Black Wine woke up with a very refreshing and warming feeling inside.

He looked next to him, and a beauty still closed her eyes.

Her face is like a flower, and her mane is like a river.

He loves her so much, he can’t help but place a kiss on her lips.

The sleeping beauty opens her eyes, she looks at him.

Its aquamarine color reflected, just like the gem.

She looks at him, with refreshment and joy.

And then she smiles, and kisses him back.

“Hey, Chancellor… Would you mind going to the sick bay for me please?” the red mane unicorn said. She woke up and decided to step down before him. The Chancellor was in awe when he saw her new found love in her full glory. In that well knitted bun she always has along with her professional attire is a stream of mane, long enough to flow right towards the floor even when she stands. The same thing could be said with her tail too.

The mare opens the curtain and lets the lights shine through the window, towards the bed where they have spent the night together. The Chancellor decides to get down off the bed with her, slowly trotting right beside his secretary and hugging her from behind.

“You know how to choose shampoo, don’t you?”

Red Velvet giggled.

He decides to just hug her like that for several minutes, before the phone on his desk rings.

“Hello?” Red Velvet took the phone for him while riding her mane and tail. “Secretary Velvet here.”
”The enemy fleet is closing towards the Canterlot, rapidly… The voice on the other side said with the understandable urgent voice “That’s the fleet with the new technology. They are conducting resupplying.”

The red maned unicorn turned to her love. “They are conducting resupply. Should we attack?”

“Send the remaining human squad to them! They are the ones that understand their tech the most.”

...

“Do you see how unusually large the head is?” Flash pointed to what Haystack described as “a tumor”, located right at the back of the MkII’s head. “It might be a container for something. I think that’s where we can start.”

“Hmm... make sense. Mobile suits don’t normally have such a big head.” the brown stallion said, and the mechanics get straight to the job. But Flash himself can not get any say in it, because a group of agents, wearing the average agent's gear of black suits, sunglasses and microphones, shows up and pushes him away.

Following them, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, are Bonbon and Lyra, the leader of S.M.I.L.E, dressed in the same attire as these agents.

“Ensign Brandon Cultrich! Welcome back!” started Lyra “I’m glad you come back at least, although I know you are severely injured.”

Flash looked back to himself. Yep he can still feel the pain from the burns from the previous battles. However he has healed a bit. “Can I go to the sick bay?” he asked.

“Yes.” One of them said, “but the Alliance’s board wanted you to stay a bit. You have so many things to give to the point we have to overrule military procedures.”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?” asked Era.

They answered by quietly pulling out a headbag, a handcuff that was made exclusively for humans and as usual, papers. Yamina and Haystack try to stop them by rushing to Flash and pushing him back behind them, asking the suited creatures to go away.

“And what is the hoof cuff for?” Yamina asked.

“Handcuff is the correct term.” said Bonbon with some little mockery in her tone “It’s tighter and more durable than the one for the ponies! Now if you excuse me...” she tried to use her hoof to push them over “...let us do our duty...”

“We have just opened the head armor!” one of the mechanics shouted. But then, he blurted uncontrollably once his eyes lay on what the armor had revealed.

“Let me see it...”

Flash, with no warning at all, breaks out of the encirclement of tuxedo-clothed creatures and sprints right to the elevator to pull himself up at where that mechanic is supposed to be.

And there, he found it!

Six healthy brains, stacked inside some sort of extremely durable glass box, the “shock box” as Flash prefers to say, connected with countless wires and small blood hoses. The glass box is unfathomably thick and heavy: 4 mm thick, and as Manatee, the hippogriff Flash met at the Legion of Unity’s base near the Everfree forest, described as “hella heavy”.

Flash can see and hear some of the crew members gagging as they see the grotesque sight before them. Flash, despite seeing countless gory sights during his war, also nearly throws up. The smell of some spilling blood around it absolutely did not make things better. In contrast to the durable, seamless looking “shock box”, the hose are leaking.

They are blood, albeit more viscous than normal.

“Bring them out! These brains are not the normal ones!” screamed Flash “You don’t own any of the Council members die!”

“Council member? What do you mean?” Bonbon jumped up to where Flash was.

“These brains belong to them!” Flash said. His voice was muffled due to him trying to cover his nose from the horrible smell. “Black Wine kidnapped each of them and took their brains off! This is how he planned to harvest their friendship power: tuck all of them in the same place and hope their magic do the part.”

“For the love of Celestia, what the heck are you talking about?”

“Flash… tell them the truth! You are the only one who can talk to us, telepathically!” urging Spike.

“I… I’m one of the pilots who got access to this MS’s cockpit!” the blue headed pilot said slowly so everyone could hear “I don't know if I, or someone else, have heard me talk about this, but the brains you are seeing are the ones that come from the Council of Friendship themselves!”

“Wait… do you mean Princess Twilight, Lady Pinkie Pie, Lady Applejack,… and others… have their brains taken out… like that?” Manatee bubbling in horror as she pointed to the transparent-glass built “shock-boxes”.

“Yup. Black Wine’s army is willing to do that…” Flash gently said.

“Which means… FLUTTERSHY!” screamed Discord. Her name makes Flash flinched, for obvious reasons. Fluttershy suffers the worst out of any creature in the Council.

“Is she safe? Is she alright?” asked the draconequus. “I swear if some creature breaks her…”

“She’s fine Sir.”

Flash calmed himself and answered the question flawlessly. He knew the result would be… not good, once Discord knew the truth. He can only hope Discord doesn't suddenly decide to investigate further. He did, unfortunately, by teleporting himself randomly all across the hangar. “Where’s her now? Can any pony find her brain?”

It was hilarious out of context, especially for someone like Discord, who was known for being a silly, annoying creature who only brought nothing but nuisance, more or less. But his love for Fluttershy is undeniable…

“Bless you if he happens to find Lady Fluttershy’s brain and it happened to be heavily damaged…” Haystack put himself against the wall, with his eyes closed and took his face away from where his blue haired pilot was standing, seemingly waiting for some hilarious yet horrific punishment a grieving draconequus landed on him. “Hopefully he can only turn you into a…”

He doesn't have to finish the sentence when the whole hangar just be quiet all of the sudden, the entire hangar gasps. “What the heck are you doing, Brandon!?” one of them yelled. It’s Manatee’s.

Haystack decided to open his eyes.

Seems like there were no bizarre and catastrophic magical incidents that bestowed upon any human-like creature. It was Flash, having a very out of the pocket but also really appropriate for an ex-Royal Guard, have one of his knees touching the ground, the other facing directly towards the Psycho MkII with his arms resting on it. With his face looked down the ground and a voice sounds like a royal guard reporting to their superiors, which is what he is doing, he said out loud:

“My ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to lead you to safety.”

Within the thin air, Flash could see some of the Council members go from gasp, to confusion, to giggling. From a slight glimpse of his eyes, Flash could also see some of them even... blushing? It’s especially red on Twilight’s face, followed by Rarity, Fluttershy and Starlight.

After a small and cute giggled, Twilight gave her hoofs out to Flash and gleefully but calmly said “Rest easy, Flash Sentry. You are free to escort us! Rise, Flash.”

“Thank you…” Flash not his head and rising up. He goes to Haystack, which still has that confusing expression on his face, and said “They said we can get the brains to the sick bay. I’m not sure how we can maintain these brains…”

“Hey! That’s OUR duty!” screamed Lyra from behind “Our job is to take care of these weird MS stuff. Your job is just piloting... Which you did extremely well...” Lyra lowered her voice. “But we need you for containment...”

“Why do you need to contain him?” Seashell Blue flew down the platform to confront her “You know Brandon is a pilot right? He just straight up took down a gigantic flying crab with beam-resistance armor!”

“Yep. But the mobile suit he has piloted has a lot of suspicious features.” Bonbon came by her wife to continue “He just that those brains belong to the Council of Friendship members. I want to know more about how he got to know that...”

“So that’s where the handcuff comes to play?” Haystack nods his chin towards the shiny number 8-shaped thing hanging on of the tuxedo dressed creature.

“Procedures, Haystack. We're gonna get penalized from the HQ if they know we don’t follow their procedure.”

“Are you sure y’all not gonna harm him?” Era came by and questioned them, arm crossed on her chest with an angry face.

“We are not gonna guarantee that...”

“THEN GET OF THE WAY!” she yelled.

“You dumbass have no idea who you messed up with! I THOUGHT YOU ARE UNDER OUR COMMAND!?”Lyra furiously yelled back.

The two sides have a stare down for several seconds, with no one wanting to step down. However, Flash decided to come by and separated them both by saying.

“Guys, please... I know you guys wanted the best for our struggles...” Flash slightly glanced towards where the S.M.I.L.E agents are “But we are still served under them. I would happily follow the procedure if this helps. But can you promise to take care of them? The Council?”

Flash asked calmly towards the tuxedo duo, making them a bit nervous.

“Ah... uhm... To be fair, we… we… we still have very little idea how these things work...” Lyra scratched her mane and stuttered.

Bonbon groaned out loud and jumped right into Flash, forcing her handcuff right to make sure it locked into Flash hands aggressively “NO MORE STUPID ARGUMENT! YOU GO WITH US NOW!” Following her are several other creatures trying to push the rebelling blue-headed guy trying to break free of the tuxedo-wearing crowd, as he is surprisingly energy-full and strong for just one pony to handle it alone. His friends decided to jump in to set him free, but to no avail. The S.M.I.L.E’s creatures have already called some reinforcement when the whole tit for tat argument is still ongoing, and they are so numerous they managed to only successfully holding Flash, cuffed him up and take him away, but also holding back Haystack, Yamina, Seashell Blue, Manatee and some of the engineers who wanted to get into the fight just because they are so bored.

In just a blink of an eye, Flash has disappeared.

…

“You said you have the ability to ‘talk’ with whoever owns the brain, don’t you?” asked Bonbon when they brought him into the interrogation room. Still that small, monochromatic coloring with an almost empty space, with just several chairs, a table and a one sided mirror. Suddenly Flash seems to miss the one on the Las Pegasus.

“So.. Tell me how on Earth why Black Wine decided you are worthy of piloting that thing?” asked Bonbon, having one hoof acting like a paperweight for all the interrogation documents, and the other hanging on her chair’s backrest, while looking at him with her eyebrows jerking up.

“I have no idea... Maybe because he somehow has the knowledge of my connection with the Alicorn Gundam... I don’t know...”

Flash looked down at the table, thinking to himself “Just one tiara and this is how much I have gone through..”

“Possibly. But you must have done something for him to give you that thing, Have he demanded anything? What did they do to you?” Bonbon toned down her questioning session.

“I don’t know... Wait, maybe...”

He suddenly remembered they used to bring him into their sick bay. “I remember they removed the bullet I had back in Kludgetown... Not sure if they will give me something else though?”
”Anesthetic?” Bonbon asked while leaning into him.

“Yes. A lot of them actually.”

Bonbon suddenly realized something. She rapidly stood up on her chair and leaned right into Flash as close as she possibly could. It was a pretty funny scene to see such a small pony only a third of his human height, trying her hardest to not knock herself over while still trying to maintain her serious eye intensely, staring into Flash’s soul.

Flash, although knowing she’s dead serious, can’t help but carve a smile into his mouth due to how weirdly adorable that scene is. Realization only struck when her hooves took his collar and pulled it right to her face, to the point her snout pressed right into his.

“What did they do to you?” she grumbled.

“I only know about them, so I have surgery to pull the bullet out! I swear I didn’t know anything else!”

“NO! YOU MUST HAVE SOMETHING ELSE! TELL ME IF THEY EVER FORCE YOU TO GIVE THEM ANY INTEL!” the yellow mare yelled.

“NO! NOT AT ALL!” Flash screamed back in panic. Simultaneously, he was trying to find if there is any part of his experience that his mind unknowingly left out. Most of the time when he tries his best to dig something out of his brain, he will stroke his nape as if it can clear the path of gray matter and help him link the dot. And that is how he found a suspicious lump right on where he supposed is his spine. It’s small and subtle, but enough to let his sensitive fingers know where it is.

“Bonbon, enough!” Lyra’s voice cut his chain of thought. “He’s heavily injured...”
”WHAT? AFTER ALL OF WHAT BLACK WINE DOES TO US?” Bonbon yelled back, intensely stared at her partner with a red eye of pure fury and the tears of helplessness. “DO YOU THINK AFTER ALL OF THIS, YOU CAN STILL PARDON SUCH A TRAITOROUS ACT!?”

“Hey listen… We still need him!” Lyra said, gently nudging her wife’s cheek. This calmed her down significantly. A wall of tears fell down Bonbon’s face, wetting her partner’s shirt in the process.

“Excuse me…” the light aquamarine unicorn said to him “In the meantime… you can wait for the other agents to take you to the sick bay. We will make a thorough check for you there.”

“Thank Celestia...” Flash thought. Finally, he was able to get himself properly treated.

And that lump, too!

“Where does that thing come from?” he asked himself.

Author's Note

How do you think about the poem in the beginning of this Chapter?