Chapter 9:
Incident

The following days were rather similar to that first one, part of the day would be me along with Rainbow either doing flight training or working out in the gym. The afternoons would be mostly for my own to fill in which I used to read up on this world and its inhabitants from books in Twilight’s library. One of my main discoveries being how insulated a society Equestria was, conflict essentially being non-existent at larger scales.

Then again, they do have a fucking immortal deity watching over them... Wouldn't I have pissed myself in that first meeting if I had known that...

Then in the evenings, I had gotten Scootaloo to come by the library and would help her out with homework, particularly the math problems since that’s one of the area’s I’m good at due to my sniper background.

Also a great distraction from any other concerns.

This day, however, started a little different.

“You ready for some more flight lessons, rookie?” Dash asked as she walked in on me eating breakfast, having slept in a bit longer as she was still bunking with me in the library.

“You bet I am!” I smirked, “Just give me a sec to bring this to Twilight downstairs.” Picking up a third sandwich I’d made I went down to the basement to give it to the unicorn working down there. The entire basement was filled by machines of all kinds, a chalkboard full of equations and glowing symbols I didn’t even pretend to understand, paper strewn around everywhere… And then there was a sleeping unicorn in the midst of it all.

That pony works way too hard… Can't say I don't respect her for it.

Placing the plate to the side, I proceeded to lift her onto my back, carried her back upstairs, placed her into her own bed, and closed the window blinders before heading back down to pick up the sandwich to place in the freezer.

“Did Twilight fall asleep again down there?” Spike asked as I ran into him in the kitchen.

“Yup.”

The little dragon sighed. “I’ll get that sandwich to her when she wakes, thanks for carrying her up by the way.”

“No problem, see you in the afternoon,” I smiled as I left the library, Dash already sitting outside and waiting for me to get out.

“Took you long enough. Come on, I want to show you some real moves,” Dash smiled, flapping her wings to get in the air, “Follow me!”

Glancing down the street I noticed a set of stallions that I'd consistently been seeing over the previous couple days. A day earlier I'd cornered them after slipping away from watching one of Dash's performances, quickly discovering the two stallions were part of Shining Armor's insurance policy. After waving to the two to let them know that I'd already spotted them I opened my own wings to get in the air. I only made small hops low over the ground as any actual sustained flight was... well, difficult to say the least.

“Breaking… Manehattan…”

As we passed through the town square we stopped moving as it was filled by ponies standing around the news booth. Everyone was talking with each other, looking concerned as they waved the newspaper around.

“What going on here?” I asked one of the ponies at the edge of the crowd, Rainbow landing beside me.

“It’s horrible!” The pony pushed the newspaper into my claws and allowed me to read the headline:

‘Breaking: Bombing in Manehattan, fifteen dead and dozens wounded. Perpetrators unknown’

“Shit…” I muttered below my breath. “Dash, we’re not going to train today.”

“Nope,” Rainbow agreed with me as I pushed the newspaper back into the other pony’s hooves.

“I need to go check up on Rarity, Spike told me she’s got my clothes ready.” Moving away from the crowd I made a direct beeline to the boutique, Rainbow following me there.

“Rarity, are you home?” I called out as I pushed through the door, the fashionista peaking out the door that lead to the private part of the store.

“Of course, though I’m still closed to business at this moment,” She said, Sweetie peeking from behind her to who entered the shop.

“I’m sorry for the intrusion but I need my clothes right now,” I apologized as Dash stepped forward and hoofed her a newspaper she’d gotten back at the town square.

“Oh my… I’ll go get them immediately.” Rarity immediately shot upstairs to get the clothes while Sweetie stepped forward in confusion.

“What’s going on? What happened?” She asked.

“There was an attack in Manehattan,” I bluntly said. “Can you tell Scootaloo I won’t be there today? I’m heading up to Canterlot.”

“Oh… ok.”

“Thanks, I’ll try to be back soon but I’m not sure how long this might take if my help is accepted,” I told her as Rarity came down and floated my clothes back over to me.

“There, the pants were a bit of a problem but I got them adjusted to the best of my abilities.”

“From what I’ve heard that’s a pretty good guarantee for quality from you. Thank you Rarity.”

“My pleasure darling, now you go do what you have to,” Rarity smiled, I gave her a nod and left the boutique again for the library. Spike jumped in surprise as I threw open the door and ran upstairs.

“Hey, weren’t you two going to train?” He called upstairs after me only for Dash to show him the newspaper.

Within two minutes I was back downstairs, fully dressed, backpack on my back and tactical rig strapped in place. “Rainbow, can you open the chest? I’m not leaving my weapons here and I’d prefer not to drag along that box everywhere.”

“Well, technically I’m not supposed to… but maybe if I go along with you.” I rolled my eyes and nodded, Rainbow made a happy sound and opened the box. After quickly stashing the weapons and filling the pouches of my vest with magazines, we left Spike and the library behind me again as we made our way over to the train station.

“When do the trains from here head to Canterlot?” I asked Rainbow who pointed at the train that was sitting at the platform of the station, its whistle blew, signalling its departure.

“Right now!”

“Well, we’re not missing that train!” I growled, speeding up some more flapping my wings to make little hops with all of my gear. We managed to jump on the back cart right as it steamed out of Ponyville station.

“That was way too close,” Rainbow laughed, her adrenaline up from the run. I noticed my two tails standing back at the platform and flipped them off as they hadn't gotten to the train in time.

“Hear, hear. Let’s go find a conductor to make sure we’re not handed off to the authorities the moment we arrive at the next station.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dash chuckled as we opened the door leading into the back cart and walked through the train to find a conductor, explaining our situation to him as we did and managing to buy a ticket from him right there. The ponies in the cart we seated in all glanced in our direction, whispering quietly to each other.

Neither I nor Dash talked much as the train rode up the mountain towards the city hanging off the side of it. I still couldn't wrap my head around how they engineered it to not collapse and fall into the valley below, a lot of it probably had to do with magic. The train slowed to a stop at its final station and main destination, ponies quickly scuttling out of our cart and new ones avoiding me with a wide berth. There was a palpable sense of suspicion of me up here that Ponyville simply didn't have.

“You know the way around here better than I do, Rainbow, can you get us into the palace?” I asked as we walked away from the train station.

“You bet I can!” Rainbow replied pointing out the way through the Canterlot streets up to the palace. Here too ponies were engrossed in their newspapers, sometimes arguing with each other about who was responsible. But once again, just like the station, every time I was noticed ponies would make sure to stay away from me.

“This is bad,” I grumbled as we saw Royal Guards rushing past us in groups towards the market we’d just passed, completely ignoring us as they headed to wherever they needed to be.

“You’re telling us? I don’t think Equestria ever had anything like this happ-” I cut Dash off in the middle of her sentence as I froze in the street, a cold sting in my gut telling me something was wrong. “Jack?”

“Rainbow, Two o’clock, halfway down the street. I don’t like the look of those two.” I told her, my eyes fixed on two griffins that were pulling a tarp-covered cart, one of them had a cloak around his body as he kept half an eye on every guard in sight.

“What are you thinking?” Dash asked, anxiety in her voice.

“Do you think you’d be able to restrain the small one if you dropped from above?”

“Whoa there, we can’t just do that to them!” Dash exclaimed, shocked at what I was suggesting.

“No. That’s why I’m going to talk to them, I just want to cover all my bases,” I told her as I proceeded to load a magazine into my pistol and made my way over to the two griffins. Behind me, I saw Dash take off into the air and shadow me from above.

“Hello there! What are two of my kind doing here on this magnificent day?” I called out, getting the attention of the two griffins. The older griffin's face went through various emotions before he got a grip giving a cold stare while the younger one was obviously nervous.

There’s definitely something wrong here… The older one is the priority target if this goes sideways.

“Just getting some trade done on the market. Bloody ponies can't even get themselves to buy shit from me,” the older griffin grunted.

"Man that sucks, what are you selling anyway?" I asked, trying to glance under the tarp and spotting some barrels.

"Nothing interesting, just ale," he grumbled, pulling down the tarp to obscure the barrels from my view.

"Sounds interesting... say, if the ponies don't want to take it off your claws I might be able to get a barrel from you?" I continued, locking eyes with the smaller griffin who looked confused. "What do you say, little one? Can't hurt to make some cash, now can it?"

"B-but we were delivering a package, weren't we?" she stammered, looking over to the older of the pair.

Bingo.

The older griffin tensed up but the younger one taking a step back away from her companion. “You know, something tells me the guard would be very interested in your cargo. You wou-”

That was the moment crap hit the fan.

The old griffin pulled the tarp off the cart and threw it over me in a smooth motion, forcing me to spend valuable seconds getting out from under it. The moment I did I could see the old griffin lighting a fuse running into one of the barrels on there.

Oh, hell no.

Pulling my pistol, I fired three shots into his centre mass before charging forward. Rainbow meanwhile dropped from above and pinned the younger griffin to the ground as she desperately tried getting away from all that was happening.

I wasted no time jumping on the cart and gripped the shortening fuse, ripping it out of the barrel, and tossing it as far away as possible. The moment the fire of the fuse reached the part of it that had stuck in the barrel, it exploded.

“You coward!” The old griffin spat along with some blood as he had trouble breathing. “Why would you help these damn ponies…”

“Because they’ve only shown me kindness,” I growled, approaching him but jumping back as he suddenly pulled a sword from under his robe and swung it at me. The weapon clattered to the ground as the griffin quickly lost the strength to wield it.

“If you think you’ve won you’re wrong…” He gasped before collapsing to the ground, his body limb as blood flowed onto the stones of the street. A quick check by means of an ‘eye poke’ confirming he’d died.

“Shit,” I cursed, seeing Rainbow still struggling to keep the other griffin down. Quickly rushing up to her I helped Dash subdue her, using a set of zip tie cuffs to secure the griffin’s wrists behind her back.

“There, now let’s go get-”

“Stay right there and surrender yourselves!”

“-the Guard.” A squad of Royal Guards had already surrounded us and more could be seen coming our way.

“Step away from the cart and lay down on the ground!” The unicorn at the head of the squad shouted with a lit horn. Dash looked at me for what to do as I slowly stepped away from the young griffin and the cart, laying down onto the ground as ordered.

The guard stepped up and placed a set of heavy cuffs around my wrists and restrained my wings before they pulled me up. They took my backpack, combat knife, and rifles, yet leaving my pistol as they probably didn’t recognise it as a weapon before moving on to get the young griffin and cutting my wraps and cuffing her themselves. I didn't like giving up my weapons to them but if played diplomatically I'd most likely have them back the soonest.

“Careful with that cart, you’ll find the contents of those barrels to be very explosive.”

The eyes of the lead guard widened a bit before barking a couple of orders and having the street blocked off before turning to the guards next to us. “Bring them to the cells in the barracks.”

The young griffin and I found ourselves pushed into a holding cell together while Dash was led to another while the guard processed the necessary paperwork. The young griffin female pressed herself into the opposite corner of the room to where I was sitting. My gaze squarely focussed onto the terrified griffin as her grey feathers blended with the dull stone of the cell.

“Who are you?” I asked poignantly, not in the mood for games.

“U-Uncle s-said I-I’m not s-suppos-”

“Your. Name.”

“G-Gabby!” She immediately stuttered, her wings twitching against the restraints at, what I assumed to be, an attempt to hide behind them. My anger continued being up only for a moment longer before it fell away to pity.

“Do you have any idea what you were just caught doing?” I asked her, my tone of voice a lot softer.

“N-No? U-Uncle Garett wanted m-my help with a delivery to C-Canterlot. H-He was acting strange b-but that’s just him…” Gabby started hyperventilating as she thought back to what happened outside on the streets. “H-He’s dead. Y-You killed him.”

Gabby renewed her attempts at disappearing into the corner as I got up from the bench and approached her, sitting down next to the little griffin and wrapping an arm around her. “What you brought into the city was a cart full of explosives. Had your uncle succeeded then you, me, my friend, and a lot of ponies around us would have died in the blast.”

“H-He wouldn’t!” Gabby exclaimed exasperated, her face dropping further as she saw the serious, but sincere, look on my own. “No…”

“I’m sorry, but you were used.”

She couldn’t hold it in any longer and started sobbing against my coat while I rubbed her back, not entirely sure what else to do. Keys jangled as the prison door opened and a familiar stallion stepped in. “Jack Grey.”

“Shining Armor.”

“I really wanted to have you locked behind bars permanently after that stunt outside only to get a report on what was in the barrels of that cart,” Shining said with a sigh. “You probably saved dozens of lives by stopping that griffin. I can set aside my doubts for a bit, too many other things I need to worry about anyway. It also helps that the Princess wants to see you.”

“Well I came up here to offer my help but I wasn’t expecting this would be the way,” I said without a hint of mirth as it wasn’t the proper timing right now.

“Who’s she?” Shining asked, pointing at Gabby.

“She’s the niece to the bomber but I don’t think she was involved. I’d recommend keeping her in protective custody as she might know something she doesn’t even realise is important,” I told Shining as I got off from the floor and helped Gabby up as well.

“I’ll get something arranged. I already got Rainbow out of her cell, she’s already being escorted to ERGIS’s situation room.”

“ERGIS?”

“Equestrian Royal Guard Intelligence Service,” Shining clarified, getting a huff from me.

“Well, someone fucked up big time there if the newspaper is to be believed.”

“We haven’t had something like Manehattan happen in over two hundred years, Jack. We have dealt with minor skirmishes in our time but not this, and after that event they did manage to prevent another bombing in Trottingham before you stopped the one here in Canterlot,” Shining defended before calling over two guards. “I’ve got my hooves full of work right now. Hell, I was supposed to be back up north in the Empire by now, I’ll see you around. Bring him to the situation room and get her a room under guard up in the palace.”

The two guards at the door saluted and proceeded with their tasks, the one leading me first getting me my gear back and unbinding my wings before bringing me to the situation room. Princess Celestia stood at the head of a central table that had a map laid out on it, three little red flags were placed on Manehattan, Canterlot and what I presumed to be Trottingham. More yellow ones were placed on various cities as runners brought information from the analysts that were working on the outer edges of the room to the central table.

“I see you’ve gotten your stuff back,” Dash said as she approached from the side, getting a nod from me as I walked up to the central table after the Princess noticed me and motioned for me to come closer.

“Any information on the motives of the attackers, Princess?” I asked, making the princess shake her head.

“Not as of yet. I just got a report telling me you had a claw in preventing a similar attack in Canterlot?

“Yes I did, Princess,” I answered, lowering my head and my elbows bending a little to bow ever so slightly. It was a much larger gesture than the one I'd given at our first meeting.

“My gratitude for that then, did you find anything useful we can work on there? I remember that you did something called counter-insurgency where you are from, my hope is that you could give us a new perspective on how to deal with this crisis,” Celestia asked, a scribe ready to note down anything I said.

“Our army's focus was on that at the moment but I'm no dedicated terror fighter, yet I see your point and will try to help to the best of my ability. The griffin I killed was ranting about me being a coward. After that he died and the guard arrested us…” I answered, the Princess looking annoying that an avenue to gain information was lost, “…There is another thing though. We have the young griffin who accompanied the bomber in captivity. His young niece.”

Celestia thought for a moment. “Then I think it is time we asked her some questions. Mind joining me?”

“I talked to her in the holding cell a bit as well, I think she was out of the loop.”

The princess shook her head. “No matter, we shall still question her regardless.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, motioning Dash to follow as I followed the princess to the exit of the situation room, guards right on our heels. “Prince Armor had her brought into the palace under guard. I’m not sure where she is right now.”

Celestia stopped and thought for a moment before continuing her walk. “I know where she’ll be located if that’s the case, and if not the guard will know.” The princess turned to another pony in the room. “Captain Radiant Shield, I will be unavailable for some time, I trust you can make sound judgements in my stead.”

“Of course, Princess,” he replied, continuing to move between stations.

“Perfect. Now mister Grey, Rainbow Dash, please follow me.”

I silently nodded trusting the Princess to know where to go for my second meeting with Gabby.

Author's Note

Passed all my exams, one more round of them to go. Nothing else to report, carry on.

Remember that comments are like authors' food, we gain energy from them. Constructive criticism is welcome.