Apart from the Herd - I

Apart from the Herd

Entry 1.0 MagicMan001

Mr Boerewors tipped his homburg hat over his bushy brow and puffed out his cheeks in a weary sigh. Either he really was getting old, or Princess Celestia was just being a jerk with the sun today.

Hoisting the strap of his saddlebag over his other shoulder, the ageing grey earth pony continued at a brisk pace down the sidewalk as he made his way home. He passed neat rows of newly-built groups of houses dotted along the desert hillsides, the inner city of Pontoria quickly disappearing behind him. He was never a town pony, that’s for sure.

A smile broadened Boerewors’ bearded muzzle when he arrived at the hoof of the cobbled walkway that led up to his new house. It was a large, two-story cube made of white bricks that burned bright in the sunlight and topped off with a pointed red roof.

Just one out of a spilled bowl of fat sugar cubes that were sticking out from the cracked sand, for sure, but hey, it’s home.

Boerewors walked up to the door, but when he stuck his hoof in the pocket of his tan jacket, his smiled quickly dropped into a grimace and he mentally slapped himself.

“Oh, for the love of... really?”

He’d forgotten his keys. For the third time this month. He looked irritably up at the second-story window and saw it hanging wide open.

Cupping his hoof over his mouth, he beckoned his maid, “H-Hey! Honeypot?” No response. “Honeypot! Are you up there?!” No response. He began to rap on the door and raised his voice to a shout, “I’ve forgotten my keys, let me inside! HONEYPOT!”

A voice answered him this time, but it wasn’t his maid’s. It came from next door’s second story window.

“Would you mind keeping it down?! My foal is trying to nap!”

Boerewors felt his back go rigid at the shrill sound penetrating his ear. That would be the wife then, a real shrew of a mare whose husband was a big shot accountant in the city. The “happy, young” couple had moved in four months ago when they had their shrieking bundle of joy and Boerewors hadn’t had a peaceful night since.

Inwardly groaning, he raised his head to see the livid mare in question glaring down at him from the window next door.

“I’m sorry, I’m just trying to get into my house here!” he apologized, though no way near as sincerely as she would have liked.

“Then maybe you should think about getting a key!”

He scowled and replied testily, “I have a key, I just lost it! I’m trying to call my maid, you dumb mare!”

A foal could be heard crying and Boerewors pinched his sinuses. Oh great.

“Oh! Well, now you’ve done it!”

Now he was not having any of that. “Okay, Ma’am!” he forced himself to laugh. “First of all, you screaming your head off like a banshee isn’t helping!”

“Banshee? Banshee!? Just who do you think you are, you worthless bag of bones?!”

Their argument was interrupted by the sound of hooves scrambling down a flight of stairs, followed by several turning locks. Boerewors’ door flew open and a female changeling sprinted outside.

Her head was already bowed before she grinded to a halt at the old stallion’s hooves..

“Oh, Mr Boerewors, I’m so sorry,” she apologized profusely, chest beating like a kettle drum. “I was busy vacuuming the living room, and I just didn’t hear you.”

Boerewors was going to say something when his rude neighbour, hanging by the stomach on the window ledge, shouted down at the changeling, “You should put that old kook in a mental hospital!”

And at that, Boerewors had taken all he could stand and he couldn’t stand no more.

“OLD KOOK!? WHO’RE YOU CALLING ‘OLD’, YOU FRUMPY HOUSE FRAU!?!”

He would’ve dropped his saddlebag then and there and marched right into that sow’s house to bop her one, if the changeling known as Honeypot hadn’t intervened. She placed her holed hooves firmly around his waist and hauled him back inside the house while both he and his neighbour hurled abuse at each other.

Once inside his much cooler house, Boerewors needed a good few minutes to work all his anger and frustration out of his system. Dropping his saddlebag carelessly to the floor, he then threw off his homburg and stuffy jacket, which Honeypot readily hung up on the coatrack, otherwise standing in patient silence while he swore, ranted and kicked the walls.

It didn’t take long for him to run out of steam. He plopped whistling down onto the first step of the staircase, running his hoof his through the few hairs left on his head.

“I’m so sorry for crossing my boundaries, Mr Boerewors,” the rueful Honeypot apologized again. Her sweet and gentle voice sounded so jarring come out from behind those pearly daggers. “I didn’t want to see you get in trouble with the Corps--”

Boerewors held up his hoof and immediately the changeling twice his height fell silent.

“No, no. Look, there’s no need to say sorry, Honeypot, you did the right thing back there,” he assured her, looking up to meet her eyes. He took out a silk hoofkerchief to dab his sweating forehead and felt himself chuckle half-heartedly, “You’re right, I probably would’ve got arrested... again. I’ve got my dad’s temper in me.”

Honeypot was a pretty female, chock full of youthful vigour and stamina, but old enough to clearly have nymphs of her own, by the mother’s smile that returned to her face. Dressed in a simple blue garb and a headband tied around her yellow mane, long and thick as if it were made of delicious dripping honey.

She slowly helped him to his hooves and they ascended the stairs together. She picked up and carried his saddlebag over her shoulder for him. Better for them to cool off and calm down in the comfort of the living room.

'I’ll make sure I’ll get a second key cut tomorrow,' she mentally noted.

“How was your trip, sir?”

“Oh, good, good. I bought us some pawpaw fruit at the market. Fresh off the farm.”

She beamed, clapping her hooves, “Wonderful, I’ll get to work on lunch then. It’s coming up to noon.”

“Hmm, must’ve been out longer than I thought,” Boerewors mused uneasily as he reached out to the newel post to steady himself. “I haven’t even got started on my other chores today.”

“I’ll take care of that for you. It’s what I’m here for,” reassured Honeypot, who gently ushered him into the kitchen area. “You just settle down on the sofa while I put on some tea. Then I’ll chop up those pawpaws for you.”

The upstairs living room and kitchen were perfectly cosy for an old stallion like Boerewors, thanks in no small to Honeypot’s efforts. Framed photos friends and loved ones long past, rifles and animal heads hung from the burgundy walls; the furniture was made of leather for one to sink into in the evenings, and a flag hanging from a poll which had pride of place in the corner, its colours a beautiful tricolour of bright orange, celestial white and lunar blue.

Honeypot started unpacking his saddlebag and stored his groceries in the fridge for him as she always did. The old stallion, in the meantime, crawled into his soft, inviting leather recliner sofa. His aching joints cried out together in thanks.

At least now he could calm down properly and forget all about his neighbour and the sweltering heat with a cup of tea and his newspaper.

It was at this point, when he was already so comfortable in his sofa, that he realized he’d forgotten his daily newspaper, a copy of the Pontoria News, still laying in the fruit bowl as he’d left it since breakfast. It was situated right next to Honeypot's thick passbook, which only reminded him he needed to write her next evaluation in it soon.

For one of those very brief, passing moments in his life, Boerewors wondered about just how easy the unicorns had it.

Before he had the chance to ask for Honeypot’s help, the paper was already floating across the room to him in an aura of magic. It landed gently on his lap, opening up on the headline story.

“Thank you, Honey.”

Honeypot looked over her shoulder from the sink, where she was refilling the kettle with water, and smiled in return. While she waited for it to boil, she took out a pawpaw fruit, a knife and a chopping board.

His eyes lingered on her while she worked on making his lunch, humming a soft tune and gracefully swaying her tale and flank left and back. A sight that was easy-going on the eyes, for sure. Honeypot was by all means a prime cut of her species, even taking the fact she could be no younger than thirty with her own nymphs into account.

Not wanting get caught with his hoof in the cookie jar, Boerewors ducked behind the ruffled walls of his paper and picked up where he’d left off that morning.

The story that made today’s headline was the epic conclusion of a saga the Pontoria News had been following for the last month. For the last six months, the Badlands Corp had been hot on the trail of a dangerous changeling insurgent cell, which they say had been planning attacks on settlements across the western region. The article went on to dramatically describe an epic feat heroism and daring do where a squad of specialist officers lured the changelings into a sting operation under the guise of an arms trade off. Three of the five insurgents who attended the ‘trade off’ were arrested, the fourth escaped and the fifth was executed in their attempted escape.

The captured insurgents had now been brought back to the capital where they were to face trial for their crimes against the Equestrian state.

Boerewors felt his blood boil the further he skimmed down the article, his eyes landing squarely on the menacing black-and-white mugshots of the changelings. Each one of them appeared as vicious and bloodthirsty as the next; their eyes soulless blue orbs reflecting the emptiness inside, their teeth strong enough and sharp enough to shred a filly’s skin like it were tissue paper.

Thousands of bits shouldn’t be wasted on granting these animals a trial. He’d happily offer to undertake their punishment himself, which was a foregone conclusion: five rounds fired off into each of their evil hearts.

His old hunting musket was still hanging from the wall gathering dust. Shame it could no longer be put to practical use.

Honeypot brought over a wooden tray carrying a cup of Earl Grey and a plate of freshly chopped pawpaw slices and placed them gently on his lap.

Boerewors licked his lips. “Thank you, Honey.”

The towering maid bowed her head and looked ready to return to the kitchen area and get on with the master’s chores when she saw him gently patting the spot next to him on the sofa. The cheeky grin on his face spoke a thousand words.

A green blush rose on Honeypot’s cheeks. Her eyes nervously looked around the room in fear somepony or someling was watching, however unlikely that was.

She knew they really shouldn’t do this again, not out of lack of enjoyment, mind you, but being that she already had plenty of chores to get done. Then he patted the seat once more, a little more firmly this time.

‘Well’, she figured, ‘maybe a little while won’t hurt.’

Pushing her draping mane behind her batlike ear, she took her spot at his side and cosied up to him, loafing her long, spindly legs into the leather. Boerewors slowly reached his foreleg around her shell and rested his hoof on her ample hip. She giggled.

That was how they spent that afternoon; the two of them sitting together, Boerewors nestling his head just underneath Honeypot’s chin while she quietly used her magic to feed him his lunch. It was how they spent many afternoons before.

For creatures that were supposed to be cold-blooded, Boerewors, twice divorced and once windowed, honestly couldn’t remember a warmer embrace.

1.1 Trooper924

"Blessed Kami, I thank you for the dying day and for the gifts that it has brought me."

Hooves clasped in front of him, Shepherd recited the nightly prayers perfectly. He should--he'd been saying them since he was a nymph.

"I thank you for the coming night and the renewal it shall bring me."

Thin tendrils of smoke rose up from the tiny altar, permeating the smell of incense through the air.

"I thank you, Kami, for the protection and guidance you have--"

Indistinct shouting from outside interrupted the changeling. Shepherd groaned. It sounded like the neighbors were going at it again. They had already had a spat earlier that and Shepherd had hope that'd be only one for the day. No such luck. Shepherd resisted the temptation to peek out his door to see what was going on this time (lest he be dragged into it again) and instead went back to his prayers.

"I thank you, Kami, for the protection and guidance you have given me. And for the protection and guidance you have given my...my family."

At this, Shepherd found his gaze drawn to a newspaper laying on the floor. Three changeling insurgents captured. One escaped. One dead....

Maybe not enough guidance... Shepherd thought. Then he sighed. He extinguished the incense with his magic. He didn't feel like finishing the prayer now. He climbed into his bed, rolled over and stared at the ceiling for a few minute. In his head, a voice from long ago echoed back at him.

"Come on, Shepherd, do you wanna spend the rest of your life reciting tired old chants or do you want to actually make a difference?"

"Some difference you made," Shepherd muttered as he switched off the lights.

Shepherd drifted off to sleep some time later. He wasn't sure long he'd been asleep when he awoke with a start. The young changeling lay in a daze for a few moments before he realized--there was someone knocking at the door.

Looking at his alarm clock, Shepherd swore and stumbled out of bed, stubbing his hoof in the process. Now extremely irritated, he made his way towards the front door, only to realize halfway there that knocking was coming from the back door and had to reverse course. Muttering dark things under his breath, Shepherd approached the door where the accursed, unwanted someone was frantically knocking. "Who is it?" he grumpily shouted through the door.

"Shepherd, it's me."

Shepherd became completely awake. "Shin? What are you doing here?"

"Shepherd, you gotta let me in."

"What? No!" Shepherd pressed his hooves up against the door as if Shin might try break it down. "I don't want any part of this!"

"Shepherd, please, I'm messed up, you gotta help me!"

"No, Shin, I don't! The Corps are looking for you and if they find you with me--I don't want to think about what they'll do to me."

"Shepherd, please...."

Shepherd squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his head up against the door. He should have turned Shin away. He should have kept the door shut. He should have. But he didn't.

Silently, Shepherd unlocked and threw open the door and found himself face to face with Shin. The changeling looked terrible. He was thin and dirty, he was dressed in a mix of filthy rags and piecemeal armor. His legs were all bandaged and there a nasty looking crack in his carapace just beneath his right eye. And despite, Shin still managed a weak smile.

"Hey, brother."

Entry 1.2 BrutalityInc

In the office of the city hall of Pontoria next morning, tempers were flaring. Even behind the thick wooden doors, one could hear a pony screeching his anger and frustration at someone in the room.

“You let one of them get away?!”

Outside in the corridor, ponies and changeling alike either stopped or slowed down briefly to listen to the commotion. The changelings in particular winced from the rancor of the outburst through their empathic senses. One unicorn in uniform, standing just outside the door, waited nervously as he listened on.

“With all due respect, governor, we have the situation control.” A second voice, polite and subdue, could be heard in reply. The pony it belong to was weathering the governor’s tirade in complete stoic calm.

“You promised me you can have that bunch of bucking terrorists squared away before the end of the year!” The first pony roared, and there was the sound of papers and pens being thrown. “And now you might have let them get an advanced warning to go into hiding, forcing that schedule back by another three months! What am I going to tell my constituents?!”

“Sir, you can tell them that we have crippled the cell and likely weakened the wider compact.” The pony with the second, calmer voice defended, “Even if that insurgent hasn’t got away, they would had figured out the moment the papers hit the streets and gone to ground. What mattered was that according to our... intelligence, the arms exchange, the cell is already running low on both funds and morale. This arms exchange deal, along with the smuggling ring we busted two weeks earlier, were the very last chances they have to secure ammunition and supplies to remain a relevant insurgency force. Now that they have lost both, and have the majority funds from both operations confiscated, the cell is finished, and we have confirmation that we had indirectly also foiled the wider compact's planned attacks in the Western Region, and it’ll only be a matter of time before the rest are neutralized – ”

“That was exactly what they said for those damn roach infestations in Merrieburg!” The governor groused, and several Changelings cringed as they hurried pass the door. Roaches, 'Kakkers' in the Badlanders' native tongue, was a common racial slur used against Changelings here in the Territories. “They didn’t just reduce the cells there to irrelevance, they literally reduced them down to two members! Two minor-ranking underage nimrods who somehow got away while most of their cell’s members and leaders got killed or arrested. 'Only a matter of time', they said. 'They're more or less finished', they said... two years later, Black Hearths Warming Eve happened, and it turned out that somehow, two insurgent cells managed to reform right under the Badland Corps’ nostrils, and they were led by none other than those two who got away!”

The uniformed unicorn swallowed hard as he heard what the governor said. He remembered the bombings, back when he was just a rookie; ‘Black Hearths Warming Eve’, they called it. One of the worst terrorist attacks ever perpetrated, almost perfect in their execution, heralding the insurgent cells’ comeback with a bang. Hundreds dead, and it was merely the prelude to a violent campaign of more bombings, sabotage and assassinations by those Changeling rebels, terrorizing the ponies of Merrieburg for six more months before the city’s contingent of the Badland Corp could get it under control. Even now, they’re still dealing with one of the cells.

Roaches, the unicorn thought. A most appropriate term to describe these uppity Changeling insurgents if there is one. Even lower than Kakkers. They were as tenacious and intractable as real cockroaches; always somehow surviving and recovering no matter how hard or how many times you stomp on them. Even the smallest bug could grow to become a bigger pest. The insurgencies had been the bane of Badlands Province for as long as any-pony could remember. It’s been going on BEFORE it even WAS a province, starting right after Queen Chrysalis fell and the Equestrian military was still mopping up her armies.

The remnants of her defeated forces, leaderless and broken, were last seen fleeing into the unforgiving jungles down south. The thought that they might had somehow survived the horrors of that uncharted realm and are regrouping there, plotting their revenge, was a thought that kept him and many ponies sleepless at night. Some bands of them had in fact slipped back into the Badlands proper to join the urban insurgencies, especially in the more changeling-populated old hive cities, and they are suspected of helping to run some of the rural ones…

The unicorn didn’t hear the rest of the exchange, only the end. “… Whatever! Just get it out of my mane ASAP or I’ll have you replaced, constable Prancer, your record be damned! Dismissed!”

There was the sound of a stomp, and several more trot steps. Then the door opened and the constable left the office, none worse for wear, except perhaps his eardrums.

Not that his eardrums were in the best of shapes, considering all the artillery barrages he went through. He was a veteran of the Changeling War, and the toll battle had taken on his body had showed on the two scars on the pegasus’ face, just under his blue eyes, brought about by changeling warriors’ attempts to gore him in the face with their horns during close-quarters combat. Some of his yellow mane and tail are grey from exposure to Changeling chemical weapons. One of his brown wings was an enchanted prosthetic, having lost one to shrapnel shredding it down to pulp.

The fact that he still made it this far in the ranks of the Pontoria Badlands Corps despite his scars and injuries was a testament to his competence and determination, a fact that earned him much respect from those under him. His no-nonsense attitude, firm leadership and high standards had earned him the nickname ‘Iron’ Prancer among the Badland Corps, and progress for the counter-insurgency operation in Pontoria under his supervision had achieved record success.

Still wasn’t enough for that obnoxious bastard of a governor, it seems.

Prancer readjusted the badge on his uniform and placed his hat back on, before calling out to the unicorn waiting for him, “Officer Punch Clock, let’s go.”

Prancer didn’t wait for Punch Clock to move, and the lanky unicorn found himself hurrying down the corridor after him, passing opulent displays of paintings depicting the defeat of a Changeling army in battle with Brodie-helmet and gas-mask wearing Equestrian soldiers; the founding of the city, complete with an extravagant party with fireworks, confetti and banners over the ruins of a former hive devastated in war; Princess Celestia herself, radiant and beautiful as ever, speaking on a podium to a crowd of ponies and changelings, who were separated by a wall of uniformed ponies from the newly commissioned Pontoria police force and the Badland Corps.

Punch Clock caught up with Prancer just as they reached the elevator lobby. “If you ask me, sir, I don’t understand why he would be so mad about it. It’s just one changeling insurgent; wasn’t even a high-ranking one, too, from what we know. How much damage could he do?”

“No-pony wants another Merrieburg Hearths Warming Eve, Punch Clock” Prancer muttered bluntly, “That said, he doesn’t care about the damage that escapee could cause. He only cares about how it would affect his ballot box. Even with all the progress we’re making, his support among the Badlanders had been waning, and even his own political party had been criticizing him for not being touch enough on Changeling crime and insurgents.”

“Must be his abysmal personality. I don’t know how someone that abrasive even got voted into that office.” Officer Punch Clock remarked as they entered the lift.

“In any case, we have a job to do. Anything on our escapee?” Prancer asked.

“I’m afraid the trail has gone cold, sir. We lost track of him outside the warehouse district.” Officer Punch Clock replied. “We’re expanding the search to the suburbs, but knowing how these guys operate, he could be anywhere in the city now... If he’s even in the city by this point."

Prancer seethed inwardly. He had set to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the Pontoria Badland Corps ever since he was appointed head of the branch, and to see how easily one insurgent had slipped past the net, even after months of effort and thorough planning to track them down, identify them and make sure they won’t escape, it was a small but painful hit professional pride.

“Unacceptable. We had the whole area locked down for the sting operation and one still got away. And that’s not counting the other problems I noticed during the sting operation itself.” He growled with frustration. One of the higher ranking members of that arms-dealing party of insurgents was killed, one that he wanted alive for interrogation, by a trigger-happy Corpsmare noted for her negative opinions of changelings and insubordination, and that was after the Changeling had ran out of ammunition and was about to surrender.

A cold-blooded ‘execution’, those papers called it; and for once they got that right. He’s going to suspend her for misconduct as soon as he gets back to office and reprimand her, that’s for sure.

He shook his head, then ordered, “Note this down: I want the analysts review last night’s operation for errors and have recommendations for improvement delivered to my desk by next Monday. Double the patrol forces currently dispatched to look for the escapee; make sure they know what he looks like from what info we can get of him. Check every suspected area he could be hiding thoroughly; tell them the governor wants him found as soon as possible.”

“Yes sir.” Punch Clock said, noting it down on a pad with a pen in his magical aura even as they walked down the City Hall, towards the vehicle waiting for them Pontoria’s busy and crowded streets.

Of course, Prancer thought, if he was the insurgent, on the run from the Badland Corps, the expedient thing to do would be to get out of Pontoria sharpish and lay low until the heat dies down before trying to regroup with his cell. If Prancer can get a warning out to the Badland Corps branches stationed in other regions of the province, the insurgent wouldn’t be able to hide anywhere outside of Pontoria city either.

Yes. If he was a smart insurgent, he wouldn't stay in the city. He wouldn't even stay anywhere the Badland Corps could reach. But where in this part of the continent would that be?

One possibility hit him while they were half-way back to headquarters, stuck in the traffic, the roads congested with packed, rust-bucket buses full of changelings, refined, fabulous looking vehicles driven by more posh and well-off ponies and everything in between.

“Officer Punch Clock, did you recall if there is an… Expedition, setting off to explore the Southern Jungles?” He asked suddenly, making the Officer look up from his notes.

“Yes, sir. It’s going to be launched from Port Vuurtoring next month.” Officer Punch Clock confirmed, “I heard that they’re still hiring changeling and pony porters, guides and other support staff. Rumour has it that it’s going to be led by some archaeologist whose been making the news a couple of years back, and they’re primarily looking for the lost ruins of some older Changeling civilizations…”

Yes indeed, Prancer thought, That’s what he would had done…