The Rumble Crew Squad

We just got back to the base in Acornage after a weeklong training exercise in the forest south east of the city. It was April 17, 1010 when we got back and we were at the cafeteria with the whole squad, dying to have food that was a million times better than what we had been eating during the exercise. Seven of us were already had our meals, which happened to be extra special due to the exercise being over, local Hayburgers, a few slices of ham, two full bowls of FUCKING BLUEBERRIES! It was a lot of food but it sure was fucking delicious and well-earned I thought.

Then came the last three and as they came to the rest of the group, Samira, who was one of the three, had brought two newspapers and passed them out to two other members and said, “Yah won’t believe this!”

She was were always saying stuff like that, always following up with a joke or some dumb fact about something.

“Olenia just lost the war.” She said.

I thought it was weird that she didn’t say anything else after that

All three had already joined the group when Samira had made her announcement. A few members stopped eating entirely at what they heard, perking up to listen in to anything else that might be said. I continued to eat myself but was very intrigued as to what happened as well.

“Ok, so what’s the catch?” I asked.

“There is none...While we were out training, three days ago, the Changelings apparently took over Hjortland after breaking through their last defenses and the entire nation just ended up collapsing. I heard the Olenia queen escaped though.”

“In the name of Celestial, that’s in no way good…” Rostislav whispered.

He was sitting right next to me, so I was able to hear it. A few other members said something themselves, but they were too quiet.

Before Samira went on, I saw that Mateo and Nihal were the ones who had their hoof and wing on the two newspapers. They were taking a glance at the front page which was most likely covering what Samira was talking about.

“And as word has come, Chrysalis is also apparently planning on turning the whole country of Olenia into a puppet… whatever that means. Read it in the newspaper.”

“They’re basically still their own country but entirely controlled by Chrysalis. Or something like so.” Said Luiz.

“Shit…” I said.

Nihal looked at me and said, “Yeah, that is a big ‘Oh shit’ moment Vivi. I just hope that pleases their lust for power though. After their demands for the territory a few years back, I knew it’d eventually lead to annexation or war.”

At this point I noticed a few other ponies were gathering around us to listen in on the news. Everyone at the cafeteria at the moment had been a part of the training exercise, which was about 500 or so ponies, a few deer, even fewer griffons, so we were all out of blue on this whole event. We don’t really get access to the privileges of things like newspapers when you’re hoof deep in mud shooting guns.

“That’s all I read on the paper, pass it around to everyone so they can have a look themselves.” Samira finished off.

Just about everypony was talking to each other, as well as the other ponies who had gathered around, saying their thoughts on it before Mateo spoke out, “So what’s that mean for us?”

Everpony’s focus went to him, but the Staff Sgt. spoke out to answer the question, “Well, I would think, it means we’ll be doing more training exercises and doubling up on border security for a while to make the civilians feel safer, but that’s the kind of question to be asking the higher ups, if it hasn’t already been asked.”

Kettle chimed in after Jaume’s input, “I’d just leave it to Celestial and the Elements of Harmony to come up with a plan myself. They’ve always helped protect us from problems like this before.”

“Ehh? Celestial and ‘em harmony folks ain’t going to do anything. If they did, they would’ve helped when their war had originally started.” Mateo commented. “You know, that makes me wonder what somepony like you is doing in the military when you believe that they’re the solution to all problems.”

“You know, that’s a good question.” I said while look towards Kettle.

Kettle had seemed to flare up at our questions, but Luiz spoke, breaking that small tension, “One: You don’t need to pry where you shouldn’t and two: We should just wait until we hear an official statement on what we’ll do. Not much us fillies can do to determine what happens.”

We didn’t question her anymore and dropped it there.

Luiz was getting up, carrying his tray of food with a wing, which was all eaten, and leaving. Everyone watched for a moment before a few others also joined, including the Staff Sgt. He said before leaving himself,

“Y’all should hurry up and finish, we need to go clean our gear after our training and it’d be nice to get it over with so we can get the rest of the day to relax. They’re giving us it as a treat for finishing our exercise with excellent performance.”

Rostislav perked up at that, “Fuck yeah. That’d give me more time to finish writing to my family.”

Everyone else finished up eating and eventually made their way back to the barracks where we’d spend the next three hours cleaning our gear, only giving us three hours to relax too before we’d have to go to sleep to have enough energy for whatever the next day had in store for us.

Everyone made small talk about Olenia for the next few days before we forgot about it. Though I learned that a few deer tried to take temporary leave to go to Vanhoover to see if their families had escaped there from whatever the Changelings had decided to leave them with back home.

All of those who applied for their LOA were granted it. I don’t know the outcome of what they learned was though.