//------------------------------// // Ch. 8 Seige Warfare Cutie Marks Yay! // Story: Dash of Humanity 3: Live, Fly, Reboot. // by Kaidan //------------------------------// I leaned forward, stretching out not unlike a cat would. It had been a long day of studying, and I still had to swing by the castle to talk to Spike. I’d decided to try sending another letter to Celestia this morning. Every so often I’d try again even though none had ever been responded to. When I needed a little break from studying magic, it was as good an excuse as any. Once I was done listening to my stiff joints pop, I flexed my wings and took off towards the castle. The town looked normal from the sky, every pony going around blissfully unaware they’d done their daily routine for a few months. By now I knew where most ponies were at any given point in the day. The flight to the castle didn’t take long, and I headed over towards the wing that had the bedrooms to find an open window. I noticed something odd, and let myself into the nearest window to investigate. There was a hole large enough for me to crawl through, and almost perfectly round, in the tree castle’s wall. I rubbed a hoof around the circular gap. The crystal was smooth, and seemed to have dribbled down a little like molten wax. Whatever had hit the wall had moved fast enough to vaporize the crystal. I looked across the floor, expecting to find chunks of crystal and maybe some bits of debris from whatever fast moving object had collided with it. There was a fine powder on the purple rug running down the center of the hall, and some tiny slivers of crystal. That’s when I noticed a hole on the other side of the hallway. I leaned over to look through the hole, seeing half a dozen more holes before I saw the sky on the other side. Something had hit the castle hard enough to punch straight through. I trotted down the hallway as it gently curved, coming to Twilight’s bedroom. I pushed the door open and found a confused Spike staring out the final hole in the wall into the distance. “Hey, Spike, what happened?” I asked. He jumped slightly, before turning back to me. “Oh, hey Dawn. I was waiting to hear back from Celestia, when all of a sudden the castle shook. There was a loud noise, and this hole was here.” “Huh, weird. No pony got hurt though?” “Yeah, not many ponies visit when Twilight’s gone. Just you, and earlier Lyra was grabbing some books. What do you think caused this?” Spike asked. I looked back down the series of holes in the walls, seeing the Everfree forest in the distance. “I’m not sure, but I think I have time before the sun sets to find out. It looks like this came from the Everfree.” Spike gulped. “Be careful, Dawn.” “Pfft, I’m functionally immortal right now. Whatever’s in the Everfree should be more afraid of me.” I flew up high to get a good look down at the forest, then slowly glided down towards it. There wasn’t much to see but treetops from up here, and the path to Zecora’s hut. A couple small clearings stood out, but not large enough to see into them very well. I started to fly in closer above the treetops, then hover above each gap in the foliage to look down. In the second clearing I heard familiar voices. “I don’t think we hit anything; it was aimed into the forest right?” “I dunno, it happened so fast I didn’t get a good look. I was just eyeballing it.” “And we didn’t even get our cutie marks. I spent three months' allowance on all these crystals.” I sighed and dropped down into the clearing, landing next to the three fillies. If ever there were poster children for needing adult supervision, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle would have been featured front and center. “Hey, girls. What in Celestia’s green Equestria are you doing this time?” I gestured to the odd looking device. It was at least thirty feet long, metallic, straight, and glowing with lines of magic crystals. “Hey Dawn!” Scootaloo smiled, excited to see me. “You’ll never guess what Apple Bloom built!” “Well, I may have built it, but Sweetie Belle supplied the magic,” the yellow filly responded. “We’re trying to get our siege warfare cutie marks!” Sweetie walked over to the other two fillies, and they shouted together. “Cutie Mark Crusaders siege warfare experts! Yay!” I rubbed a hoof behind my head, looking at the long metal device as pieces slowly fell into place. “Wait, you tried this before with the trebuchet, right? And I think there was a ballista and catapult.” “Well, yeah,” Apple Bloom said. “But obviously we didn’t think big enough, and what’s the biggest baddest siege weapon ever?” “The sixteen inch guns on the U.S.S. Iowa?” I replied. “Not sure what that is, but bigger,” Sweetie said. “So help me, if this is a fission reactor…” “No idea what that is either,” Scootaloo said, “but we built something better!” Sweetie Belle went up and ran a hoof down the large metal cylinder. “This siege weapon uses alternating magic fields to attract and repel a large object. It’s able to accelerate anything you can fit inside faster than the sound barrier, though it seems to work better with objects that have a magnetic field.” “Oh my god,” I said flabbergasted as the realization dawned on me. “You built a freaking railgun.” I pushed a hoof against one of the crystals that ran parallel to the metal rails that ran along the center of the device. The glowing blue gem pushed my leg back like two magnets repelling each other. If this was anything like a railgun on Earth, it could likely accelerate an object to a significant fraction of the speed of light. The fact the castle had a hole punched through a dozen walls without the projectile noticeably slowing was proof that their railgun worked well. “I would be impressed if I weren’t so angry right now.” “Angry?” Scootaloo asked. “I don’t suppose you’re familiar with the first law of thermodynamics?” I looked to Sweetie Belle, who seemed to be the brains of this operation. “Uh, Starswirl’s first law is that an object in motion stays in motion,” she answered. “No credit for partial answers.” “Unless…” Sweetie thinks for a moment. “Unless acted on by an outside force?” “Bingo.” I lowered my voice into a stern cadence as I paced in front of the fillies. “And that makes Starswirl the deadliest son of a bitch in Equestria, because once you fired this railgun you have to realize that projectile would keep going until it hit something. That could be a tree, a castle, or Luna sunbathing on her moon.” I marched over to the small stack of metal cannon balls sitting near the end of the railgun and tapped one with my hoof. “This cannonball might fly off into space and hit someone ten thousand years from now. If you build a weapon like this and fire it you’re ruining somepony’s day, sometime, somewhere.” I went over to Apple Bloom, who I’d heard was aiming the weapon as I’d landed in the clearing. “And that, Apple Bloom, is why we do not eyeball it! You’re not a cowpony shooting from the hip. This isn’t a siege weapon, it’s a weapon of mass destruction that just blasted a hole clean through a dozen walls of Twilight’s castle!” She gulped, and the three of them looked like they were about to cry. Instead of crying, they suddenly hit me with these innocent wide-eyed stares. It reminded me a bit of a puppy dog who thought if it just looked cute enough you’d forget it had peed on the carpet. I couldn’t resist weaponized cuteness of this magnitude. “Ugh, fine.” I sighed, averting my eyes. “I won’t tell your parents, but you owe me one!” “Thanks Dawn!” They cheered together, running forward and attaching themselves to my side in a hug. “At least you weren’t aiming it at me this time. You know Dash still refuses to eat watermelons after the trebuchet?” I asked. They collectively giggled, releasing the hug. “Now, why don’t you show me how to operate this thing? Because I’m dying to know exactly how three fillies built a functional railgun, and the time loop won’t reset for another few hours.” “Time loop?” Scootaloo asked. “It’s a long story, sufficeth to say there’s a non-zero chance this railgun could somehow come in useful. So, how’s it work?” Sweetie Belle went over to her saddlebags and started to fish through it. “We mail-ordered the instructions to build it off the back of one of Scootaloo’s comic books.” She brought the comic over and showed it to me. “It can fire anything from a potato to a pony, and you can adjust the speed here…” By the time I’d finished in the clearing I only had an hour or so left before the loop would reset. I decided to walk back towards the castle, just to make sure nothing else had been hit by the railgun. It had shattered a few trees as it exited the forest. Had they not assembled it backwards, it would have fired into a large dirt embankment. Still, I wasn’t sure if that would have stopped the round. Luckily the round had exited the forest and not passed near any homes. It passed over a small lake, and as I approached I saw a rather odd site. A pony was dangling in a tree, and a frantic unicorn was trying to help them down. As I got closer, I realized it was Vinyl and Octavia, two of the musicians that lived in town. Vinyl was into electronic music, techno, dubstep, basically anything she could lay down a killer beat to. Octavia played only classical music, primarily the cello, but I think it likely she was proficient at some other stringed instruments too. There was a tacklebox and several fishing rods near the base of the tree, a couple chairs, and an ice box. Several hundred feet of fishing line and several small treble hooks had attached themselves to Octavia, who was dangling from the tree like a twisted marionette. “I don’t know much about fishing, but I don’t think I could have done… just what exactly happened here?” I asked. Vinyl looked over at me and gasped. “Dawn?! Quick, you’ve gotta get her down! We were fishing, and then there was a gust of wind, and I don’t know what happened!” Octavia groaned. “One of the hooks caught my fur and next thing I know, Vinyl’s trying to pull them out. Somehow they got caught on the tree…” Nodding, I headed over to the tackle box and pulled out a pair of pliers with a small metal blade made to cut through small hooks. “This’ll do, just hold still for a second. It looks like it’s more fishing line than hooks, at least.” I began snipping at the hooks that had caught on Octavia, pulling them out one by one. To take her mind off of it, I thought I’d make a little small talk. “So what brings you two out fishing?” “It was supposed to be a date,” Octavia replied. “I thought she’d like something normal, I know she's not into clubs and raves and all,” Vinyl explained to me. “So, you know, fishing.” She rubbed a hoof behind her head nervously. I finished removing the hooks, luckily they were tiny; less than an inch each. After cutting the remaining knotted fishing lines free, Octavia fell two feet to the ground and landed on her hooves. She began to stretch her sore muscles. “All better. I guess we can look on the bright side though, how awkward would this have been for a first date?” I asked. Vinyl looked at the ground, not meeting my eyes. “It was our first date…” “Oh.” I gulped and tried to think of some other silver lining, but none came to me. I’d heard they were roommates, and had always assumed they were an item. “Well it can only get better from here.” “I think I’ll head home for a bath. Perhaps you could give me some time to calm down?” Octavia asked, giving Vinyl a weak grin. “That was a bit panic inducing.” “Yeah, sure thing… Tavi.” Vinyl smiled, and headed over towards the fishing gear. “I should get these back, they’re rentals. I’ll figure out a way to make up for this.” Once Vinyl wasn’t looking, I saw a pained look on Octavia’s face and her shoulders drooping. Perhaps she was also struggling to find the right words to not leave on an awkward note. I felt bad for Octavia, and figured I’d make myself useful and find out what Octavia would have enjoyed. “I’ll walk you home, if you like.” “Thanks, Dawn,” Octavia began to walk towards town. “Don’t worry, Vinyl. I have a feeling this will work out.” I gave her a wink as we headed into town. The sun was nearly set as we headed back into town. Octavia had been quiet, so I had to ditch the subtlety to try and gain a little intel quickly. I walked up beside her, giving her a supportive shoulder to lean against if she needed it. “So, if things had gone differently, what might you have enjoyed for a first date with Vinyl?” I asked. Octavia thought it over for a minute. “Well, I guess it’d have been nice to just go for a nice dinner, and maybe a movie or play. There’s not much of a night life here in Ponyville, so I suppose I should have figured she’d just do something… different.” “Different how?” I asked. “I composed a song for a pony I liked once, that’s very romantic. Maybe just a nice picnic on a hill? It’s hard to say, Dawn. Part of the reason I like Vinyl is that we’re so different. However, she just tries too hard to make everything… awesome. Honestly, I half expected our first date to be her trying to talk me into attending a rave.” “Ah, sounds like a mare I fell for.” I smiled. “Everything had to be twenty percent cooler.” She stopped walking next to a house. I realized it had to be the one she and Vinyl shared. “Thanks, Dawn. I’m sure we’ll work things out; I’d hate to lose her as a friend.” Octavia opened the door and turned back to give me a quick hug. “Thanks for wandering by when you did.” “No problem,” I said. “And don’t worry, when the time loop resets I’ll have plenty of time to come up with the perfect first date for you two lovebirds.” “Wait, what? Time loop?” Octavia scratched her head and gave me a confused look. I grinned like a mad stallion, adjusted her bowtie, and then booped her on the nose. “Bowties are cool.” She opened her mouth a couple times, unsure what to say, when I felt the familiar tingling of energy that accompanied the sunset. Before she could figure out a reply, I woke up to Equestria’s worst song ever on the radio.