The year is 1882. Relations between the Equestrian Empire and its neighbor, the Khanate, are teetering dangerously close to open war. Following a severe incident, Princess Twilight Sparkle is sent with elder statesman, Diplomatic Incident, and the protective force of the ninth company of the Equestrian Legion, to try to resolve the situation before it's too late, if they even can at all.
Legionnaire
is a FiM fic written by The Lord Inquisitor set in a humanized steampunk AU. Part political intrigue, part historical fiction, part romance, and part action adventure, the story of Legionnaire is merely the first completed part of an epic work in progress. Its sequel, Legionnaire: Death of Innocence, is currently in progress.
This My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fan Fic contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Rainbow Dash, just like any woman in the Legion.
- Aggressive Negotiations: Take place when Prophet shows up with an entire ship of Church Militant.
- Assassin Outclassin': A Khan has a go at Twilight in a fort full of Equestrian troops.
- Avoiding the Great War: The officials of Equestria and the Khanate want to. Others, not so much.
- Badass Army: Several.
- Equestrian Legion, being based off of the French Foreign Legion, takes the cake.
- The rest of the Equestrian armed forces counts, given that they are the world superpower.
- The Khan Army counts.
- Badass Bookworm: Twilight after she gets trained up a bit can at least defend herself somewhat.
- Berserk Button: Everything pisses off the Khans.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Zsaryna Andrelana fits the bill, being an 8 foot tall Valorossiyans.
- Blood Knight: The standard Legionnaire attitude, especially in the ninth company.
- Bodyguarding a Badass: Anyone who protects Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, or Princess Cadance.
- Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: How the Legion's officers tend to be versus the enlisted.
- Cat Folk: Khans, who are pretty much bipedal cats who stand somewhat shorter than normal humans.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The Khanate governemnt. See below.
- Church Militant: Several, including actual religious police. They are fond of provoking incidents with Equestria.
- Conflicting Loyalty: Justicars like Prophet have to choose between the good of the Khanate and the good of the Church.
- Cool Airship: Entire fleets of them. Equestria's are the coolest and mightiest of them all.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Diplomatic Incident.
- Culture Police: Khan Basiji, combined with Church Militant.
- Death Notification: An indirect example occurs near the beginning of the story. When Twilight does not hear an affirmative that Rainbow Dash, who is going under an assumed name in the Legion, is alive after the embassy bloodbath, she presumes her dead.
- Devil in Plain Sight: Khan religious orthodoxy considers all Equestrian alicorn princess to be demons.
- Dirty Commies: The Reds in the offscreen Valorossiyan Civil War.
- Divine Conflict: The Khan church likes to see everything as this, with the existence of alicorns being a direct affront to their strictly absolute monotheism.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Legion trainers.
- Evil Counterpart: Springbok is Diplomatic Incident's foil, naturally.
- Flaunting Your Fleets: Nobody can resist making a good display of power.
- Friendly Enemy: Prophet, being a Khan zealot who works with the Equestrians definitely counts.
- Friendly Sniper: Dash functions as her team's sharpshooter when need be.
- Furo Scene: Things almost get too hot and heavy in the bath.
- Gender Is No Object: Male, Female, human or not, if you can follow orders, you can serve in the Legion right alongside everybody else.
- Good-Looking Privates: Rainbow Dash to Twilight.
- Got Volunteered: Essentially how Rainbow Dash ended up in the Equestrian Legion — she was forced by Celestia to enlist.
- Great Offscreen War: The Valorossiyan Civil War, which has been ongoing for quite a while.
- Guile Hero: Considering tha the fic is about politics, this is a given.
- Gunboat Diplomacy: As much as Celestia wants to avoid this impression, there isn't much that can be done to protect her borders in case of war while not provoking the Khanate.
- Gun Porn: If you like turn of the century hardware, certain chapters will be quite a treat.
- Hot-Blooded: Legionnaires in general, especially Rainbow.
- Husky Russkie: Valorossiyans, being essentially the setting's nonhuman equivalent of Russians.
- Instant Marksman: Just Squeeze Trigger!: Defied. It helps, but teaching marksmanship takes a long time.
- Iron Lady: The ideal for Equestrian princess. Of them, Luna and Celestia come close.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: An international political version is given by Celestia as the reason why Twilight cannot be with Rainbow.
- Keeping the Enemy Close: The ninth sticks to Prophet like glue.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Rainbow Dash morphs more into this as the story goes on.
- Lady and Knight: A femslash example with Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle.
- Lady of War: Princess Luna 100%.
- Legion of Lost Souls: Being based off of the French Foreign Legion, the Equestrian Legion is one.
- Little Bit Beastly: Vals to the point that sometimes they get referred to as human, which they do not like one bit.
- Loophole Abuse: Both sides take part in this, but the Khans are something else.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: The Khans combine with loophole abuse to do their damndest to foil Twilight's diplomatic mission.
- Moment Killer: Between two exes who must conceal their relationship on a dangerous mission on a military base, these are everywhere.
- Merlin and Nimue: Diplomatic Incident when it comes to any woman he works with.
- Nerves of Steel: Veterans of the game have them. Newcomers either develop them or don't last.
- Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: Khanate councils.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Celestia wants these out of the way because of the mission's urgency, so she sends just Princess Twilight with the most trusted member of her foreign service.
- Older and Wiser: Twilight's and Rainbow's superiors are this. Special attention goes to Rainbow's CO, who can talk sense into the infamously headstrong woman.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted — there is more than one Adrelana.
- Patriotic Fervor: The villains of the story are exploiting this to get their war.
- Peace Conference: The plot hinges around getting Twilight to one in Tarhen, the Khan capital.
- Permission to Speak Freely: Private conversations between Dash and Twilight are seldom fully professional as they ought to be between ruler and subject.
- Physical God: The Khan's opinion of Equestrian princesses. Given the sheer power of 3/4 of them, it's hard to blame them.
- Politically-Active Princess: They don't come more active than Equestrian princesses.
- Prevent the War: Twilight's mission is to do this.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Vals. Khans also have a very violent culture.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Zigzagged. Field officers are more experienced and therefore generally better fighters than enlisted troops. However, high ranking officers are definitely squishier on account of age and being kept off the battlefield to take care of running the show. Equestrian princesses, with the possible exception of Twilight, are like Physical Gods compared to everyone else.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Being ordered to a frontier fort.
- Rebellious Princess: Twilight is much less rebellious than most, not that she's happy about how Celestia forcibly broke up her and Rainbow in the backstory.
- Refuge in Audacity: The Khanate's church demanding an apology from Equestria for defending themselves against an attack by a Khan mob against their embassy.
- Silk Hiding Steel: Princess Celestia is a truly composed proper lady who doesn't tolerate nonsense.
- Spy Fiction: Dips across the line a few times. More stale beer flavored.
- Strictly Professional Relationship: What Twilight and Dash are forced to have due to their circumstances.
- Succubi and Incubi: The Khans think that Princess Cadance is an actual Succubus.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Nightmare Moon to Princess Luna.
- Tap on the Head: When Diplomatic Incident gets captured.
- Technically a Transport: Skiffs, which often get strapped with enough firepower to take on sizable threats.
- The Chains of Commanding: Yes, princess can't just do whatever they like.
- The Ditherer: Twilight Sparkle grows out of this as she learns how to take charge.
- The Fundamentalist: The politically influential members of the Khanate's church are absolutely this.
- These Hands Have Killed: Twilight Sparkle contemplating her actions following a skirmish with a Khan skiff.
- The Spymaster: Diplomatic Incident, and his enemies know him as such.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: As much as it is possible for Twidash to be so.
- Trapped Behind Enemy Lines: This thought is never far from the minds of any Equestrian in the Khanate, even in an embassy.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Twilight and Dash, full stop.
- Up Through the Ranks: The only way to get anywhere in the Legion is to start at the bottom and work your way up.
- Uptown Girl: Twilight, of course, being a princess.
- Uriah Gambit: One possible interpretation of why Celestia chose to have Dash put into a Legion recon company, exactly.
- Wicked Cultured: Every single aristocratic villain.
- With Us or Against Us: The Khan Church definitely thinks that way.
- Working-Class Hero: Rainbow Dash, having originally been first a weather controller, then a stunt flier, and now a soldier, is absolutely smack dab in the middle of working class.
- Worthy Opponent: Springbok thinks of himself as this for Diplomatic Incident. He doesn't realize that he himself is just a moron.
- Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Subverted — legionnaires only will do this when absolutely forced to.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The villains adore this trick.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: Diplomatic Incident is a grandmaster of it.
- You Are in Command Now: Twilight upon reaching Tarhen.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: Stage one was the embassy attack at the start of the fic. The heroes spend the whole thing in damage control mode.
