sides, better to travel in packs with all these-there creepy-ass things runnin’ ‘bout.”

“You’ve seen those wood-things too?” I asked.

“Seen? Hah! I’ve already got a few ta my name! Can’t think of a good way to mount sticks on a plaque though…”

“Ok, can up and start moving again?” Sweets stepped in, “I don’t want to arrive to find Sarge mauled to death in the middle of Fido’s Forest.”

“Sure, sure—but can I ask you a quick question first?” Hags asked.

“Sure?”

“Just where… in the fat-fuck are we, man? ‘Cause you can bet your ass we ain’t in Texas no-more!”

“Well, how am I supposed to know? Do I look like Davy Crockett to you?”

“Oh, my sweet Jesus,” Hags moaned, “How are you are always blankin’ out on the big questions, smartass? It’s like you only know little, tinny, useless, Trivial-Pursuit-winnin’ stuff—it’s friggin’ useless!”

“You’re calling me useless?” he shot back, “At least I’m not a walking liability to all of us!”

“Oh, and just how am I that?”

“What? Do you need me to spell it out for you? You treat the term ‘danger close’ like It's a safe word! Hell, the fact that none of us have been killed by all the frags you’ve been lobbing for the past two years is almost proof that there is a God!”

“Oh, so what? I’ve been careful enough! Your ass is still here to bitch ‘bout it!”

“By sheer luck!”

“Well—maybe you shouldn’t be waistin’ your own damn luck! How hard is it to not step in the splash zone? Do ya need to get up that close to baddies to see 'em, four-eyes?”

“Well, maybe this wouldn't even be an issue if you didn’t throw everything like your sister!”

“Ho-oh, now it’s–”

“Hey, LADIES!” Sarge yelled out from the woods, defusing everything between Hags and Sweets. “Glad to hear you two! You seen Marlow?”

“I’m the one with them this time,” I responded over coms.

“Oh shit, these do work,” Sweets sputtered to himself, slapping his hand to ear.

“Ah, that is excellent news! Now get your sorry hides over to me before I have to come over there!”

“Almost there—out!” I responded, nudging Hags and Sweets to stick close by.

2. - Over the What Blue Yonder?

“Well, looks like the gang’s all here,” Sweets smiled. “All without so much as a scratch.”

Sarge saw a glimpse of me and pointed out otherwise. “Uh, ‘not a scratch’?’”

“Er… ok, metaphorically I guess.”

“God damn, the Hell where you jumped by?” He gawked, “I heard some gunfire—but your rig looks like confetti for Christ’s sake! And what’s that pine smell?”

“He... had a bit of a tussle with the 'local fauna',” Sweets admitted, “B-but I’ve checked him, he’s fine, Sarge! No chance of him bleeding out on us.”

I gave a weak grin to Sarge as he looked back at me.

“God… what mauled your ass in the first place?” he asked.

“Ooh, I know!” Hags claimed, “It was these little, coyote-sized dogs! They're runnin’ all over the place, and I got a few ‘em—and they 've got these weird, green glowin’ eyes, and wood for skin—Red, I’m serious! And if my money's where my mouth is—I think we're dealin' with... Chupacabras.”

“Gah—damnit Hags, don’t get all ‘conspiracy’ on me now! That’s Sweet’s specialty, not yours.”

“Hey, I’m not–”

“–Naw, c’mon, Sarge!” he cut off Sweets, “I’m tellin ya they're real! If you’d seen half the proof I have for those little goat-suckers, you'd be able to start your own museum for–”

“–Just shut it, Haggard,” Sarge finally told him. “Sweetwater? You found out where we are yet? We should get on with start boy-scoutin’ our asses outta here before nightfall.”

“Oh… well, Sarge. I don’t think that’s happening.” Sweets pulled out a GPS tracker, only to show a “GPS SIGNAL LOST/NOT RECEIVING” error flashing on the screen. “I’ve been trying to get a ping since landing, and I've already ruled out batteries and a bad receiver…”

Sarge grabbed it from him and took it over to a clearing in the branches. He thumbed a button on the side and still got nothing. “Huh… Uh, think we can just wait for it to reconnect or what?”

“No—augh, this isn’t just something we can wait on, Redford! We aren't just off course, we are lost!” Sweets snatched it back and threw it for a bit of percussive maintenance on the side of a tree. After watching Sweet’s confidence die in front of us, I’d realized we were a bit in trouble... at least more trouble than what those wolves were.

“Well? You ain’t getting a signal or what?” Hags asked from a distance.

“No, it’s not even getting a ping from up there, be it a civvy or mil net satellite! Not a damn dime of all of our fucking tax dollars up there are working on US fucking soil!” He paused for a breather. “But that’s not the part that scares me… I mean... either everything up there's knocked out—or we are not where we think we are!”

“Knocked out?” I weighed in, “That’s… impossible, trashing everything in space in an hour?”

“Exactly!” Sweets pointed to me. “Not even that Scalar field would’ve had the range to hit ‘em that far out!” He took another moment to calm down. “You... know what though? I might know why everything’s so off here—why we're in this bind in the first place. Now sure, as far as my theories usually go, it might sound like I’m speaking out of a crack pipe… but if you let me expl–”

“Good God, I knew it!” Hags crossed his arms and leaned back against another tree. “This one better be some mind-blowing shit to waste our sweet time out here, Sweetwater.”

"Oh, oh no! Now this is just as brain-fondling as theories come, pal. Just be glad I did all that research on Kirilenko’s toys."

"Very, very little..."

He paused again, folding his hands in a professor’s cradle while pacing around, readying himself to explain everything in simple English. "Ahh… Alright: So, creating a Scalar field calls for a very, very exact amount of energy in a molecular-sized space—that’s the basic idea—and if you pump in too little energy into the equation, nothing happens. Too much energy and the field resonates within itself, collapses, and doesn't last long enough to do shit. But—if you were to go way overboard with the power in the core's final moment by—I dunno—shooting out a breaker or something—”

He looked at me as he said that part.

“—I... read in an interesting paper while we were looking for that Sangre del Toro ship—that I really regret skimming over now. It talked about the possibility... of a hypothesis... that you—might just be able to theoretically create a wormhole if you fuck it up hard enough that could potential drop us somewhere else in the universe.” He ended his lecture with a worried smile on his face.

“Bullshit–” “No way in Hell, Jose–” Hags and I spoke out together, all while Sarge threw up his hands, turned back, and trailed-off behind us.

“No—now look, look! I’m not saying that’s what happened—but it makes a lot of sense to me that–”

“–Oh, of course it makes sense to ya, Mr. Space Odyssey. Did ya leave your brain back on the plane, or did the Martians scoop it out it first?”

“C'mon! Like you’ve got a better idea that almost explains everything!”

“Why yes—I do have one: It’s called getting lost on a day GPS is out. Now, we may not be in Texas, but we sure as Hell gotta be somewhere in the USA.”

“I don’t think so, Hags…”

“Say what Sarge?”

I turned to see Sarge looking up at the sky as he went on, “That ain’t the same Sun I’ve seen for 44 fuckin’ years.”

I was going to ask, “Why?” But I saw my answer as clear as day.

With all that had been happening, I guess no one thought about looking up. The sun was now a yellow-ish circle with an orange ring of fire seemingly… drawn on it. It belonged on a fridge more than it did in the sky. And like a scribble hung up by magnets, we could stare right at it. It wasn't... there’s no way you could look at it and call it normal. We were all shocked to see something that’s always been there was just so… wrong now. Hags was spooked enough to aim his shotgun at the thing.

“No! N-naw, that ain’t—that can’t be real! It’s all wrong!” he yelped.

“But… it's where all the shadows are being cast from,” Sweets muttered with a sense of disbelief.

“Hmm—Feels warm too,” Sarge added.

“That’s... new,” was all I managed to say.

“Damn, good eye Marlow,” Sarge chuckled.

"It isn’t gonna blow up on us, is it, Sarge?"

"The Hell you askin' me that, Hags?"

“Well, ya did notice it first.”

“Bah, let’s just… act like it ain't a problem ‘till it becomes one, alright?”

“Hah, if you really think–” Sarge gave Hags a hand to zip it as he turned to Sweets.

"Sweetwater, I should be questioning my ability to lead for saying this—but for the time being… we're gonna have to go off that theory of yours."

“HA Haaa, yes!” He pointed his fingers to do a few air jabs at Hags. “See? I told you it made sense you–.”

“–But here’s what we’re doin' now,” Sarge droned out Sweets, “We’ll head over to secure what we can from what’s left of that plane—then we’ll get on outta these woods. I don’t care if the dirt under us is Earth or not; Ain’t no use in dying lost out here. We all clear on that?”

Sweets raised a hand. “Where exactly is the crash?”

Sarge pointed at a break in the treetops behind Sweets to a trail of smoke pouring into the sky. “That looks promisin’,” he said, “Now, let's get goin'… Hell, we probably need to check if Kirilenko still needs a warm welcome.”

“Sheeit,” Hags smiled. “Judgin’ by that fall, 20 bucks says we won’t recognize that poor S.O.B.”

The crash was three clicks out from us, and we arrived without another encounter. That was the good news. The bad was that sections of the cabin were thrown around everywhere, still partially intact, and tossed around an area the size of a golf course. But somehow through all of that… the housing for the super-weapon was still in one major piece. We checked it out first.

“Well, Hags—I’m givin’ you a chance to come clean: were you bettin’ 20 against all or one of us?”

Hags turned back to Sarge after prying open the jammed bulkhead door to the weapon control room. “Uhh… shit—reckon I’ll just… give it to Pres. Once we get back to the States.”

“Fine by me,” I chirped.

Sweets then confronted him on his choice before we moved on. “Oh, you gotta be kidding me. You’re just giving it to him because you still think ‘newbie’ here is gonna die on us, aren’t you?”

“Wuh—I AM not…”

Ignoring their arguing, I started to think about the more immediate issues. Somehow, Kirilenko was in one piece after the crash—still stuck in his soapbox.

Backtracking to our time of the plane, Sweets and I saw Kirilenko after the weapon went off. He was stuck behind the door to the armored 'soapbox’ he kept taunting us from using the plane's intercoms. The door was warped shut by the C4 used to blast past the armored-glass housing, which was what caused the plane to break up in the first place. I shuffled over to the door before jumping to knock on the porthole window and give him a one-finger salute. He stopped trying to break out of the door and just glared at me—both of us knowing it was over for him.

Anyway, he died on arrival—and was made more dead after Hags spazzed out and lit up his body after prying the door to the box open. His head was still in one piece—showing a deep gash over his forehead from the landing.

After arguing with Sweets, Hags closed the door on the Russian and we backed off the soapbox. Sweets strolled around and took a second look at the Scalar core's mount, which was in an unnervingly decent shape, considering its history. He pointing out the damage to what looked like a fuse box to me, claiming it as evidence to his theory.

Sarge had been ignored us and managed to climb on top of a cabin to take a long look around the site, and soon called us over to rally under him.

“Ok... looks clear from here… Boys, start digging ‘round for anythin’ we can use! I’ll be lookin’ further 'round the crash for somethin’ we're gonna need. Let’s meet up, say… here in an hour or two. Should have some good stuff then. Keep your coms open.”

Sweets and I nodded, but Hags spoke up. “Wait... our tac-com radio stuff still works?”

Sarge shrugged and pressed on his earpiece. “No shit,” he mocked on-air, “Sweets?”

“Yeah, of course I read—” he hailed back, “—But mind you, we're only on AM transmission now, not a satellite set-up. We should be good for one or two miles at best now–”

“–Why the Hell ain’t my piece workin’, technotard?” Hags asked shaking the mic in his hand.

“Uh… is it on?”

“Godalmighty, Sweetwater…” Hags flipped it on and stuck it in his ear. “Alright, I’m good. Let’s get’er done.”

An hour and a half went by as smoothly as they could in a plane wreck. We scraped the plane for Spetsnaz surplus, or whatever that unit on board had. Sweets hit up something akin to the barracks while Haggard's instincts lead him straight too what remained of an armory. It was crushed under the floor of a cabin, so it was a tight squeeze—but that didn’t stop him.

I was… doing the dirty work, looting a few of the bodies tossed around the place before Hags called me over to help him.

“Damn—looks like… hmmfp—they were ready for one helluva fight with what they’ve got down here. Oof-” He crawled out of the hold with five other guns strapped to him. “There’s like—30 more where that came from to dig through… Hey, catch these will ya?” Hags slung all the guns off him and tossed them at me. One slipped into the dirt through my arms, since catching 50 pounds of gun doesn't come naturally.

“Hey! Watch yourself with those; you’re gonna be cleanin’ off what ya drop!”

“You’re throwing rifles at him and you’re telling him to be careful?” Sweets passed by us with three duffle-bags worth of stuff to add to the pile near some old elf-house looking tree.

"Well, we ain’t exactly got a rulebook to follow out here."

“And that means you can’t hand them off to Pres in a reasonable manner?”

“No… but it don’t make me wanna either.”

After making his way back with his next haul, Sweets asked something else. “You know, how are we even moving this gear anyway? I’m not hiking 20 miles with three bags, six guns, and a few thousand rounds on me.”

Hags quickly popped out of his hole to backtalk Sweets, “Gee, I dunno? Where do you keep all your negativity? That seems like a big-ass space we could use.”

"Oh, get some new material, you thick-headed hick," Sweets shot back.

“Well, why don’t ya go find Sarge and whine to him ‘bout that? Fuckin’ cheese puff… Also, Pres? Could you get this one for me—thanks.” Hags had a recoilless launcher ready for me at my feet to haul off.

The conversation died until Sweets brought back a few more bags. “My question still stands, guys.”

I decided to take a jab at it. “There were vehicles stored on the plane, right? GAZ Vodniks?”

“Oh yeah—yeah, I remember ducking behind a few of ‘em. But I haven't seen them anywhere. Might have just spread way out during the fall… do you think that’s what Sarge is looking for?”

“Hope so!” Hags muffled voice called from the hold, “There’s enough room in one of those Vod’s to carry us and all the gear we’ll need out here, includin’ your attitude.”

“Oh, ok. So what about for your infinite ignorance? That black hole of information between your ears has quite the mass there, you sure it’ll carry that?”

“Well, it’s got more of a chance to fit in there than you stand to get some pus-”

Sarge then called in through coms, “Boys, listen up… guess what I’ve just found? Over,” he… almost seemed to giggle.

“You… got eyes on wheels, over?” I guessed.

“Excellent guess, Marlow! For being correct, I’ll give you the chance to drive this baby back to the dump you’re in. Now get over to your Southwest-ish. Bring a jerry can if you can fi—The fuck is that?”

“Sarge? Somethin’ spook ya, over?” Hags chimed in.

“Yeah, I’m lookin’ at some—flying, Goddamn, chicken-lizard thing now, and it’s real pissed… whuh? Ah? AHHh- Shit! My foot! Get over here! Shits happenin’ and this thang’s closin’ in on me, God!”

Sweets grabbed a sloshy fuel can from the stash and we both ran vaguely towards the Southwest with guns in hand. Hags was stuck squeezing out of the armory, still talking to Sarge.

"Hey, just shoot it if you think it's gonna bite ya.”

“It ain’t that! I—I can’t pull my rifle on it, dammit! This is some bull—ahrgghh! Don’t… look ah-” His voice sputtered out.

“Sarge? Sarge! Saaaarrge! God, dang-dammit, he’s out! Y’all two get after him, I’ll catch up!”

3. - A Rock and a Road Trip

Sarge had his back against a Vodnik when we found him, with one hand reaching for his gun and the other on his earpiece. He was still standing… but not for a good reason.

“Oh, Phwew—thank God! Sarge!” Sweets said as he stumbled in ahead of me. “There you are! You had us worried for a second with… er—what’s with the ‘Pompeii’ look you got going o-Oh, what the fuck!”

I didn’t react as colorfully as him—but I was chilled to the bone upon seeing our CO turned into stone.

“Oh… Ha—hah… Ahhh, what the fuck gives with this week, eh?” He started to go hysterical while frantically scanning the trees around us. “First, we find the dud, then we get sent to find the real thing, get fucked over, lose a buddy, land fuck-where over Neverland, and now were fighting off mythical bullshit.”

I stopped watching the tree line to talk to him. “Mythical?”

“Yeah, mythical; as in ‘it shouldn’t fucking exist!’” he shouted through clenched teeth. “If memory serves correctly, it sounded like Sarge described a Cockatrice before leaving us. Supposedly, it's a bird-cryptid that acts like a fucking bootleg Medusa. And we'll be a trifecta of petrified looking statues if it sees us first!”

“And... you know all of this because…”

“What? You never read any Shakespeare?”

A rustling sound came from the bushes to our left. After aiming at it, we saw that it was just Hags.

“'Right, so what’d I miss? Any fig—wait… no, is that–"

“–The late Samuel Redford.” Sweets answered. “Yeah, it’s him—only more stone-cold now... I already miss not being threatened to shut up.”

"Now's not the time to start morning him! We gotta focus on killing this thing!" I reminded them. "keep your backs to the van, and keep your eyes peeled!"

"Good call Preston! You're already a natural in the stereotypical leadership role," Sweets continued to smart-talk.

“Noooo, God why… Wait—shit, are we, like, gonna have to fight that… Greek, snake-chick, or somethin’? ‘Cause I ain’t lookin’ forward to that.”

“Hags; If it flies, just shoot it.”

“Woah, hold up… I know that thing isn't supposed ta fly, Pres. You sure about that? Sweets?”

“For the love of—just shoot anything that moves!” he yelped. “How is that hard to understand now!”

We started scanning with while glued to the van, with Sweet’s head on the loosest swivel out of all of us. But we weren’t watching the van itself. I heard the flapping of wings start from behind the van and something landed with a metal clank as it landed on the roof. It scared Sweets nearly bone-white as he screamed while turning around, tripping over a root while backing up.

“Shit! Don’t look at it! Don’t… Shit I did! No, no, no, no… Fuck! My foot— It’s happening! Ahhgh!”

“Can’t see it from back here, Pres!” Hags had dived behind the back of the van for cover.

I found myself behind a side-view mirror to block line of sight—but I could still see Sweets on the ground. Whatever was happening, it was spreading up his legs fast. It's as if he was slowly being dipped in concrete.

“Oh God, ohhhh God! Marlow! Aww—just shoot me or the bird now, damn it!”

I wasn't about to let Sweets die that easily. So, I thought if I was quick enough, at worst my toes would go a bit stiff. It was enough of a plan to execute.

I saw it sitting on the turret’s machine gun as I peeked out. It snapped its beady red eyes onto me instantly—I felt my feet starting to feel… chalky. As I continued to look at it, I understood Sarge’s description; It was an angry mess of chicken and lizard parts mashed together. And worst of all—it hissed at me too.

I shot at it six times—but there wasn’t much to aim at by the third round. With its fluff and scales all over the place, by some miracle, the stone started thawing on me. And it melted from Sweets too. Hags and I hustled over to pull him up.

"Oh, geez… ahh—thanks, Pres. I owe you a Hell of a lot for that. Hah… I thought I was–"

“–Dead?”

We dropped Sweets as Sarge spoke up. Sarge. His death hadn’t even started to set in with us yet, and now he was resurrected. He cracked a smile out of his fleshed-out face as he slowly managed to regain movement.

“Ahh, damn—my back hasn’t felt this good in years…”

“Jesus Christ… It’s… you’re like, Jesus, Red!” Hags gawked.

“How are you… you were covered—no, you were stone!” Sweets cried out. “Did you ever feel like you died?”

“Hell, whatever it was, I wish I didn’t. Lord, I would’ve paid to see you three stooges fumble for that damn chicken!”

“Oh, real funny—but did you see... a light? Or... anything to interact with while you were out? Great scott, you just beat death, Sarge!”

He paused for a sec before grabbing a cigar from a pouch and lighting it, speaking once he had a good puff from it.

“…Naw, didn't go through any gates. Last thing I remember was a 10-piece bargain-bucket-reject eyin’ me down. Next thing—thawing out just now.” He took a quick look around before walking out of his spot. “How long was I out anyway?”

“’ Bout four minutes,” Hags chirped.

“Hmph. Well, glad to see y’all can work without me holding your hands… but thanks, all of y'all.” He looked at all of us with a humble nod before moving on. “Now, about this ride—we gotta get all this riggin’ crap off before we do anything.”

“So, get to it?” I guessed again.

“Yep. And uh… let’s not talk about whatever the fuck that was, alright?”

“Ah, already back at it—classic Redford” Sweets commended. We started to rip off the chute before he turned to me to whisper, “Let’s do this before we get skull-fucked by a Grue next.”

“This a box of 7.62?” Sarge asked.

Hags looked at the ammo box Sarge was pointing to. "Not exactly. I dumped lotta bullets in there. Thinkin’ ‘bout it, I think there’s a few ‘nades in there too…”

“Hags, you’re killin’ me. Get that brass sorted out soon before you pull a damn pin lookin’ in there for a mag!”

By this time, we’d loaded the van with enough gear to invade a small country. Bullets, guns, grenades, mortars, and rockets galore. Gas and water came second, along with first aid. We tossed a radio set with a car battery in there as well, along with a mess of spare parts. Unfortunately, we were stuck with only a few Soviet-era MRE’s for now.

Concerning boomsticks, they were piled over everything else, loaded and all hopefully set on safe. We’d lost our issued rifles while running to board the plane on the runway earlier—but we found satisfaction in the substitutes lying around. For Sarge, it was an AKS-74u with a suppressor, and an M9 he never dropped. Sweets had the MG-3 that he jumped from the plane with. Hags was comfy with a USAS-12, a bandolier of frags, and an RPG now strapped on his back. I found up an AEK with a GP-30 grenade launcher mounted to it. The pistol that I still had felt like a keepsake at that point.

I should mention that we were all a bit guilty of taking a few things off the dead guys. Hags… strangely took a lot of socks for himself—but the rest of us looked for fresh armor plates, kits, and magazines. I changed my boots out for a pair on a Russian. Mine were blood-soaked after the point-blank fighting through the plane; not a very good look if you needed to make first impressions.

Sweetwater was tasked with listing off all gear in the van; hearing him list off arms was the only part I listened to. He mentioned 37 in total, including KORD HMGs, .50 cal AMR rifles, and an FGM Javelin guided missile of all things. We had… far more than what was good for us to mess with—but it was better in our hands than no one's at least.

“And… ok, the list is done!" Sweets jumped out of the back of the car and slapped the side of the van. “Tank’s filled too, with plenty of juice more to spare. Now, are we heading out soon, Sarge?”

“No shit. I found some trail up East from here. Lots of horse tracks on it too. We’ll follow it down to wherever before that Sunsets.” Sarge shuffled us around, “Sweets, get on the gun. Hags, watch the rear; Pres, you’re upfront with me.”

As we took up our spots, Sarge pulled me aside as I climbed in the driver’s seat. “Marlow, I know good to drive—but keep one Hell of an eye out on the path. There ain’t no tellin’ how friendly the rest of fairyland here is..."

The Vodnik started up without issue and handled good enough in the woods where it fit. There was a road we found that cut through the trail, although calling it a road was optimistic. This “clearing” wasn’t more than a dirt strip. I drove on it fast enough to avoid any complaints about going slow.

But seeing this as a bit of downtime, I just had to ask Sarge about what happened by the van. No one else had yet, even Sweets.

“So—about that ‘bird’ back there–” I started.

He didn’t even look at me as he said my name, “–Marlow…”

“Uh… yes?”

“Don’t ask.”

“What? Come on,” I blurted out, “That thing almost killed us out there, and you want us to ignore it? How does that make sense?"

“Hell, it’s not even the fact I almost got waxed… or polished, that don't wanna bring up. It’s—the whole thing… I, just—look, that was just fuckin’ magic. There ain’t anything else it can be. I—we both had or skin turn to stone! What fuckin’ science is that supposed to be under? Wizology? How am I even supposed to talk about it? I’d need a pointy-ass hat and a wand to even begin–”

“–You seriously think it was real magic?” I asked. “Like, wizards and spells… and stuff?

“Sure wasn’t just smoke and mirrors.”

“But… this—that’s impossible. Magic is just magic—it can’t be real. There’s nothing that comes close to this shit back home!”

“Well, we’re somewhere a bit different if you ain't noticed… look, if Sweetwater can’t even guess where we are, then we can’t expect anything here to be 'normal'.”

"Hey, er... sorry to eavesdrop—but your roof hatch is open…” Sweets came in on coms, “Anyway, I’m thinking the same thing here. If this something along the lines of a multiverse, or something insane—then forces at work here very well might be different than the ones in ours. What we’d call magic, might just be its own force, like magnetism or gravity–"

“–Thanks for the insight, Professor,” Sarge stopped him. “Shut it and keep scanning.”

"Well, please excuse my vast intellect, Sarge."

I thought about asking Hags about his thoughts. I assumed he was cleaning out his shotgun, from the muffled swearing coming from him. I knocked on the metal paneling behind me to get his attention.

“Hey, Hags, you got any ideas about what’s been going on here?" I radioed him.

“What?” he muffled back, “Ya mean ‘bout that mish-mashed chicken-shit thing?”

“Yeah. You… you can use your mic, right?”

There was a moment of silence before he got on the air. “Would y'all… rip me a new one if I said... I think it was magic?”

“Ha, no.” Sarge cracked a grin. “That’s my guess too.”

“Hey, same here!”

"God, Sweetwater—if we get jumped by something outa these fuckin’ trees, your ass is gonna be the first to go. So, if I were you, I’d really shut the Hell up and glue my eyes to those branches before I nail them to 'em!”

I didn’t expect Sweet’s silence as a response for the next 20 minutes.

“Alright... so, would you say that ‘magic’ explains our entire situation here?”

“Gah—just quit thinking ‘bout it. Our job—no, our life right now depends on getting out of here, not to be damn scientists about everything. If it looks like magic, just call it magic.”

“Hey, that’s right on, Red,” Hags chimed in, “And now that you mention it, our luck’s been pretty ‘magical’ in all that sense lately; Us still bein’ here and not good lookin’ corpses has been a magical test of, like, our comradery and/or friendships in and of itself.”

"That's... a pretty deep analysis there Hags. You... hit anything on the way down?" Sarge joked.

"Now that's a good one..."

"You know, after all of that, I don’t feel like a magician," I mentioned.

“You’d be one if you count killin’ as a trick,” Sarge added.

“Heh, yeah, I can see your stage name now; the Good ‘n’ Pretty Deadly Preston.” Hags coined. “And I’d be— Haggodini...”

The rest of the drive was fine, except for running over what I thought was a pile of sticks. It turned out to be another wood wolf. I had an issue convincing Sarge that I didn’t just run over a real dog, going as far to needing to ask for the other two to back me up.

But the rest of our trip was two hours of safe, yet mind-numbing, inactivity. Even Sarge decided to let Sweets relax and open his mouth while on the gun. To pass the time, a few ideas were tossed around our around about what would be at the end of that brown dirt road.

Sweets kept chattering about being somewhere else in the universe, and that we had a very real chance of making first-contact with aliens—if we ever crossed them. And after asking nicely, Sarge even gave him dibs to speak first with whatever we found. It was at least better him than Hags to represent mankind here.

Hags didn’t agree with that line of thought; possibly just because he could. But he did find a reason—the trees and plants looked the same here as on Earth. He surmised that we were just on a different part of Earth, not on a new one, and guessed that we might be in China. His explanation for the different sun was that it “just looked like that” over there. Sweets tried explaining to him how impossible that idea was, but after Hags called his alien fantasy “retarded,” they both stooped to name-calling. Sarge soon stepped in with his own theory: they were going to have bigger problems than being shot at by E.T. or the Chinese if they didn’t simmer down.

Personally, I was already leaning on Sweets’ side before we… well, as we crested over the last hill of the road, there was some solid evidence for his alien theory in our sights.

We found ourselves at the edge of the forest as the last bit of sunset faded away. There was a village in view. I say village—but there was… something massive over the place. We saw just glimpse of a massive, shiny tree-thing on the far side of the place before only its silhouette was visible against the night sky. Everything below it looked like cozy, peasant looking cottages—But this structure looked like it was pulled out of Candy Land, with glimmering walls and shimmering points taking up our vision for only moments.

"Woah, woah WOAH—Holy… shit!" Sweets freaked out, “We just—we all saw that, right? that was fucking huge! This is… guys, we’ve gotta go there now or I'm going to absolutely lose-"

"Calm. The. Fuck down, Sweets," Sarge ordered, "I’ll promise to take your ass by magic mountain later—but we’ve got somethin' else up ahead."

The only thing between us and the village below was a sign next to the road. A small purple-painted wooden board between two posts.

4. - The One Village We didn't Raze

“I... I can’t read that from here,” Sweets griped while poking out of the turret. “It doesn’t look like anything.”

We’d parked the van facing the sign—shinning the headlights on it.

“So… it ain’t Chinese, nor Russian?” Hags asked, leaning out of one of the dozen hatches on the vehicle to look as well.

“Well—I think it's safe to mark Chinese off the list. But it… could be some Cyrillic spinoff? Pres, get the hi-beams on it, I’m getting out to look.”

I turned up the lights and cracked open an overhead hatch to hear what Sweets had to say. For some reason, he called Hags over for a second opinion.

“Sweets… this looks an awful lot like Russian…”

“But it’s not, look—the letters are all scrambled and flipped around. It doesn’t spell out anything I’m aware of... Christ, it’s like someone hired a—dyslexic expressionist to paint these words on. I’m about to Pollock my eyes out trying to read this…”

“Well… I can almost feel like I can read it.”

“Pfft—In what? All you know is English.”

“–And Spanglish.”

“Oh sure, like that’s… ah—fine, be my guest.”

Haggard stood with his face a foot away from the board and slowly scanned each letter, calling them off as he went. “And… the magic word… is... ‘P’… ‘Zero’-”

“’O’”

“Uh, excuse you, Sweetwater?”

“It’s ‘O’, as in the letter, not zero. A zero doesn’t make any sense–”

“–Ain’t like you were makin’ sense of it anyway, so ‘O’ my God, just shut it.”

“Alright then... have fun with your binary.”

“Okey-dokey, so where were—ah… so, a flipped ‘N’… a, uh ‘Y’—gotta be a ‘Y’… and a… Triangle without a top. I’ll—get back to that... one line, maybe an ‘L’… two ‘I’s and an ‘E’— there, done!”

“Oh—so, done now, are we? Could you kindly tell the rest of the class what this new word is?"

“Sure, it spells–" Hags cleared his throat. "P-zero-n-y uhh, liie… which is said together as… ‘Pez-erony-lie’.”

Sweets slowly turned his look at Hags, squinting into his eyes to tell whether he was joking or not.

“Oh… Ok, I’ll admit it. I got no idea what I’m doing.”

“Well, if that isn't a first... but, uhh—don’t feel so useless yet.” Sweets turned back to the sign. “I think you might’ve nailed the first half of the word.”

“Shit, rea—I mean, yeah?”

“If the zero is actually an ‘O’—then the first half of this... would spell ‘PONY’.”

“On God, we’re actually getting somewhere with this,” Sarge spoke. He was still next to me in the van, watching this amazing waltz of wits.

“Ok… So, it could be a horse farm, maybe?" Hags started to walk back to the car as he talked, "Welp, farmers are usually good folk, and I ain't gonna judge ‘em by their pimpy lil' castle, so I think it’s good to call this place safe. Let’s get a-.”

“We’re solving the rest of this thing now, Hags.”

“Oh—good Lord, Sweets! I mean, really? The word’s got a damn shape in there. It ain’t like we’re getting’ anywhere fast with this grammar-sleuth shit of yours!”

They argued for five minutes, with the latter three having devolved into name-calling. Sarge was entertained at first from just watching them—but I kept my focus on the sign. I... reasoned that if some of the letters were flipped around, then maybe that shape could be too. And there’s one letter that looks like a bottom-up triangle. And if that was that, and the ‘I’s ‘L’s... I had something figured out at least. I opened my door and cautiously yelled out.

“Pony-ville?”

Hags and Sweets stopped dead in their words. Sarge chucked at the unease I instantly made between all of us. Then Hags started to nod his head, a little bit at first—then to a full-on ‘yes’.

“Yeah, yeah—I reckon ‘ille’ fits in better."

“And—the ‘v’…" Sweets glanced back between me and the sign a few times. “Oh, of course! It’s a welcome sign! To Ponyville! Ha! What are the odds that you—oh, who am I kidding. God, we're retarded.”

“But... that's literally what I was saying before, ya tenderfoot.”

“No, you thought this sign was for a farm, not a village."

“Well, farmers can live in villages too, so am I really wrong?” he claimed.

“Ahh, forget it." Sweets shrugged. “Anyway—Pres, thanks for doing my job for once.”

“Ain’t killing ‘bad guys’ part of your job too?" Hags added, "He’s saved your ass a few times doin’ that too.”

“Eh—well, I like to think of that as more of a complication to my work more than any–”

“–Christ's sake, guys, enough of this!” Sarge hopped out of the car and called everyone on him.

“You got a plan on meeting these ‘Ponyville’ peasants, Sarge?” Sweets asked as we formed up.

“Hmm. Well—I'm sure a big-ass armored vehicle rolling in with all four of us killers at night ain’t gonna give us a good chance to introduce ourselves. Best bet's to hold up here on the road ‘till mornin’.” He walked over to the back of the car, opened the doors and hopped in. He turned back to tell Sweets that he had first watch.

"Wait, what? Hold on, what's it for this time?”

Sarge was already laying down over a bunch of gear in the back. “I dunno,” he answered.

Sweets shrugged as he turned around to post up. He walked up to a stump near the sign to take watch and said something about “four-hour shifts” to Hags and I before we jumped into the front seats to sleep.

I realized that our watches were off after the sun started to rise at about 11 am, our time. And that was the highlight of my watch. Nothing moved around us during the night—but neither did anyone or anything in the village. I had the morning shift, so I was up viewing the village at dawn. While the whole scene was pretty and all—with the stillness of the countryside and the view of the crystal treehouse—it raised a few flags. There were no alarms, bells, doors slamming, yelling—no sounds coming from any of the seemingly person-scaled houses. From the road, it looked and sounded abandoned.

Sarge was the first to hop out of the van when I knocked on it, with everyone falling out quickly after, and went straight into our morning routines. There wasn’t much of a morning routine to do, except for breakfast. But before I could take a second look at him, Hags had a fire going to cook one of the Russian MRE’s. It was decent for being mostly crackers and spread. After that, we mounted up in the same spots, and set off to meet the natives.

I honked a few times while we rolled into town—no response. I slowed down as we passed the first house—nothing new. Hags fired off a few rounds into the air, much to Sarge’s dismay—absolutely nothing. Sweets made a joke about the Plague beating us here to kill off everyone before we could—It was pretty funny—but the town’s silence wasn’t putting anyone in a laughing mood.

The only talking we kept hearing came from Sweets as he commented on the “half-assed-timber” architecture in the village—with straw roofs and pink-purple woods making up the “built environment.” They seemed to have been built a bit short too— with doorways only scaled up to six-feet. Other than that, everything looked homely from the outside. They were a lot like dollhouses come to think of it...

We kept on driving to the crystal castle, which all of us were still stunned over. Viewing it in the day… it was like a giant, trippy looking dead shrub, with a purple castle stuck between the twigs. I didn't like how we were bee-lining it to the fortress—but it was probably the best bet we had for some action in this fresh ghost town.

“Oh—Jesus, Sarge! can we talk about it now?” Sweets pleaded.

“Ahh… knock yourself out, kid. No use holdin' it now.”

“Well, Shit! This is just—Damn! This thing’s out of the budget for fucking Disney, much less a bunch of feudal shmucks!" Sweets sputtered out. “And… guys, are we sure we’re even looking at the same thing? Aww, just—wow, is that real crystal? I—don’t even know where to begin with this. I—if it’s quarts, then I guess–”

“–Sweetwater… you really have no idea what this is?” Sarge asked with a splash of concern in his tone.

“No, go fish.”

“Well… damn. Alright—so first off, shut up about it. Second off, if we don’t know shit on this, we need to be careful pokin' around it.”

“Is—Is it reasonable if I’m scared now, Sarge?”

“Naw, Hags, that’s just bitchin’.”

Sarge took a long look at the fortress before pointing me to the base of it. “Hey, there's some big-ass golden doors on it. Take us closer, we’ll dismount and get up close on foot–”

“–Excuse me?” Hags tensed up.

“That’s right, everyone group up on me when I bail. We’re going up to knock on that thing until somethin' happens.”

“But... uh, what if it’s, like, cursed, or something?”

“Oh yeeeah—I almost forgot that pretty lil’ castles always got those curses. Thanks, Haggard… Too bad I don’t give a damn.”

“Wuh—well, alrighty then. Just don’t blame me if your dick falls off when you touch the handle.”

“Uh, Hags? I... don't think a curse is going to neuter you,” Sweets spoke up.

“Well, that’s what my curse would do if I made one—and it'd be funny as Hell.”

After a whole 9-yard drive, Sarge dismounted and we stacked up behind him. As we moved to the door, I noticed a piece of paper taped to it. After pointing it out, we lazily broke formation and walked up to it. It was in that ‘expressionism’ language again, and since I had the best track record, I grabbed it. Sarge and Sweets hovered over my shoulder as I tried to read.

“Ok… It says—let's see, uh— ‘Princess’ two—'too late’? ‘Gone’? ‘To’... ‘the’ fu- fecc... uh, ‘Festival’?”

“So, it’s an invite to some... Fuckshit Festival?” Sweets noted. “Oh. Ok. Well, I... guess everyone here must have just carpooled together outta this dump at the same time, eh? All for some giant, orgy thing too, fucking great! What else does it say?”

I strained to read out anything in the next chunk of the words, with only a single phrase standing out.

“Oh, yeah—happy-inning? No, ‘happening’— ‘in’, ehh... ‘Canter-lot’?”

“Ah… shucks.” Hags groaned, “So it’s somewhere else?” He sighed before starting to shuffle back to the car, "I'll… just keep my seat warm."

Sweets grabbed the note from me and tried to read it for himself. “Ok—I think it’s referring to a ‘Camelot’ instead—but other than that, I think we’re golden! Which… means our ‘Princess’ is in… another fucking castle!” He kicked at the door, only to find that kicking something gold-plated hurts. "AGHH! Balls! Ugh—why are we even still here, Sarge? I doubt a bunch of frivolous, dark-age, party-animals are going to be much use to us!"

“Sweets, just zip your shit!” Sarge hit back, snatching the paper out of his hand. “Outa all of us you should be the most interested in meetin’ these things! Hell, you’re the only guy I know that liked that Contact movie. And you're just gonna let a chance like that go over a stubbed toe? That's just sad! Besides, this is our best shot at doin’ somethin’ productive ‘round here.” He flashed the paper back at me. “Pres—you just keep reading. If you find a name or"

“–Picture!” I blurted out. It was printed in a handful of colors on the back of the invite. It looked like another castle, only more like the kind we were used too. It was on the side of a mountain, with a shower of fireworks around it.

“Oooh… well, that's useful! We just—have to follow the bread trail left by a septuplet of dwarfs that lead us to a glass slipper and we’ll be there in no time! Fuckin’ Ace!” he cried out while tossing up his arms.

“Lemme see that–” Sarge snagged the paper out of my hand and took another look. “You know what? I bet this place can’t be too far from here. We haven’t seen a vehicle that wasn’t ours this entire time...”

“Wait...” Sweets cooled off enough to think again. “If that's drawn from a view that the inhabitants here could recognize, then mountains in the distance should have–”

"Pffft—fuck that, I'm not lookin’ for it by eye.” Sarge clarified, “I'm sayin' we just find a map around here and follow it."

“Sure, maybe that too—or we could just follow a road–"

“You can't just follow a road without a map. Shit’s suicide.”

"Alright—so where does the wise and honorable Sarge think a map would be?"

Sarge pointed over his shoulder. “There's got to be a map up in here. A place like this should have a war-room at least.”

"And there’s bound to be other stuff in here too,” I said. “Speaking of looting, where's Ha–"

“–Heya, folks!” Hags yelled, walking back from the van with an RPG.

“Oh, no- NO! Absolutely not!" Sweets scolded him, "You can't just blow open the fucking door to... whoever's castle! Like—we haven't even checked to see if it's locked!"

I gave a quick tug at the door handles. locked, of course.

"Well... Aw, guys, really? Can we at least try knocking first!"

“That's exactly what we're doin' Sweets, just a lot louder! Now step your asses back,” Hags warned, shoving a rocket in the pipe.

“OH, come the fuck ON! Sarge! You can't give him the go-ahead for this! What happened to 'making nice with the natives’?”

"Not much use of tryin' for that in a ghost town, now is there?" Sarge replied, giving Hags the thumbs up as we walked away from the door.

“Gotcha! Now step aside—goin' hot!”

As we stood to the side of Hags, Sweets let out one last sigh. “Don't be surprised if this comes back to bite us...”

Hags fired at the door, blasting it off its hinges inward. After a cracking thud, we stood there waiting for the dust to settle.

"So—who's goin' first?" he asked.

"All of us, numb-nuts, now shut up and stack up!" Sarge yelled.

We moved through the castle, in all of its garnet glory. Most of us took some time to look at some of the stuff in there, like the roots of a tree stuck in the ceiling in one room… with a two-foot-high, 20-foot wide, crystal table surrounded by thrones with colorful stickers on them, and a 3-D projection on the table.

“Hey, is this some—spacey-techno, holographico stuff on that table?" Hags walked up to it, swatting at a cloud floating on it.

“The Hell?" Sweets muttered, going a bit farther as he stepped up onto the thing. "This— these are holograms! How did they—What is this sci-fi shit doing here? I can't even begin to tell how it's working!"

“Wow… pretty. Can you tell what it's for?" Sarge asked

"This would be kick-ass for D&D, I can tell you that."

“It's definitely a map,” I said, poking at the forest we were in the day before with my rifle.

“No shit—but what’s it a map of? The clouds on it are moving, the trees look like they're swaying—it’s like a live feed of this land, an entire continent’s worth of it!”

“Hmm… Then we’ve got to be—there, there it is!" Sarge pointed to something near the center of the table. "Look at that tall, fork-thing! It's this place!"

"Hold on." Sweets wiped down his glasses. "Oh my—wow, that's detailed!" He kneeled down to take a closer look at the village we were at. “Huh—hey, I think I see a… railway hub?"

"A What? As in, for trains?" Sarge asked.

"So, hold up there–" Hags jumped in, "–we got a map we can use here. But where's that other place we're lookin' for? Castala del Doso?”

"That’s... not even close to anything in Spanish."

"Hop off, Sweets, I'm still learnin'."

“Just shut up and look for the other castle, Christ!” Sarge kept switching between looking at the map and the picture, slowly combing over the mountainside facing our village. All our eyes were quickly drawn to the tallest peak of the map.

And there it was; a castle that looked like it was stuck onto the side of a mountain like a dart on the board. It was picture perfect to the print on the note, and looked like it was within line of sight too.

"Why... is it up there?" I asked.

"And why so close to another castle?" Sweets added.

"And the fuck is this table anyway?" Hags joined in.

“You… you know what?" Sarge slowly started off. "I’m just gonna say it: Fuck it. I’m already sick of tryna figure out what the Hell’s goin' on. We might as well be in—Yipidy-do-dahhh-go-fuck-yourself land for what it matters. Gah—for now on, let’s all just keep quiet and go with whatever the fuck happens. As long as we find some other assholes to communicate with, we're gonna be just fine, alright?”

“So... Is that an order for us or–”?

“That is a standing order, Sweetwater—’specially for your motor-mouth. Now, get back out there!”

“How the fuck did we miss something like that?” Sarge asked us, with the view of Camelot painfully clear behind him.

"I mean... the whole 'fort-sparkles' thing was a bit- jarring–" Sweets spoke up, "–and it blocked a lot of our line of si–"

"Just shut it."

"Yes, Sarge…"

We stood in silence until Hags asked something. "Shouldn't we get movin’ or somethin'?"

"Yeah—but I'd like to know how to get there first," Sarge answered.

"Oh, that’s the easy part,” Sweets spoke up. “Our biggest problem’s going to be figuring out distance.”

“How?” I asked.

“There's no scale on the map—It looks scaled—but without something to measure up to, It’s hopeless. I didn't pack a measuring tape either, so I don't know how this can–"

"–You can measure somethin' small, like an inch, right?" Hags asked.

"Uh, duh—but measuring something big enough to use on the map is gonna take ages, dude," he claimed, knowing damn well he was going to end up doing all the math for it.

Hags pondered for a moment, as he turned his look towards the castle. "If... you could get the height of that, could ya work with it?"

"What, are you kidding me? Of course I could, dingus. But that thing’s massive. Only an idiot would... try to... shit—you wouldn't happen to have an idea–"

“–Sure fuckin’do!" Hags smirked. “Now follow me… uh, the Vod’s unlocked, right?”

We followed him over to the back of the van as he pulled out a questionable piece of equipment. Along with a few shells for it.

"What? A mortar?" Sweets gawked as we set it down close to the castle. "Whu—Why on any Earth would you need—No, scratch that; what the fuck are you firing at?"

“You might wanna answer him for once, Hags,” Sarge sternly suggested.

"Oh, don’t get your blood pressure up over this: I’m usin’ smoke rounds for this." Hags did a quick check on the shell he was holding as he spoke. “I’ve got an idea to measure the height of that gem with the aim of this mortar!”

“Are you crazy? That’s nothing but a glorified tube with a few dials on it! How could you possibly–”

“–Hear me out, compadre. If we know an angle and, like, one length of a squ—triangle, then we can find the other lengths, right?”

“Correct…”

“So, if I aim at sometin’ way out behind that castle—knowin’ both the angle and distance aimed to—but my shot hits the castle instead, then you could do a bit of math from that and figure out your scale!”

Sweets put a hand to his temple as he thought about the idea. “You… want me… to figure out the height of a building—based off of the disparity between where you aimed and where you hit?”

“Oh, c’mon, Sweets—we know you can! Just use one of your brain-bla–”

“–Can you really do it?” Sarge asked.

“Well, yeah... shit,” Sweets sheepishly answered, “It could work, don’t get me wrong—but, I—No... just, no. We don’t even know–"

“–Know that minimum range on a 2B14 Podnos is 80 meters at an 85˚ angle?" Hags recited. "Well... I do! So, suck it!"

“Jesus—how do you even know that?” Sweets blurted out, more annoyed than surprised.

“Long story: Googled it a while back.”

"For fu—you can't be serious!"

“You're right. I'm Haggard.”

"Wuh—you can’t just play this off as a joke! Blasting the door was one thing—but this? It’s a bit excessive! Even if it’s just smoke, it’s not totally–”

“Look, if you wanna measure shit inch-by-inch, go ahead! But with this, it's just distance over—um… some alphabet-soup formula or whatever."

"Aww—I… Oh, I hate it when you’re right." Sweets shrugged. “Sarge? You’re... really ok with this?"

"Hell yeah—ain’t like we got a quicker way to get this done. Get ready to… do your thing, Hags. And if by some act of God this goes wrong—blame it on lightning.”

“Awesome—wait, can ya help me with this, Pres?”

After the two of us dragged the mortar and its shells farther out, Hags made the last adjustments to his aim.

“Annnnd just a smidge up... yeah, that’s probably right—OK, goin’ hot—again!” He primed the smoke shell and dropped it down the tube.

KA-Thwooomph–

As it fell back down, the bomb burst in air. It was on its way to hit the top of the castle—but started to burn brightly above the giant sparkling star at the top, parachuting down slowly. It was a star shell, not a smoke shell.

“What in the damn…” Sarge snapped to Hags—his glare soaked with disappointment.

“What the fuck was that?” Sweets flipped. “That’s an illumination flair, not a smokescreen! That’s literally the exact opposite of what you said it was!”

“Hey—I thought it was the smoke! Don’t just blame me!”

“Who else is there to blame, dumbass! I thought you knew what you were doing—can’t you at least read?”

“Not Russian!”

“They’re still color coded!”

“Look; for smoke, its white for us and black for ‘em—do you know how easy it is to–”

“The Hell…” Sarge called out as looked back at the castle. “Aww shit! It’s fuckin’ onfire now!”

The illumination shell was basically a giant, bright, flaming fireball—so, of course, it started a fire as it landed on one of the castle balconies.

“What? Now how does diamond burn? This is just—bullshit!” Hags yelled.

“It’s the drapes, dipshit!” Sweets answered, “And it’s going to light up the inside if we just sit around waiting for–”

“Yeah, yeah—fix it—I know! Pres, next shell!”

I dug into an ammo box to find another, grabbing the first one that looked right. Out of the box, its color band looked black—but as I pulled it out into direct light, it appeared as a dark and poorly aged navy-blue.

“Preston—hurry! We can snuff that blaze out with smoke if we’re quick!” he urged.

“Hags, I really don’t think th–”

“No time to think, only pray!” He snatched the shell from me and primed it in one swift move.

“Hey! Let me read the thing first!” Sweets begged.

“Too late!” Hags hollered as he slammed the heat into the pipe.

KA-Thwooomph–

“C’mon, you hunk of shit—work for me, work for me…” he murmured under his breath as we all waited for a tense six seconds,

The shell landed with a very distinct sound.

BOoom—CRaCKshhhh

The sound of an explosive impacting a glass-like castle, shattering a good chunk of the crystal star’s top half. As in, it was gone now. It was like watching a friend toss a Hail-Mary in the backyard, just to see it crash through a neighbor’s window. The big difference being that this was on a tactical scale. But, with all the falling debris kicking up smoke and dust over the castle, it did manage to stop the fire.

“OH—Fuckin–!” Hags tossed his beanie to the ground as he kicked up a storm of dirt.

“SHIT!We’rescrewed!” Sweets cried out.

“Oh, Jesus, Haggard—you’re abona-fidefucktard!” Sarge showed no mercy while yelling at him with a finger poking into his chest.

All I wanted to say to him was… “How?”

He turned around to answer me with a flustered face. “I just…that shit just happened so fast, that I…”

“No—Youcan just shut your stupid—fucky-face, you…Gahh!” Sweets was on the verge of breaking down as he kneeled. “It—it hasn’t even started for us! And it’s already game over!”

“Haggard…” Sarge caught back Hags' attention as he looked on with a glare intense enough to set him on fire—it probably would’ve if he just had a hint of “magic” in him.

“Y—yes?”

“When we get back… your ass is getting promoted to civilian.”

“Yeah… seems fair, honestly–”

“Sweets?” Sarge moved on from Hags. “You think you can salvage any of Dr. Dumbass’s experiment here—preferably before ye-old five-O spot us?”

“You… still want me to… yeah—fuck it, let’s just keep going with this piss-ass plan!” He broke into a cynically fueled fit. “I’m just fuckin’ lovin’ it, you know? Ha-ha—where are those mortars, fuck!”

“I got it–”

“–Oh no you don’t!” Sweets grabbed Hags by his satchel and yoinked him away from the box. “Now stay there, Fido… Ok, let’s see here. Looking for Дым, Дым…” He shuffled the shells around like junk in a toolbox.

“Hey, here it… wait. Oh no.” He froze as he wrapped his hands around something buried in the box. “Oh… OH my. Fucking, SHIT-dicking, ASS-pricking—CHRIST STAPPLED TO A KITE—FUUUCK!”

He fell to his knees as he poured his soul into the sky—yelling louder than he ever did before in pain or fear.

“Sweetwater!” Sarge called to him out of fearful concern.

“WHO the FUCK stuffed a laser-rangefinder in a FUCKIN’ AMMO BOX!?” he screamed.

Sarge and I slowly panned over to the culprit as Sweets was losing his bearings over a box of explosive ordinance and an advanced laser pointer. Hags had very little to say.

“Oh gee. Fellas, I have… not been on the top of my game today—and I am… just sorry.”

"Annnd if we follow these rails, it should be... about only—83 miles away, ish. Or three days by car if we let Hags drive," Sweets announced standing on the holo-table inside, measuring it out with a six-inch ruler in hand.

"Ah, shut your shit-hole of a face—I drive fine compared to your speedy-suburbanite ass.”

"Both of you clamp it and lemme think!" Sarge ordered. “So… we can make that trip in what, four hours? And we're good on gas?"

"Uh, totally—and we could probably do it in only a fifth of a tank too,” Sweets answered.

"Good, good… So, we just follow these… Sweets, are you sure these are train trac–"

"Oh, Sarge?" Hags jumped in, "What about—uh, gatherin' up ‘supplies’ and whatnot?"

"Jesus, Haggard—you seriously wanna loot Castel de Crumble too?” Sarge snapped back at him, “Blowin' up this fuckin’ place ain't bad enough for ya?"

"Hey—I thought we all agreed to put that behind me now…”

"Hard to do that when it just happened right above us,” I mumbled—just seconds before another tremor in the ceiling started up again.

"Well… I was not about to suggest this place, FYI,” Hags answered defensively. “Anywho, do y’all wanna eat? 'Cause I’m thinkin’ about gettin' some local grub."

"And what exactly do you have in mind for lunch out here?" Sarge asked.

"Heh... don't suppose there would be a bad place to start." He pointed over to a building on the map that looked like… a giant—cupcake.

5. - Let's Drive to the Castle!

After Sweets took a few more notes on the map, we drove to the cupcake shack, which was named ‘Sugar Curb Corona’ as best as I could tell. There was still a pink cloud of dust floating around the crystal castle, so Sarge pushed us to hurry with our looting. It wasn’t really necessary to do this since we weren’t starving—but it was in our best interest to start eating something not vacuum-sealed in a bag soon.

There was a small set of saloon doors leading inside. Hags tried to bust through it with a kick, only to find it was locked. He sprayed the door with buckshot instead, until it stopped working as a door. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from him. After some light scolding from Sarge, we followed Hags as he ducked under the doorway. The ceiling felt a bit under six feet, so we split up to sweep through the building to avoid bumping into each other. Sarge and Hags took on the second floor while Sweets and I cleared the shelves below.

The specialty of this bakery or café thing was… cupcakes. What else, honestly? But these treats were something else; they were grapefruit-sized, with a whole other level of craft put into them. I kind of felt bad for touching a few of them. I can't describe all of them—but they all had the potential to shut down your pancreas if you looked at them funny. Sweets, funnily enough, did manage to find something more sustainable behind the short counters; bread. By the time the other two were through upstairs, we had a stack of to-go boxes ready to ride off with.

“Any luck down there? We ain’t found shit up ‘ere,” Sarge called out while stepping back down, almost crouching down to fit in the stairwell.

Hags shuffled past him at the bottom, picking up a red-velvet confection to take a closer look. “This… really all they got here?” he commented.

“There’s something you think we missed?” Sweets spoke up. “Because these boxes are clearly meant for doughnuts—but there’s none in the ba–”

“–Naw, not that.” Hags shrugged. “The Hell’s the meat here?”

“Uh, we’re in a bakery—not a butcher’s shop, Sherlock.”

“Well, what kinda bakery ain’t got a… deli-combo or somethin’? These folks vegan?”

“Hold on… lemme see that.” Sarge took a pinch out of the cupcake, looking at it closely as he rubbed the bit between his fingers. “Huh…damn, this stuff’s as wet as a fish. You can bet your ass there’s buttermilk in this…”

Everyone else looked at him in a way that we usually reserved for Sweets: puzzled.

“What? I can’t know a few things about food?” he snapped back. “Or did none of your momma’s ever show you some good cookin’?”

“Well… nothing that didn’t come out a microwave…” Sweets admitted.

“Oh—dang.” Hags stuttered before giving him a pat on the shoulder, “I… I really do feel bad for ya.”

“Yeah, yeah—and I feel sorry that your mom ever had to deal with a shit like you.”

“Bah—shut your shit-chat,” he said before tussling Sweet’s helmet with a strong flick. “Now, let’s blow this sugar-shack. Ain’t nothin’ up there but a buncha hot-pink, girly stuff.” Before he left through the non-existent doors, he turned to point out something else. “Hey, I call dibs on that cherry lookin–”

As he turned away from the door, Sweets saw his backside and yelled, “Haggard!”

“Jesus, what’s it now, Sweets?”

“Don’t… move!” With a wary tension in his voice, he awkwardly inched forwards with a knife in his hands. Hags actually did listen to Sweets, and kept still for the moment, probably because he was more confused than concerned.

Sarge quickly commented on Sweets. “The Hell’s the matter with you—oh… my God… the fuck is that?” he spat out.

“Woah, woah, woah—stay calm, I got this Sarge—I got this.” Sweets eased him as he was mere feet away from looking like he was about to… stab Hag’s ass.

“Dude, just spit it out; do I got somethin’ on my butt or what?” he must have jokingly asked. But when I shuffled over next to Sweets, I saw the issue—with its jaw clamped to a pocket on his rear.

“A… uh, a lizard?” I told him. I was… I kinda found it funny—But I was still too tense from the killer stick dogs to let my guard down.

“Lizard? Where?” He spun around as he tried to pat down his back and glutes. “Shit, it ain’t burrowin’ anywhere, right!?”

“Right cheek, on your pockets,” Sweets corrected him. “Don’t you dare gra–”

“Gotcha!” Hags snatched it with a swipe, only to hold it up to his face. “Wha—Ha! Ho—lee shit, dude! Lookie’ here at this catch!” He waved around the footlong reptile for us.

“Haggard—you can’t just handle something new like that!” Sweets warned him, “It could be... a venomous lizard, for all the jack shit you know.”

“Aw, c’mon. This isn’t just a lizard—it’s an itty-bitty gator! Ain’t that just cool? Look, tiny arms!” he cheered while dangling it up by its front legs. “Heh, I mean, I guess It’ll kill me too, Sweets. In a few years, Haha!”

“You… really didn’t feel it bite you?” I asked.

“Well, no,” he admitted. He opened the alligator’s mouth to inspect it. “Ooh, now that’s neato. Fella’s ain’t got any teeth on him, look.”

“What?” Sweets squinted as he looked into it. “How do you de-tooth an alligator?”

“Hell if I know—but I love this lil’ guy!”

“Ugh, Christ… I’m startin’ to think we’re stuck in Florida with all this shit now,” Sarge spoke up.

“Yeah, speakin’ of that—it’s like you’re the asshole of a flamingo upstairs with all that pink. That’s got to be some chick’s room, cause ain’t no man in his right mind gonna burn his eyes out like that.”

“Ah, whatever” Sarge uttered as he signaled us to follow. “Now, let’s get out of this place before I go colorblind … and put that thing back down, Haggard…”

“Well, shouldn’t I put this in that toony-ass lookin’ fountain we passed?” Hags replied. “Gators need water, right?”

“God, just put the thing down before I put you down.”

“Oh fine… It’d just be cool “surprise mechanic” for the next guy to toss a coin in it.”

After that, we began our road trip to the other castle, with Sarge on the wheel for a change. I was still up front trying to navigate with Sweet’s notes and with what I could read on road signs. We started by following the only railroad out of Ponyville on a dirt path following it. If all went well, we would be there to introduce ourselves non-lethally to the natives in hours.

A few hiccups happened, of course. Most were small, annoying splits in the path at rail junctions sprouting out from the track. Had we not been in a constant view of the mountain, meandering through those would’ve taken all day. But this was nothing compared to the latter half of the trip. It’s like whoever laid down the rails just said “screw it” when they looked at the mountain. The tracks started to slip into tight corridors and over rail-thin bridges, leaving nothing to drive on except for the tracks themselves.

We were just asking for a messy death on the rails, since any train coming up or down it would crush us. Even with Hags standing up in the turret with an RPG to blast anything in the way, we still would’ve been screwed: any chance that we would’ve had at working with whoever would be zilch if we dumpstered a train full of partygoers off the mountain. I’ve never felt tenser while riding in anything else, from gunships to golf carts.

We eventually found a way to drop off the rails, on a separate path cut out of the mountain. And it was the first path that was paved…

“God… this sucks,” Hags spoke out to break the silence of our drive.

“What? Bored?” Sarge guessed.

“Yep...”

“You wanna play eye-spy or…” Sweets joked.

“No—it’s just… we ain’t got jack to listin’ to,” he clarified.

“Well, at least you have a view up there, Mr. Grenadier.”

“Yeah—only problem is that we’ve been circlin’ ‘round this mountain for hours, man. That whole waterfall was pretty… pretty the first time, not so much the fifth.”

“Ah, I hear you. This road’s starting to feel like I-20 at this point. I’d kill to even listen to that Pole-folk shit on the air back in…” Sarge trailed off as he noticed a slot on the extra radio set that was screwed into the roof of the car. “Sweetwater, is this a—CD player above the console here?”

“You mean the one slapped on over the dash? It’s old—but yeah.”

“So… If there’s a player here, then there should be CD’s here too,” I added.

“Well, duh,” he answered back. “But I didn't exactly see any CD racks lying around the crash.”

“Ooh, Ooh, I know!” Hags jumped in, “Check those sun shields—everyone stuffs them up there.”

“Hags, this is a tool of war, not a minivan,” Sarge corrected.

“Uh, hmm… Then it’s gotta be stuffed between the seats and that middle console—thingy.”

Sarge shook his head as he spoke just to me, “What kinda dumbass thinks anyone would store…” He stopped mid-sentence as his hand pulled out a CD case from the crevice. “Well, I’ll be damned, we got somethin’!”

“Ha! There we go,” Hags cheered. “Now, what is it, Sarge?”

“I dunno… Sweets?”

He popped his head through a roof hatch to look at it. “Let’s see… ah, clearly we have pirated material on our hands here—you can tell because it’s unlabeled. What lazyprick doesn’t even bother marking it with a sharpie?”

“One of those assholes back up in the plane, probably,” Sarge chuckled. “So, you can’t tell what’s on here?”

“No—just go ahead and play it.”

Sarge shook his head as he muttered to me, “Hope this ain’t polka,” and slapped the disk in the player. It took a second to boot up—but when it did, the first track to play was “I Get Around.”

“Wait—Beach Boys!” he called out with a smile.

“Wow. Now that—is a weird pick,” Hags added.

“Weird?” Sweets questioned. “Honestly, what were you expecting a bunch of Russian operatives to listen to? Jimi Hendrix?”

“Well… yeah. More than Brian Wilson at least.”

“You don’t have a problem with this stuff, right?”

“Oh, Lord no. I think this shit slaps! This is like, that Surf radio on a disk! Ha, technology!”

“I’ll say,” Sarge jumped back in. “I remember sittin’ around listenin' to some of this on vinyl…”

“Jesus, Sarge. You’re not that old, are you?” Sweets sneered.

“Bah, it was my old man’s stuff, asshole.” He shrugged off. “What’s your take on this old noise anyway, kiddo?”

Sweets paused for a moment to rev up his thoughts. “Honestly… These guys have definitely aged well. Like sure, a bunch of their early stuff was a bit too slow for me personally—but after they broke into their own and cut-out all the musical cheese in their songs, they really–”

“Musical… cheese?” Hags butted in.

“Yeah, ‘musical cheese’; those cheap harmonic elements found overabundantly in other songs at the time. I mean, these guys were breaking new ground, and not because they were experimenting with ambience or anything. They’re just so lax in how they played. I mean… Pet Sounds is still just–”

“–Sweetwater…”

“Uh… quiet?"

“God yes. Just—enjoy—the sounds that we have now been blessed with—please.”

A moment passed before Sweets spoke again. This time with a much simpler question than usual.

“Can I… can we still sing along?”

“Shit...” Sarge gave it a scholarly long thought before answering. “Well, if you know it, don’t blow it–”

For a solid half-hour, we almost forget our predicament at the time, while we butchered the lyrics to some Ivan’s favorite collection of surfer rock. But we were eventually snapped out of it by the sound of a whistle coming down from the mountain.

“Oh hey, trains! that's a good sign!” Sweets noted.

“That’s even more music to my ears,” Hags spoke. “Y’all know what they say about trains?”

“What?” I asked

“If there’s trains… eh, there’s probably people too…”

“–What kind of wisdom is that?” Sweets called out, with a hint of an aneurysm behind his voice.

“Well… It means that it, uh—oh, just buckle your jaw before I do it for ya.”

“Oh, sure, I'll just let the dumbest declaration of anything I’ve ever heard outside of FOX news slip under the doormat to your house on Brainless Boulevard”

“Ok, then how about this one then: I've got dibs on the gun from here on out!”

“Over my body, Dixie boy. That’s my spot. I’ve got all the plates on me and everything to take a beating—you don’t even have a helmet! The second we stop, we’re–”

“–I ain’t got to wear that shit because I duck out of the way of stuff, instead of taking hits like a sad lil’ punchin’ bag!”

“Oh, just—shut. Up,” Sarge jumped in. “We’re only a few mikes from that castle place if that train’s anythin’ to go by… sounds like an old one too.”

“How can ya tell?” Hags questioned.

“Lived by a railyard—long time ago.”

“Oh, that's cool...” Hags scooted closer to our hatch, as if to ask something personal. “So... did ya ever see a train wreck with one of those fertilizer tanks involved before? I ain't seen one—but I've heard they'll explode into somethin' bigger than that shit I pulled off in–”

“–Haggard, can you ever stop thinkin' about that shit? Ever?” Sarge demanded from him.

“It’s… that’s kinda my job here, Sarge.”

“Well, can I put you on a mental leave for five minutes? God… honestly, how are you eager ‘bout this ‘job’ of yours?”

"‘Cause you tell me to be?"

"C' mon. Gimme a real answer."

“Hey, I just like my job.” He grinned. “Ain’t nothin’ like the illusion of bein’ paid by the booms, the cracks, and the rat-a-tat-tats.”

“Huh, I can tell you that shit wore off real quick a few years in. This soldierin’ sucks—I’d almost do anything other than this shit for this long.”

“Really? So… what about—kickin’ puppies for, like, a million dollars? That more up your alley?”

“Isn’t—I don’t know—killing people up all of our dark, soulless, government-issued alleys anyway?” Sweets pointed out.

“Oh, quit your bitchin’, dude. Besides—I’m askin’ a technical question! You love this kinda stuff.”

“Well—technically, you just asked Sarge a hypothetical question,” he piped up. “A technical question deals with ideas based on more immediate events and their implications. A hypoth–”

“–So, a technical question would be ‘how hard do I have to sock you to get you to zip it, right?” Sarge quizzed Sweets.

“Shutting-up now.”

“And Hags… what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Oh, you say that, Redford—but is it really evil? You could, like, raise a thousand more dogs with that kind of cash. How is that not worth more than just offin’ one pooch?” Hags stated in a form of defense.

“Cause I’m damn sure you wouldn’t spend a dime on another dog if you got that blood money.”

“That… that’s a very good point…”

“Aww Hell, Marlow! Wake up, there’s something—yellow on the road.”

Sarge woke me after a quick powernap upfront. It looked like we were near the top of the mountain, almost in the clouds and driving on something wide enough to be considered a two-lane road, with a view over the cliffside to the right. But looking forward down the road, I could just make out a tiny, yellow horse pulling something along with it… with blueish hair. Sarge killed the music as I washed a bit of water over my face to make sure I was seeing this right.

“Are… we all seeing the same thing?” I said.

“A neon pony pulling the wagon?” Sweets warily spoke.

“Yeah, that.”

“Yes, definitely yes. I think it’s safe to rule out any hallucination theory”

“Hold up, lemme get a look at it.” Hags leaned out of the back door with a dismounted rifle scope to spot ahead. “Yep, that is… a pony, under 14 hands tall anyway. And with a big-ass head. Looks like some girl’s decked this one out.”

“Who the hell has the time to dye the mane on a horse? And why are we still driving closer too it?”

“Heh, you sure changed your tune about meeting the people here real quick, Sweets,” Sarge called out.

“Uh, that’s a horse, not a dude,” Sweets snarked back. “The Hell are we going to do with it anyway, lead it to water?”

“Hey, excuse me, city clitty—but rule one of horses is to never leave ‘em unattended.” Hags spoke up, “My bet’s the rider’s gotta be close by.”

“My thinkin’ too—now, let’s corner it, then fan out to look for whoever or whatever owns it. Bailout when we stop, got it?”

Everyone gave a quick ok, and Sarge floored it.

“Damn! Don’t go so fast, you’re gonna spook the shit outta it!” Hags yelped.

“I’ll make you look like shit in front of it if you don’t zip it!”

From about 50 feet behind it, the horse saw us. It froze like a deer in front of headlights, and we closed the gap while it was stunned. A quick veer to the right before slamming the wheels to the left and the car ended up almost sideways in front of it. The pony was blocked in—between our car and the cart. We corralled the pony within seconds...

Now… on the way to the sugar shack back in Ponyville, we passed an odd fountain with a statue of a horse on it. But, with features like big eyes, a bigger head, short snout, and almost stubby legs, I thought the sculptor had taken a few “liberties” on what a horse looked like…

But whoever made it wasn’t fucking around.

It was… the same: the eyes, head, legs, hair—everything. Like someone took a girl’s fever-dream and gave it life. The head on this pony was big enough to put Sweet’s to shame—and its eyes felt big enough to dive into. There were also some colored marks on its rear—but something more important was the yellow horn poking out of its hair.

“Uh… isn’t this a—unicorn?” I pointed out.

“Wait, what?” Sweets spun around from covering the road behind us and walked over. “Where do you see tha—h Oh! Good fuck, Preston! You are… dead—on right! That is not standard!”

“Hold it, step aside, Ladies.” Hags shoved himself by us to look. “Are you talking ‘bout bull horns or somethin’? Or is it actually… Damn, that’s a unicorn!” He took a few seconds to chuckle about it. “You know… we should start making a bingo list of all the–”

“–Ah, y’all just shut it... and quit looking at it!” Sarge ordered, “We’re not paid by Animal Planet to be here. Now, come with me, Sweets. We’re searchin’ the road ahead. You two stay right there… and don’t fuck with that while we’re gone.”

“Aw, why do I have to scout around with you? That’s Preston’s job,” Sweets nagged.

“Well, I didn’t sign your ass up to be our alien ambassador, now did I?”

While Sarge and Sweets walked away arguing, I turned back to the unicorn—a four-foot-tall horse, now cowering on the ground with its hooves over its head. And I… kinda… found it cute.

Now, not in a lovey-mushy way—but it just looked factually cute, the same way a small dog does—or one of those weird, chibi-figure things Sweets always buys while on leave. And deep inside me, I just… kinda…

I just wanted to pet it. It looked soft.

“Yeah… that horse is spooked to the bone right now,” Hags nudged to me. “You see the ears on it all flopped down? That’s a bad sign… I bet if Sarge hadn’t of driven up on it so fast…”

I stopped listening to him and kneeled over, reaching out to it with my right hand to touch it. The closest part to me was the horn. The horse shook a bit more as I advanced.

“…Preston, damnit, you been listenin’ to me? Cornerin’ a scared animal like that ain’t a good idea, and that’s coming from me. Pres? Preston–”

I waved him off and leaned in. “What was it going to do, bite me?” I thought to myself.

But when I touched the horn, the pony covered its watery eyes, and with a quick, purple flash... it zapped me. Hard.

“OW!” I jumped back from the jolt, shaking my numb hand back into motion.

“Fuckin’ told!” Hags spun around to say.

Sarge took only seconds to sprint back to us. “Shit, what’s wrong now?” he demanded.

“I told his ass!” Hags spun back to say.

“Marlow? Did that thing just bite you?” Sarge chuckled.

“No… gah—that little bastard just, stung me,” I spoke up, grabbing Hags hand to pull myself up.

“What? How? Is the tip of its horn sharp?” Sweets asked.

“No, it—felt like a shock.”

“So, you got knocked over by a bit of static?” Sarge shook his head in disappointment.

“No, it’s not that… but it’s still tingling.” I took my glove off and stretched out my hand to look—It had a warm-purple twinkle all over it, the same color as the pony’s flash.

All of us stood there, staring until it wore off. I tried to speak up again. “I… don’t know how… this feels like–”

“–OH— it’s Magic for crying out LOUD!” the pony shouted out.

6. - Hard to Say Nothing

“FUCK!”

I stumbled back again. The unicorn... it—she just had a voice now. I wasn’t hearing grunts or neighs. I heard words, clear as they could’ve been.

“Jesus, Preston? What now?” Hags buzzed in after my fall.

“What? You— none of you heard that?” I saw a confused look on all three of their faces as I stood back up.

“Uh… yeah, we heard it whinny a bit. The Hell scared you ‘bout that?”

As they waited for an answer, I looked back to the pony, a her from the sound of it.

“Well? W-what are you… waiting for?” she stuttered. The initial shock of a talking animal died off rather quick, thanks to the fact she sounded more terrified than I was. She then pointed a hoof towards the others. “Go on… don’t be s-shy about it.”

“What?” I muttered back.

“Oh—look, your friends there can’t hear me! I—It’s just you I can talk to!”

“What, again? How does that work?” I asked back

“Woah, shit, Pres? You ok?” Hags asked worriedly. “You—heh, you look like you’re, uh, talkin’… to the pony.”

I looked at him as square as I could as I said, “Oh God… I— I think I am.”

“You what?” Sarge’s eyes were wide open in disbelief. “Oh my God, Preston. You better be playin’—otherwise, I’m gonna go mad havin’ to deal with three fuckin’ nutjobs in this–”

“–Dude, there’s no way your ass just went full Dr. Dolittle on us now,” Hags spoke up, “Like, what kinda tard are ya to think that you can just magically talk to… wait” He paused to put something together in his head. “Oh… Ooh shit! What if it’s that magic shit goin’ on here?”

“Oh Yeah, yeah! This thing could’ve totally used magic on you!” Sweets jumped in, “Like, it’s a fucking unicorn, Pres. They’re supposed to ‘interact’ with you if you’re, uh… maybe a virgin, or something, right?”

“Come on, Sweets,” Hags butted in. “Quit doin’ your ‘projecting’ stuff all over him. Pres has totally got some–”

“–Just back off for a sec,” I asked. When they gave me space, I turned to talk with her. “Can you tell me what just happened?” I asked softly.

“Well, I—I only, uh, put a spell on you… but it’sso we could talk, ok?” she wailed, “Oh, I couldn’t understand a thing you all were saying, and I really didn't know if that spell would work! I don’t think anypony’s seen anything like you–”

“–What do you mean by spell?”

“Oh… pfft, magic of course!” She blurted out, waving a hoof at me. For not having hands, she was expressive with that thing. “Uh, you know I’m a unicorn, right?” She gave her horn a stern knock. “It’s kinda our thing. 'Magic makes us all complete' and stuff?”

“Uh… yeah.” I gave enough of a nod to satisfy her. “But would it have hurt to… communicate in, I dunno—any other way?”

“Er… not really.” She then started to second guess herself, “Well, like—maybe I would’ve been able to do it cleaner. I mean, it’s just—I… ah, I’m not great with spells, ok? For me, if it’s not to help with cooking, then forget about it, you know? Ok, maybe you don’t… But with the whole ‘sneaking up on me in the loud, scary wagon’ routine you had going on, I got really scared, and nervous—I’m not any better at magic under pressure, so I just–”

“–Ok, ok, that’s enough.” I raised my hands up to get her to stop. “You can calm down— you’re good now. So… if you could just sit there and keep it quiet while I talk to the guys here, that would be great, alright?”

She put a hoof in front of her lips and plopped down.

I turned back to the others to see them standing frozen in another layer of disbelief at the sight of this pony actually understanding me… until Hags raised his shotgun at me.

“GOD, put that fuckin’ thang down!” Sarge shouted.

“But he’s gone mad, I tell ya—M-A-D!”

“Oh no. The only thing mad about this is… that I think it’s real,” Sweets croaked.

"So? You believe in that global warmin' too, and that ain't any more real cause of it."

"Oh, for fu– you damn caveman!” Sweets protested, “How much clearer does it need to be for you to realize that we might be dicking around with the environment too hard with all of this–”

Hags lowered his gun as he turned to Sweets, "–Now listen here, compadre: It fuckin' snowed last year in Arlington. Arlington! What more proof do ya need that it's all a buncha liberalizin’ hogwash?"

"Ugh—it's not all about warming! It's the climate being disrupted by–"

"–And there ya go, movin' the goal-posts again…"

“Oh, please!” she cried through their bickering, “I can't understand a word out of them! They sound like you but—crazier! And scary! Can you get them to listen!”

“Uh, they kindathink I'm losing it if you haven't noticed,” I spoke back.

“I don’t know… Ooh—how about you let them ask me something!” she cheered.

I nodded and got the attention of the others. “Hey—so none of you can hear a word she’s saying?” I asked again.

“Uh, hell no,” Hags answered, “It ain’t my job to hear voices in your head.”

“Just like it isn’t my job to hear your tinnitus?” I hit back. “Now, I know why I can hear her: she… put some ‘spell’ on me with that zap… thing–”

“–It’s magic,” she added.

“–With magic!”

“Oh really?” Hags crossed his arms as he asked.

“Yes.”

“And the magical talkin’ she-pony just told ya that?”

“Yeah, and she—oh, shove it, it’s not like we haven’t seen weirder things out here! Just... trust me on this!”

Sarge started to shake his head before calling the other two into a huddle behind the van. After a long minute, they walked out with a verdict.

“You know what?" Sarge stepped forward with a grin. “We'll believe that you’re the new fuckin’ Steve Irwin if you can give us your new friend’s name.”

“Yeah! Try talkin' your way outa this one,” Hags jeered.

“Deal.” I looked back at the unicorn to kneel and ask her. “So—do you have a name?”

“Oh… that’s it?” she wheezed, "Ha ha! Well, my name’s Lemon Hearts, and I’m a unicorn from Ponyville. I like baking, knitting, and anything citrus, and before all of this, I was headed to the Friendship Festival to deliver all these lemons.” She took the tarp off the cart to show us. “Is that enough for you or..."

"Yeah, that was… great.”

"Awesome! So, what’s your name then?”

“Preston Marlow. Uh, human.”

“Preston… Marlow? Whaaat?" she blurted out, "Now, that’s a weird name.”

“Oh, so is ‘Lemon Hearts’ the norm around here?” I snapped back.

“Whoa, whoa whoa—Lemon… Hearts?” Hags asked. He leaned in to make sure he was hearing me right.

“Yeah. Her name… is Lemon Hearts.”

He stood up and took a step back, bumping into Sweets while he looked at me in amazement.

“Oh... my God. Lemon Hearts. That has... got to be—the dumbest name I have ever fuckin' heard!” He smiled, before moving onto snickering. Sweets was quick to join in. And so was Sarge, surprisingly.

“Whu—Wait... why are they laughing?” She looked up at me with a tilt in her head.

It… almost hurt to look at her without joining in with the other guys.

“Oh, Pres... The fact that—no, just by the sheer frivolity of that 'name'—I'm a believer!" Sweets called out as he put a hand on my shoulder, "Ha! Like, there's no way you could come up with something like…Lemon Heart-tehehe ha HA HA!”

“Oh, ok—so what’s next? We meet her old buddy, Fruit Punch? Pffft-” Sarge jabbed in.

I just couldn't resist the idea, so I asked her with the straightest look I could manage, “Do... you know a pony… by the name of—Fruit Punch?”

She sat up to ponder about it for a second, rubbing her hoof to chin. “Hmm… No? Wait—Oooh, I know a Berry Punch if that helps!”

I lost it there. Just the way she fell for it with all that enthusiasm—It was gold.

“Shit, what’d she say?” Hags asked as I pulled myself together.

“She… knows a 'Berry Punch’ if that helps–'”

"Holy Jesus, how is th- AhhHA hah aha HA–!"

We were “compromised” for a good minute after that, either laughing too hard or thinking about more names like “Bloody Mary” or “Sea Biscuit” to ask. Lemon Hearts wasn't having fun with this, of course, and started to give us a glare as we roared on. When we settled down, Sweets managed to stitch together a real question for her.

“Ah, Christ, te he, ah—oh wow... whooh, that’s—that was great. But—wait...” His face snapped to a stern look. “If she’s carrying stuff on this road... oh snap, Pres, ask if she can get us into Camelot!"

“Oh yeah, she mentioned that—on her way to that festival thing," I answered, "So… there's going to be a lot more of ponies there."

“No shit—but there? Is there, like, a Lord, or King, or... hell, Old McDonald leading them that we can talk to? God, just so many questions…"

“Alright…" I sobered up to ask, “Hey, are there any, uh—important ponies—up in that Camalot place a head?"

“Well, of course. Canterlot is home to the Two Sisters," she muttered, "But I’m not answering any more questions if you’re just going to laugh at me.” She gave just the cutest pout as she crossed her hooves together.

“Well…" I turned back to the others. "She's now mad at us–”

“Hey, I’m not mad, I’m just upset–”

“–Upset at us now. So much for being an 'ambassador,' right, Sweets?”

“Oh sure, it feels great when someone else screws up your job. Speaking of which, how does it feel to be the first man to ever be ‘cursed’ anyway?”

“I... I wouldn't call it a curse—right Lemon?"

“What? Curse? Why—I would not!” she cried, “I only did a, uh... eh, shucks… Ok, I guess I… did kinda use one—but it’s not a cursy-curse! Just a snappy little earworm spell—just to make talking between some creatures and ponies possible, and I’m glad you hugh-mans are somehow on that list.”

“That’s... not bad. What’s the curse part?”

“It’s… really hard to undo?"

“So, is it a curse or what?” Hags butted in.

“Well, I’m allergic to fire now,” I chirped back, “But really, It’s just that I can understand what she’s saying now—so that’s good.” I looked back to Lemon Hearts and told her, “Thanks.”

“Oh, you’re—so much more than welcome! Either with me or anypony in Equestria! Uh, at least with anypony that'll take my word—which is still a lot! So… does this mean you forgive me now?”

“Sure. I’ve had worse introductions before.” I stuck out a hand to shake her... I didn't really think it through at the time—but she stuck her hoof out and let me shake that instead.

“Wow... just—thanks, Preston-Marlow.” She took her hoof back and placed it to her chest. “Now, I promise I won't pull something like that on you, ever.”

“Alright... call me ‘Pres’ from now on and we’ll be good.”

She blushed out of embarrassment—I hoped—and nodded.

“Gah, stop with this spoonin' shit Marlow," Sarge ordered. "Just ask 'Lemon Tarts' or whatever where her owner is or whatever.”

“Uh, Sarge?” Sweets intervened, “If they’re capable of communicating on this level to Pres, I’m pretty sure they’re their own owners.”

“Well it ain’t gonna hurt to ask…”

Lemon stopped me after I translated the word 'owner' to her. “Owner? Owner! Hey, ponies do not play pet to any other creatures, pal,” she said in a hurt tone, "And I’m happy to be an independent mare myself, thank you very much.” She stuck her nose up in another pout.

“Uh... she’s on her own Sarge.”

“Figures. Welp—might as well stick with her at this point; doubt anything's gonna make us look more friendly than her by our side. Can she get us into Camalot or whatever?”

After translating, she answered, "Of course! But… it's pronounced Canterlot. Can-ter-lot. Come on, we're ponies, not camels. Anywho, you're all welcome to follow me on my way there—although you really can't miss the place if you just follow the road."

“We can just follow the road up ahead and reach the place, or follow her,” I translated. “Also... she says it's called Canterlot.”

“Follow her?” Hags asked, “And what, put the car behind the pony?”

Before anyone could answer him, Sweets blurted out, “Canterlot? That’s the name? Really?”

We turned to look at him.

“Uh… what? Do I seriously have to spell it out? I mean, Canter-lot? Ponies canter, the place is a castle, and it’s a play on ‘Camelot.’ No takers?”

There was another pause between us all.

“Ugh, ok, forget about it,” he continued, "So, would she be against riding in the back or what?"

"Huh... well, we sure got room for her—just pray she ain't kickin’ a shell if she gets spooked." Sarge nodded at me to go ahead and ask.

"Would you be against riding along with us?" I asked, pointing to the car.

"Oh... I—uh, honestly don't think I have a choice here, out of politeness, mind you. I'll do it. And don't worry about the cart, it's just for–"

"–It’s a yes," I called out, as I walked over to jump into the back of the Van.

"Wait… hold on a second..." Sweets hollered out, just as I was grabbing Lemon by the hooves to pull her up, "Can, uh... can she do the spell thing again? On me, this time?"

"What? Again? Why would two of us need to talk to her?" I asked back.

"Well, I'm supposed to be the ambassador, right? So, I should've been the first one to learn how to talk to them. Also, there's definitely going to be more than one pony that will want to talk to us once we get inside, and I don’t trust-"

"-But... shouldn't Sarge get that magic to hear 'em over you?" Hags argued.

"Really?" Sarge spoke up, "Ha, I've already got the three of you fuckballs runnin' me deaf—I don't need a bunch of other munchkins annoyin' my ass. Pres… if Sweets wants to hear them, tell her to, uh—do her thang."

As Sweets did a little fist pump in the back, Lemon nudged my side to ask, "Hey, what's going on here?"

"Well, my buddy here, Sweetwater, wants you to do the spell thing, again. On him."

“What?” she chirped with a worried look to her face, “Oh... I don’t know about doing it twice in a row! But I... I guess I should be able to." She let out a sigh and put on a firm look. "Tell him I’ll try my best."

“Sooo is it a yes? A no? Maybe? Do you need me to repeat it—What?” Sweets rushed to ask.

“Well,” I pushed back, “She can try to do it- but she's not making any promises. Understand? “

“Absolutely!” he cheered while walking up to touch the horn. “Hell yeah, psychic powers here I com–”

“–Woah—Nooo—no no!” Lemon yelled at Sweets, blocking him from the horn with a hoof, “Tell him to stay back, I’m not zapping him like you again!”

“Wha—what gives this time? She's got a headache or something?"

"Just wait a second," I snapped at him, before turning back to Lemon. "So, how are you gonna get him-"

"–I’ll just cast it at him, It’s not much more of a biggie—but I’ll need some space here to get it right, so...”

“Alright, Sweets—she’s going to do this 'painless' for you. So stay a bit back, ok?”

"Ooh, ok... uh, do I really look that soft to her? Or wh-"

"Gah- just get it over with it, we’re already late for the party," Sarge pushed him.

"Alright, jeez!" After taking a few steps back, Sweets spun around. "Well... I’m ready now. Tell her to lay it on me—I've got this!" Squinting his eyes, he hunched forward and braced himself far ahead of the other two.

“Here it goes!” She drew in a deep breath before raising the front of her body up, charging a purple bolt from her horn before stomping her hooves down in the back of the van... only she managed to slip on a shotgun shell rolling around on the cabin floor. She planted her face into a pile of gear, knocking over an unloaded PKM that slammed into her head. She was knocked out in an instant, and since she was in the middle of using her powers... well, her magic kinda kept—pouring out.

I mean, the sunset-purple laser beam from her still connected with one of us. But Instead of hitting Sweets, it… hit Haggard. The beam still kept going on though, even after Hags was tossed back, and her aim was just everywhere. It was like a garden hose flailing around on its own. None of us wanted to touch the beam after it kicked Hags like that, so we dove out of the way to wait out Lemon's unintentional diet death-ray

Luckily for us, the beam quickly weakened into a spurt of power, then into a squirt, and finally stopped in a shower of sparks coming from the tip of her now smoking horn.

And with that, we were off to our great start with human-pony relations.

“You hit Haggard!? How!?” Sweets yelled, hunched over as he looked at Lemon. But he didn’t get an answer back… she was out—cold.

I checked to see if she was okay and everything. She wasn’t okay—but she was still breathing and had a pulse.

“Oh... forget it—this is… just bad.” Sweets stopped complaining and began to dig for something in his bag.

“Ha! Funny for you to say that, since there wouldn’t be this situation if you weren’t so eager-beaver to talk ta Lemon Tarts and all ‘er other fruity-flavored friends,” Hags scolded him. He’d picked himself back up pretty quick for being tossed eight feet back.

“Could you two start arguing about solutions here?” I spoke up while kneeling over Lemon on the cabin floor. Her… light snoring was reassuring—but she wasn’t responding to anything worth trying.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Hags muttered. “Well, if she’s our ticket into Canter’s Lot or whatever, then we gotta get her up… unless we’ll just hold her up like Weekend at Bernie’s.”

Sweets looked up from his sifting. “Oh God—I am not a fan of playing puppeteers with her. Our only real option is to we wake her up… ugh—problem is, all these first-aid kits I grabbed are filled with gauze, happy thoughts, and vodka shots. Not a single stim...”

“Uh... whaddya mean by a 'stim', there?”

“Stimulant—any drug that'll give her a hell of a wake-up call. Uh... ok. So,it looks like someone packed someamphetamines in here. But… I can’t use this stuff on an animal that small–”

“–Ah." Hags snapped his fingers. "She just needs a pick-me-up, eh? Don’t worry folks, I’ve got this.” He walked over to Lemon with a confident look before pulling a med pen out of a pouch.

Sweets turned around to see what his idea was, only to see malpractice in action. “Wait, is that... NO HAGGARD, WAIT–”

Too late; Hags had shot-up a dose of LIFE-2 into the pony.

Now, to make this clear: that "medicine" in her was definitely a stimulant. More than that—It was an all-in-one painkiller, anti-biotic, and "metabolic booster." Our company got used to calling this new stuff "Jesus-juice", and new it was. Packed into a little auto-injector was a cocktail that was just a lawsuit in a can waiting to happen. This stuff wasn’t even cleared for standard Army use—I mean, it worked… but it probably went through less testing than our toothbrushes. But, like the rest of our company, we sure as Hell weren't standard; We were an expendable force… and so are guinea pigs, I hear.

Usually, I liked getting hands-on with new gear, even if it meant having to fill out stacks of surveys for debriefing. All that being said, the idea of giving a full dose of FDA-rejected sludge to a four-foot pony didn’t sound so hot to the rest of us.

“HAGS!” Sarge yelled.

“What?” Hags asked as he cleaned the tip of his pen off.

“The Hell were you thinkin’? Gah! Fuck it—Sweets, you chew him out.”

“Gladly,” he jumped in, “What the fuck? Are you TRYING to kill her? You don’t even know the dosage of that stuff for yourself, much less a—brand new species!

“Oh relax," Hags waved him off, “It wasn’t much. Like only an itty squirt… or two. Really, how bad could it–”

"–GaaaaAAASP!" Lemon sprung up from her slump like a rake being stepped on—with glazed eyes, pinprick pupils, and ever so softly shaking all over.

“Jesus, Hags, does that look bad to you?” Sweets ranted on.

“Still worked better than your dickin’ around!” he answered.

I was busy trying to handle her while they were bickering. “Lemon? Hearts? Lemon! Are you with me?” Her spaced-out look was starting to worry me.

“Ahh... AHHHH!" she yelped first, “OoOHlord LUNA! I’m—It’s everywhere! There! T-THE PLAD! PLAD! GET IT OFF—off,all off!” I had to hold her down as she flailed around like a fish.

“Oh, will ya hear that! That’s just the cutest lil' voice,” Hags noted. “And... it worked! Ha hah!”

"Ah.. .AAAIIEEE! It’s all—everywhere—Juicy!” Lemon babbled on. “My eyes! It's all... Wow! Shimmy! HA Ha haaa!"

"Ok, startin’ to see my mistake here," he backtracked, "Uh, how long she’s gonna be stoned off her ass?" he asked Sweets

"Good question: depends on how much of that shit you put in her, dumbass."

"Oh, Lordy—it was just a squinch!"

"A squinch? Dude, let me see that pen of yours-"

"No way, Jose! Get your own stuff!"

"Weew! Ha ha!” she droned on. "OOOH oh, oh-oh my... Ooo, my heab... I-I thimk I'm-err... o-key?" She was starting to make a very slurred form of sense. "Yeees... I’a think that's the west of it… Oh- Pro... Preston! Is that… I'm scared... what did yew–"

"–Calm down," I began, "Relax—take it easy..."

"Uh, Yeah—deep breaths and stuff," Hags added.

"Oh, just can your ass; we've had enough of your ‘mistakes’ for one day," Sarge blasted him, "So, how's she feelin' Pres?"

"Oh, yeash- s-supper fine..." she spun up as I asked, "Butt- I'm a not feelin'… too wordsy naow... hey, since whin wer you pink?

Hags nodded his head. "Yeah, she’s fucked up, Sarge–"

"Fhuck?" Lemon uttered, "What’s a Fhuck? *gasp* Is… it a bahd word?"

"Uh… I didn’t say that," Hags tried to mislead her.

"Well... what dose it means? Tell me… Now!"

"Fuck no–"

"–Not anotha' word, numbnuts," Sarge reminded him. He thought through our next step, and asked for me again. "Preston… if she ain't in any condition to help us outright, well, can you ask if she knows someone else that we could find?"

As soon as I finished asking Lemon Hearts for another pony that could help us with "getting back home", she seemed to slightly sober up as an idea popped into her head.

"Oh, of chourse! I know my GOod ole pall, and—heh, now a princess, could do help with that! Twilight Sparkle!"

7. - Loud Before the Storm

We listened to Lemon Hearts rambling about “Twilight Sparkle” for 10 minutes. Honestly, high or not, it wouldn't have been any easier to believe a word of what she was saying. Still, the "Princess of Friendships" had to be our best, last hope to get back to humanity. Twilight and her group were… definitely something. They sounded like barnyard Power Rangers with how she talked them up. They were used to handling situations like ours… we’d just told her we were really, really lost, without any of the advanced details. Still, even if they couldn't help, it wouldn’t hurt to know a literal Princess. After I explained it to the other two, Sarge made it clear that our new objective was to meet up with our new very important pony. We mounted back up in the same spots, stuck Hearts in the back, and sped down the road.

She didn't have much else to say on the ride—but that wasn’t much of an issue. We were too busy thinking about what would be next. I mean, it seemed simple; all we were doing was looking for a purple pony to her ask a favor... before anyone of them realized that we trashed the Fortress of Solitude in Ponyville.

We ran into one problem at first; we underestimated the size of the castle. After making a last turn around the mountain, all of Canterlot came into view—something closer to the size of a city. And just as tall.

“Christ—these guys built up on a mountain and they still go higher? This is some High Elves shit!” Sweets said, gawking up in the turret.

“Ugh—God, how do you bitch ‘bout everything, Sweets?” Hags pestered him while leaning out of his hatch. “This place looks friggin’ sick!”

“What? When was making an observation considered ‘bitching’? I think Sarge’s stoic attitude is rubbing off on you…”

“You two really gonna start shit now?” Sarge spoke up.

While ignoring them, I got my look at the place out of a hatch big enough to get Hearts a view through too while holding her back to make sure she couldn’t stumble out. We looked up at the cloud-white spires and swirling rooftops floating off the mountainside. The whole scene looked like a St. Peter’s on steroids balancing off a cliff. That being said, the gate into the place looked as inviting as ever—and it was open... but our awe for the place was cut short by Hearts.

“Wooh… Ah! We're HERE! YEAH—HA Ha!” she cried, pounding her hooves on the side of the car. “I’m—pumped for this! You'res all gonna see, like, everypony hear! Oh, and ya gotta here that Singy-Birdies' galls' stuff! She’s here too! How cooool is tha–”

“–Marlow?” Sarge cut in, “Tell Lemon Drops or whatever to kindly can it. Can’t even understand that thing and it’s gettin’ on my nerves like a hot–”

“–Wait… whoa, whoa WHOA!Shit, Sarge! Stop the van!” Sweets yelled as he pointed to something in the sky. His tone was troubling enough for Sarge to listen, and we skid to a stop about a mile from the gate.

“The Hell is it?” Sarge asked more pissed than worried.

“Look! Smoke plumes—far left, in the sky! It’s… it’s like a giant ash cloud.” His call-out pointed us to a dirty looking chunk of fluff rising up to the clouds around the mountain.

"Uh… is it that one lookin’ like someone rollin' coal in a truck?" Hags asked.

"Yeah, that one! That looks... no, it must be a smokescreen!” he chirped, “It's wafting out from the front, see?”

“Huh... shit, you're right," Sarge decided after getting a look through binos. “That definitely ain't rain—but what’s it comin’ from?”

“How am I supposed to know? Probably, uhh... whoa-oh holy fuck!” Sweets sunk back into the turret, pulling the gun to aim at a giant black blimp springing out from the cloud.

“Ok, uh—I think it's landin’ now,” Hags called out as he passed his spotting scope to me. All of us were out in front of the van now, watching the scene play out in front of us. Hearts was watching too; awkwardly piggybacking on Hags' shoulders to get a view.

And just as Hags called it, the front of the flying ship, hanging under what looked like a heavily armored balloon, smashed into a few towers while it landed next to the castle.

“Well… there goes his job…” he added.

“I—I don’t think… anycreature in that thingy had a job to do here…” Hearts quivered after talking, with those pupils of hers the size of pins now. She honestly looked really funny just sitting there on Hags like that—but the look of sheer terror on her oversized face overpowered that funny feeling.

“Uh... say what again?” Hags asked.

“Whatever they are, they’re not here with an invitation!” she yelped in a scared, yet surprisingly sober tone.

"Are you saying they're hostile?" I asked.

"Wait, hostile?" Sweets butted in, "Whu—correct me if I'm mistaken—but if she's saying whatever is in that’s hostile… and they just landed in the place, then... shit, are we watching an invasion here?"

“Whaaat? Now just wait a sec," Hags butted back in, "Don't y'all think ya might be jumpin' the gun a bit? Like, for starters, why would you need an invitation for a ‘Friendship Festival’ anyway? Wouldn’t that beat the point of it?”

“Haggard, look at that fuckin' thing and tell me that shit looks friendly," Sarge asked. “God almighty, if these are hostiles, then they’re here blast the shit outta these horses here during their party—shit’s like the oldest trick in the playbook. Why else would something like that sneak up and land there?”

We started to nervously look around at anything but what was going to be our next conflict in front of us.

“Sarge? Did—we really just find ourselves in another war?” Sweets broke the silence.

“Sure looks like it…”

“God... It sucks to be right,” he exhaled.

“Hey, look on the bright side,” Hags nudged him, “Ain’t like we gotta… fight for this whole place now.”

"Uh—you better be BUCKING fighting for it!" Hearts shouted as she bopped Hag's head with a hoof.

“Ow! Chill! I mean—we just gotta save that Princess for our stuff, right?”

“Dude, they’re our best bet to get home, and their party's about to hit the fan… Please, tell me you see the advantage of, as much as I hate to say it, helping out as much as we can in this situation?” Sweets clarified.

“Yeah, yeah, I see your point. Hey, if we do it, we’ll get that sweet ‘clout’ to work with.”

We all looked back to Canterlot, waiting for Sarge to give us an order.

“Gahh—Damnit!” He swatted his cap to the ground as he groaned, “Just when I had my fuckin' retirement in front of me, we're stuck still doin’ this shit!”

“Hey, cheer up, geezer. This whole place is turnin’ out to be a lot more interestin’— Hell, maybe even fun!” Hags hyped up, shouldering his shotgun and cocking the bolt—only to fumble around on the ground to pick-up the shell he ejected.

“Haggard?” Sweets asked, "On the list of things you'd find fun, would you rate ‘fighting an army of potentially magic monsters that we don’t know about’ higher or lower than our usual activities?”

He put a few seconds of thought behind his answer. "Well... that ‘Special Activities’ stuff we were in was pretty tame. So… I'd at least rank that lower.”

“Tame? Christ—You’re a real… fucking gesamtkunstwerk, you know that?"

“A wha?”

“Simmer down, ladies," Sarge spoke up, "Marlow, ask her if she knows anything about what the Hell we're about to run into.”

After I asked her, Hearts dove into extreme panic.

“I… I… Oh, I don’t know what’s going wrong!” she cried as her eyes soaked. “Why we—we haven't done anything to other-creatures! WhaAAaah!Noohoho! Why? We’re… we're too nice to have enemies! Ooh, Whhhyy—this is, this... this... isa—oooh–” suddenly, her head started to sway down as her eyes drooped shut. "Ughhh, oh… nooo... find- fihd... Twiligh–" She blacked out with a quick sigh and slumped over onto Hags' head.

"Ah, shucks—Mare’s down!" he stated. Hags carefully slung her off his shoulders by the legs and set her on the ground. "She ain’t hit?"

"Hey, Lemon? Hearts! Can you hear me? Stay with me!" I called out, snapping a few times in her ear too. Sweets pushed me aside to check for a pulse.

He came to a quick conclusion: "Well, she's… stable, so that's good. Uh, I think that juice might have just worn off on her. Nothing bad—but wow, that's a Hell of a metabolism–"

"–Reckon we can't give her anymore?" Hags guessed.

"Oh, wow! Very good, Haggard! You're learning now! Isn't that exciting?"

"God, I hope you find my foot up your ass exciti-"

"God—double dammit!" Sarge shouted over Hags, "We just lost our guide for whatever shitstorm we're about to jump into." He turned to face the castle again, obscured by the black ship now, before making the next call, "Hags... put her upfront—the rest of you get ready to roll into town. We’re bringin’ a whole other party to ‘em…"

"What? We're still going in?" Sweets croaked, "I mean, I want to get home too—but could we pick another strategy at least?"

"Bah, can that noise," Sarge uttered, "We wait around now, there ain’t gonna be a queen or whatever to help us get back. And Hell, if we’re goin’ up against sticks and stones, maybe we’ll even save the damn day here."

"Oh yeah.” Hags snapped. “Like I said, it sure don't take a genius to figure out what that kinda ‘hero clout’ is gonna do with our reputation,"

"Ok, first of all; quit using that word. And second; it’s not going to work if we don’t survive!” Sweets argued. “Just… Look, we haven't even met the ‘other’ side yet. What if they're more capable of helping us than the horses? Or, maybe all this fighting is some kind of pony-on-pony putsch against that 'monarchist oligarchy' she was talking about?"

"Come on, man. You can't be serious about... wh—ah shit!" Sarge pointed us towards a pair of smaller black ship-blimps rising up from the mountainside behind us. "Well, Sweetwater, if you wanna test that theory of yours, now's your chance. Now, look alive! And get that thang into cover!"

After Hags tossed Hearts in the front seat, the two of us hunkered down by the back of the van, while Sweets got into the turret. Sarge opened the driver's door for cover as he kept an eye on the ships. We stood still as they both passed over us, hearing creaking wood and puttering engines inside.

"Shit… Uh... Ok. Did they see us?" Sweets whispered. A muffled roar within one ship seemed to answer his question, as did the sight of masked figures staring us down from the decks. "Well, guess that’s rhetorical—ready to fire!"

"Hold it!” Sarge hollered, "On my signal; let's see what we’re goin’ up against first..."

The battle balloons, with their SS neon-blue lightning emblems on them, stopped about 40 yards to our front, grinding to a halt after tossing out anchors. They dropped off a group of these giant, armored, spear-carrying, white gorilla things—six in total. They walked with a weighty stagger forward from the sheer size of their arms, clashing their gear together as they formed up to take us on.

"The fuck?" Sweets barked, "Brutes! Or, trolls? What are these?"

“Those… are missing links!" Hags claimed while grabbing a .50 cal AMR from the back of the van, "And there’s gonna be a whole lot missin’ from ‘em once we're done!"

As the last one landed, they began advancing in a row, pointing their spears forward and screaming guttural roars behind their masks. It was close enough of a look at them for Sarge once they passed 30 yards.

"OK! Light those mothas' up, boys!" he rang out.

Sweets was almost instant on the trigger to spray out some 12.7mm rounds. Two of the things were just… gone after his first burst, giving the other four a pink coat.

"Ho- OH! Wasted 'em!" he bragged.

"Waste 'em more!" Hags nagged him on—but the other hunks were quick to raise their shields, and though some un-miracle, they worked. Sweets bullets were plinking off them, with anything passing by only dealing scrapes to the giant bastards. They started trudging at us in a sprint, still roaring like methed-up lions.

“Ah, shit!” Sweets yelled between his bursts from the HMG, “No effect on that! Really?”

“Haggard!" Sarge called urgently.

"Yeah, I know!" He dropped the rifle for an RPG, snapped a rocket in, checked his back, and fired.

thFWOooosH-... voompBOOom-

One took the direct hit, the other three were thrown on their backs or what was left of them. Yet, we still saw movement from them after the dust settled- limping towards us.

"GOD, still kickin’ after THAT?" Hags gasped while loading up another.

"Think they'd get the message now?" Sweets stood up to get a better look. "Ech—that one's missing a whole arm!"

"Well, let's make sure it ain't gonna look for it, clean 'em out!" Sarge waved to us while shouldering his own rifle. We were done in a blink.

"Aww, now that was messy!" Hags cried. He then remembered our passenger. "Ooh, is that gal up there alright after all that?"

I walked up to open the passenger door and found her still sprawled out on the seat "Huh... yeah?"

"Still snoozing?" Sweets doubted. "Wow… she actually sleeps heavier than you, Pres! How much louder do you think we need to be to-?"

"Hold that lip!" Sarge ordered as he pointed us back to the airboats. "God, those ships are movin', people!"

The two of them started turning, showing off a side of old cannons now poking out of their portholes.

"Ah fuck! A broadside!?" Sweets sputtered.

"As if; Too slow, fucko!" Hags yelled as he fired off another rocket.

thFWOooosH... voompBO- KRA-POOOW

The rocket must have hit a powder dump on the left ship, blowing up both of the ships in a green-tinted blast. danger close with a JDAM… maybe two.

“AWW YEEHAAAW!WOOHOO! NOW that’s what I’m here for!” he hollered, taking off his beanie and swinging it around.

"Fuckin' great! Now we’re back in business!" Sarge grinned as he patted Hags on the back. "Ok, let's get rollin' again!"

“Ack—Jesus!” Sweets cried as pulled himself back up in the turret. "The fuck are they storing on those dinghy's, nitro?”

“Naw, Sweets—just take a whiff of that air,” he said, sucking one in quick. “Ahhhh. black powder.”

“Then why was it green?”

“Do I look like a scientist to you?”

“Hah, we’ll, you’d be hard-pressed to be an ‘Igor’ with that m–”

"–Christ, she’s gone full Sleepin' Beauty on us," Sarge said checking on Hearts. "Ain't even moved..."

“Doesn’t surprise me," Sweets added, "That last blast almost knocked me out! I just hope that’s all of them coming from this angle…" He took a quick look behind us to see his wish ignored, "OH, fuck this—we got five more, coming fast and low!"

"Well, let’s give 'em a few party favors on our way—we're Oscar Mike!" Sarge yelled, gunning it as soon as we were all in.

It was about two minutes of loud and un-tactical road rage to reach Canterlot’s gates. The two of us kept shredding whatever wasn’t grounded behind us while Sarge drifted around anything Sweets shot up in front of us. Airships bit the dirt, craters littered the road, and dozens of white pelts became red. We were honestly starting to have fun as “Barbara Ann” started to play—then we had the drawbridge close on us.

"WHOAH—hard brake—hard brake—HARD BRAKE!" Sweets screamed to Sarge. He managed to drift to a stop only feet away from a dip in the moat.

"Fuck, man!" Sarge yelled back, "You don’t have to be givin' me drivin' tips!”

"Heya, Sarge? If you need any lesson, it's to get that brick outta your boot for sure," Hags spoke up.

“Gah, shut it!" Sarge stifled him. He took a look at the gate before getting back on track. "We gotta cross over before more of those things fly-up on us... Sweets?”

"Yeah?"

Sarge paused for a moment, waiting to hear something. "You… got an idea now, or what?

“Huh? No... unless you wanna blow a hole through a wall and try jumping this thing like the General Lee.”

“Out of all the times you ain't somethin’ to say...”

“Oh Hey!" Hags snapped, "Couldn’t we just—you know: honk?”

"Are… are you serious?" Sweets asked him.

"Well, somethin’s gotta be movin' the gate, genius.”

Sarge found that as much of a reason as ever and honked in a few bursts.

And we heard a voice behind the gate before we saw it—a bitter, loud, rough one. Kinda a bit butch sounding if we’re being descriptive.

“Hey! Why don’t you creeps just fly on in with your other fuzzy bud–”

She froze as she flew up to see us. It was a winged pony with goggles, orange-fire hair, and a blue bodysuit. She hovered just above the ramparts with a dropped jaw before coming to her senses.

"What... in the sweet, sunny sight of Celestia AREyou!?" she shouted.

“Well, pleased to meet ya too, jaggof!” Hags answered back with the sharp charm of a club, leaning out of a porthole.

"Holy shit, a Pegasus…" Sweets muttered to himself.

“You really wanna start off on that hoof, pal?” she barked back to Hags.

“Preferably not—but closin’ the door on some help ain’t too flatterin’ either!”

“Help?” she sputtered, “Help!? The only thing I see you helping yourselves to is some raiding!And what even are you things!”

“Then why are you botherin’ with closin’ a gate when those furballs have been flyin’ over it?” Hags pointed out.

“Ohhh, you are not in a position to be correcting me, bare-hide!”

“Well… why don’t you get down from there so I can correct that attitude!” he mocked back.

She took him up on the offer and dove down from the wall before swooping up to land over the van. “Have anything else you want to say?” she questioned a mere foot away from Hag’s face.

He was startled for a second, “I, uh… well… ah—I ain’t gonna lie, I’d figure you’d just… lower the gate and come down. But hey, that flyin’ stuff was pretty cool…”

“Enough with the chit-chat, I know you’re with those Storm freaks, and you’re not getting in under my wings!” She poked at Hags’s chest while shouting from point-blank.

“Woah, hold on, Nelly? Storm freaks?” He pushed her hoof away. “You talkin’ ‘bout them blimp people?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, cud brains! Why else would you want to get in!?”

After realizing that Hags could screw us over if he spoke another word, I stuck myself out of another hatch to introduce myself. “Uh, hey—sorry for him. Preston, nice to meet you,” I gave a little wave to her. “And about us being the bag guys, um…” I pointed to all the carnage in the road behind us. “Do you see all those fires behind us?”

“What are you–” she froze again, looking at the green smoke with a surprised smile starting to form on her. “Are—are those–”

“–Airships from bad guys—all that we could see on our way here.”

“Didn’t even break a sweat knockin’ ‘em down,” Hags bragged.

“But… how did you–”

“–Shock and awe, lil’ pony. Shock and awe…”

“Oh, Lord Luna… I—ok, I’m listening now,” she told us with a bit of excitement in her tone. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, Pres?” Sweets interrupted, “What the Hell’s going on with Rapidash there?”

“We’re getting in for free,” I told him. I pulled myself closer to the pegasus to explain; “We we’re told to find a Princess Twilight here to—help us with… something.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll be fine with helping you—but now she’s in big trouble!” she blurted. “All those Storm-things are in the Canterlot looking for her now! You’ve gotta help her get out of here if you want that chance!”

“Ok, any idea where she is?” Hags asked.

“No, not a clue! Oh, Sun and Moon—they’ve already got three of them!” she started to flip out.

“Hey, calm it—I think we’ve got this,” I told her. “Sarge, Sweets—that Princess of ours is on the run from those big guys, and she needs a way out.”

“Oh damn… I see—we’re doing a snatch and grab before those mini-Kongs take off with her?” Sarge reasoned.

“Exactly.”

“Well… let’s do it!” he ordered, “Can’t be worse than that dictator’s extraction…”

“Hell, sounds good to me!” Sweets agreed. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for… uh, what color is she again?”

I turned back to her. “Well, that’s that; If you can get us in, then we’ll get her out.”

“Really? Haha! Buckin’ great!” she cheered with a quick spin in the air. “Oh—wow! This is it! Ha! Ok, I’ll get the gate—but… you got room for one more in that thing?”

“…So, because she tripped, only you two can hear me?” the pegasus asked us while flying above the van.

“At least understand ya, yeah,” Hags answered.

We were moving in Canterlot now—but nowhere close to the castle. We kept driving through a bunch of winding streets and rows of stubby townhouses as the pegasus gave us directions. The city looked like a high-end shopping district rather than the dark-age mess that the other town was. But at least the streets weren’t dirt…

“Who switches from brick to cobblestone in their streets?” Sweets nagged.

“Ah, that ain’t enough of an excuse for your aim now," Hags dismissed, "Anythin' else you see up there?”

“None of those 'missing links' if that’s what you’re asking—but the street edges here are superb! Like, you can actually walk on the streets here without feeling like some vagabond…”

“So, you can’t hear Sweets?” I asked her as sweets kept on about pedestrian streets.

“Uh… Yeah, I have no idea what four-eyes is saying.”

“Heh, might be for the better,” Hags snickered.

“Ok… well, is that mare alright?” she demanded, “Is there a crack in the horn, is her cutie mark there, did her hair fall out—what’s happened?”

“Uh… Is—being really tired from that normal?” I answered.

“That’s it? Oh, thank Celly,” she sighed. “That’s good… she’s in the front of this, right?”

At that moment, Sarge knocked against the van’s roof and called through coms. “Hey, left or right?” he asked at an intersection.

“Hey,” Hags caught her attention, “The man needs directions again, uh… what’s your name?”

“Again? Ugh… Well, I’m Spitfire—Wonderbolts Captain!” she gleamed. “Now, let me talk to this ‘Sarge’ friend…”

“Pardon?”

Before Hags could do anything, Spitfire flapped over to the front of the van and started to shout slowly at Sarge through the windshield. “Hey, turnip-head! I—told you—to take—the next—two—rights!” She pointed her hoof out for him.

“He can’t understand ya, hot-head!” Hags tried to talk her down.

“What the—the Hell is this thing tryna tell me? Right?” Sarge asked us.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Can he see where I’m pointing?” she asked, irked.

“Yes—look, is there a better way to do this?”

“God, just stick her up front with me,” Sarge concluded. “I just need the thang to point me somewhere, not play charades!”

“Could you just sit by him and point the way there?” I asked her.

“Ugh—fine, alright!” Spitfire gave in and fluttered over to the passenger’s side. “And just how am I supposed to open this?” she yelled upon seeing the door handle.

Sarge leaned over to open the door, pulling Spitfire in by the hoof. We started to hear muffled arguing between both of them, still failing to understand a word of each other. But we somehow started moving again. It was smooth driving for a minute, until the noise around us really started to pick up.

“God… this is freaky...” Hags said. “All this fightin’ sounds like it’s a damn war—but without guns ‘n’ stuff.”

“I guess we're here to change that,” Sarge broke in on coms before stopping “Hmm… ok, I’ma need you and Pres to dismount and sweep ahead," he ordered, "I don’t like the look of these streets…”

“Neighborhoods to fancy, Sarge?” Hags spoke up, “I feel ya—never liked how all these new fancy-nancy places just slap glass everywhere. Makes everything look like a strip mall-”

“I’m talking about all these alleyways, dumbass,” he cut him off. “There’s too many ambush points to cover from here. You two grab what you need, hop out, and keep a 30-foot pace in front of us. Sweets will cover y’all.”

“On it,” I answered and nudged to Hags to get something heavy. I grabbed a few extra magazines from a box (and the grenades still in it) while Hags dropped his launcher for the 50. cal rifle again, loaded with AP rounds this time. As we walked forward, Spitfire started to tap on the window at us.

“Hey, where are you going?” she asked us as we opened the door.

“We’re gonna make sure the road ahead’s clear,” Hags stopped to tell her. “You just sit tight and tell him where to go—got it, Spits?”

“Yeah, understood… and never call me that again.”

And so, we started off towards the castle, walking down the streets with enough firepower to match whatever the new circus in town could throw at us. We still didn’t have much of an idea on where this Princess was, or if it wasn’t already too late, but it was our only lead on her.