//------------------------------//
// The Long View 
// Story: Iron Kingdom Equestria 
// by Bitt_Player 
//------------------------------//

	"Thank you for your report, Shining Armor. Victor Pendrake had been forced to admit that his information about the forests of Ios and its inhabitants was very limited, so it's a definite benefit to have more. I was amused by my niece's creative interrogation technique, as well." Princess Celestia gave her nephew-in-law a satisfied smile. Shining Armor, like his sister, rarely failed to provide excellent results in any endeavor they attempted. She was glad that her planned inspection of Baltimare's fortifications had been the day after the Iosan attack, as it meant she could get a first-hoof report. However, she wished she could have been there to defend her country personally. Setting that thought aside, she continued, "while I'm sure you and Cadance would like some time to relax, I'm afraid I have to make another request of you."
"I am at your command, your majesty," Shining Armor replied, bowing. Celestia gave a small laugh.
"No need to be quite so formal, Shining, you're my nephew after all. Anyway, I want you to take the salvaged parts from those Iosan warjacks to Ponyville. Ponyville's Engines Equestria branch has fabricated an arcane turbine attuned to pony magic, and they need both a pony warcaster to test it and new mechanika to reverse-engineer. I want you to take command of Ponyville's defenses and give that turbine a test run against anything that threatens the town."
"I understand," Shining Armor said, saluting, "I'll have those warjacks loaded onto the next train headed for Ponyville."
"There's one other thing," the sun princess continued, "I want you to get your old special-operations team back together."
"You suspect another insurrectionist group on the rise? Now? In Ponyville, of all places?" Shining Armor was taken aback, and Celestia couldn't blame him. She'd had him tracking down violent would-be revolutionaries on and off for some time before he married her niece.
"Not this time, but there's a project going on in Ponyville that could use their particular talents," she explained. "The details are all secret, so I'm afraid this isn't the place to talk about it. Just tell the ponies at Engines Equestria that I want you to assume operational command of Project Red River, they'll know what you mean."
Shining Armor saluted again. "All right. My orders are to transport Iosan warjack wreckage to Ponyville and deliver to Engines Equestria, then take operational control of Ponyville defenses and field-test Engines Equestria's new arcane turbine. I'm also to re-assemble my counter-terrorism spec-ops team and take command of Project Red River. I can manage that."
"Good," Celestia replied, nodding, "Twilight Sparkle hasn't returned yet, please keep an eye out for her. Spike is still living at the library in Ponyville, he's my official messenger to the forces there, so if you have anything to tell me, send a letter through him."
Shining Armor saluted once more, making the princess wish her newest nephew would stop doing that, before turning and leaving the room.



Lieutenant Firecracker Burst looked at the rows of barrels filled with freshly-made blasting powder and gave a satisfied smile. While creating fireworks was her finest skill, she was talented in all forms of explosives -for both entertainment and practical use- and was pleased with how rapidly she had become accustomed to the unusual dual-powder system used by the alchemists from Cygnar. The powders were inert individually, but when combined, could produce powerful blasts. Other ponies were already busy using her powders to create ammunition for the few Rover warjacks that the Royal Guard had acquired, as well as their fixed and mobile artillery pieces. The unicorn was confident that Ponyville had enough blasting powder, but she was less sure about the number of actual firearms available.
The sound of her workshop door opening drew Firecracker's attention. She turned to see a fellow Guard lieutenant, Blue October, entering the room.
"Hi Blue, what's going on?" Firecracker asked.
"Just thought you should know, the Captain's on his way, he's got some new items for the engineers to examine," Blue October started without preamble, fluttering her wings slightly, "then he's supposed to take control of the defenses here, as well as getting us involved in Project Red River -but we're not supposed to know about that part yet, so it doesn't leave this room."
"Wait, by 'Captain', you mean..."
"Shining Armor. He's been told to get his old team back together, and that means us. I think somepony at the top was planning this for a while, since we were all mobilized to Ponyville."
"Ha, Airheart bet me ten bits he was gonna retire after the wedding."
"Yeah, yeah, Bursty. You'll have to wait until payday to collect, though". As if on queue, the ever-be-goggled Airheart drifted in, "Blue, I'll never figure out how you find this stuff out. How do you always know our marching orders before they're even official?"
Blue October replied to this question with the same blank stare she gave for every query regarding her information's sources. Captain Shining Armor and the ponies in his command had come to rely on Blue's ability to find out things nopony else knew, even though some of them found it difficult to trust the secretive, serious-minded pegasus. After a minute, she said, "also, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza will be with him, semi-officially the intermediary between us and Canterlot. She seems to be finding a lot of reasons to stick near the captain lately. Could be due to the changeling incident."
"Sounds to me like she's just being clingy," Airheart remarked.
Firecracker Burst, who had begun to clean and arrange the workshop with her magic, commented, "if I could hook up with a fine slab of stallion like Shining Armor, I'd be clingy, too. Especially since three of his four favorite junior officers are mares."
"Speaking of the Captain's favorite flunkies, where's Cherry Cola?" Airheart asked, referring to the forth member of Shining Armor's preferred retinue.
"He took a unit on patrol, should be back soon," Blue October replied.
"I'll keep an eye out for him," Airheart said, flying for the door. As she left, she added, "he'll flip, he's crazy about the Captain." This was, Firecracker Burst thought, no understatement. Shining Armor had recruited the thoughtful Cherry Cola in Dodge Junction, where they had needed his knowledge of fruit and the raw muscle he could provide to root out a conspiracy involving enchanted cherry pies and an exiled griffon. Cola had been thrilled to assist the Captain and his three mares -and even more thrilled when Shining Armor offered him a rank and a commission.



Airheart wheeled in the sky, high above Ponyville. The Weather Patrol's schedule called for clear skies, and those dedicated pegasi had cleared every fragment of cloud out of the air. Suddenly, a flock of crows rose up from the edge of the Everfree Forest, cawing wildly as they scattered into the air. From the thick trees ran a squad of Royal Guard earth ponies, some of which sported deep dents in their armor. The last pony to emerge bore a rent in his croupiere which revealed a pair of cherries on his flank. This pony shouted, "the river, ponies! Not the bridge! Lead it to the river!" Airheart recognized Cherry Cola's voice instantly.
The identity of 'it' soon became clear as a large, black-iron warjack burst from the treeline, thick, green-twinged smoke billowing from its single smokestack. Its hull, shoulders, and large-clawed hands all had wickedly curved spikes on them, and its head -which, like its hands, was larger than that of most warjacks- bore a pair of long tusks which looked like they'd been yanked from the skull of some horrible animal and bolted to the machine. The sinister 'jack lunged forward, barely missing Cherry Cola with a sweeping swing of its claws. The chains wrapped around the 'jack's claws smashed against Cola's armor, but the impact didn't slow his desperate sprint towards the river. Airheart immediately whirled around and sped back to Ponyville. She realized that Cherry Cola planned to force the warjack into the river, which would douse its furnace, but any steamjack could instinctively identify and avoid bodies of water deep enough to endanger them, and she thought she had a way to help. For once, Airheart found herself cursing the diligence of Ponyville's Weather Patrol as she desperately searched for a cloud.



Cherry Cola thought he saw a pegasus in the air as he emerged from the forest, but he wasn't sure. If there was a pony in the air, Cola was certain that he or she would try to help, or get help, but until assistance arrived he assumed his earth pony patrol squad were on their own. His plan as simple, and hinged on the wild, frenzied nature of his enemy's attacks. The warjack swung its claws recklessly, the weight of them shifting its center of gravity of every attack. All Cola and his ponies had to do was lure it to a steep area of the river bank, wait for an opening, and -with a few good kicks- send it into the water. With its furnace doused and its coal wet, Engines Equestria and the Royal Guard could dredge the machine out of the riverbed at their leisure and render the apparently-Cryxian machine to slag.
Acting on instinct, Cola dodged to his right, feeling the ground shaking beneath him as the helljack's left claw dug into the earth. The 'jack released a blast of steam that sounded almost like a roar of animalistic rage and frustration. The thing's hands were as large as Cherry Cola's body, and he did not at all enjoy thinking about what one of his ponies would look like if it hit them. A near miss in the woods had already proven that the spikes on the backs of its hands could tear open Royal Guard armor like it was made of paper.
Cola dodged again, lowering his head, and felt the machine's other claw whipping through the air. The ends of that hand's chains flew briefly in front of his eyes. Cola had gotten a good look at those chains earlier, and they had clearly been broken. Apparently even the Cryxians had trouble keeping this particular machine under control. That made him wonder if it was able to light its own boiler, or perform some other normally impossible start-up procedure. As that thought crossed his mind, Cherry Cola concluded that the first thing they should do after stopping the machine was to remove every single piston in its structure. Then would come the rendering to slag.
The earth pony lieutenant reached the river and turned quickly, narrowly avoiding the warjack's right claw. However, he wasn't quick enough to avoid a backhanded swing from its left hand, which hammered into his side. Even though the machine caught him at the end of its swing, there was still enough force in the attack to crack Cola's ribs and send him flying. As he tumbled through the air, he caught a brief glimpse of a pegasus pony rocketing towards the warjack with a small cloud.
Cherry Cola hit the ground on his right hind leg, on an awkward angle, resulting in the leg producing a stomach-churning crunch as it collapsed beneath him. The agony was intense, but the lieutenant was a self-taught master of pain tolerance. He looked up, at the pegasus, who he now recognized as Airheart. The sight of her brought a smile to his face. As he watched, she gave her little cloud a bucking kick, causing it to fire a bolt of lightning right at the warjack, which arced across its hull as the machine staggered, the sinister green light in its head flickering randomly. Cola got the distinct impression that the warjack was blinking.
"The legs!" Cola shouted, wheezing slightly, "buck the legs!"
One of the enlisted earth ponies obliged, slamming both hind hooves into the upper part of the warjack's left foot, which resembled a dog's hindpaw in shape. The warjack, which so far had been able to keep its balance despite its flailing movements, leaned precariously towards the river. Airheart gave it another bolt of lightning as the fire in its eyes started to brighten, and the terrible machine finally crashed into the river with a great splash and one final, angry bellow -blast of steam, Cola had to remind himself.
"Make sure it's fully submerged, I don't want that thing lighting its furnace on us!" Cola ordered as his soldiers started to run towards him. Most of them returned to the spot where the 'jack fell, some of them even reaching out to try to push the helljack further into the river. Airheart landed at Cherry Cola's side.
"Are you all right, Cherry?" Airheart asked, worry filling her voice.
"Busted leg, cracked ribs," the earth pony replied, "not the best shape I've been in, but I'm not dying."
"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry," Airheart said, "I thought I could catch you, but I didn't want to stop-"
Cola grunted, "don't worry about it. I don't even want to think about what that thing would've done if you hadn't stopped it. Lightning, that's something you picked up from Dash the last time she was in town, right?"
"Yeah, she said the Cygnarans use it to mess up warjack cortexes," Airheart explained, looking over at the wide gap in the still-unfinished wall, through which a Rover and a company of Royal Guard ponies had emerged.
"It sure seemed to stupefy the thing," Cola agreed, "anyway, can I talk you into getting me to a medic?"



Cherry Cola lay on his back on a bed in Ponyville Hospital. He hated being on his back, but his leg needed to be suspended. Airheart stood beside him, which gave him an opportunity to satisfy his curiosity.
"I have to ask, Airheart where'd you even get a cloud on a day like today?"
"I, uh," Airheart gave him a sheepish grin, "I yanked it off Dash's house. When Ponyville's Weather Patrol declares 'clear skies' they darn well mean it. I hope Dash isn't too mad when she comes back".
"Well, if she gets wound up, I'll make sure she doesn't mess with you," Cola said with a grin, "that's what I'm here for, looking tough so nopony gives all the mares a hard time".
Airheart laughed. "Yeah, I'm sure she'll be intimated by your amazing power to talk a lot and grin like an idiot".
"I do not talk a lot," Cherry Cola retorted with feigned indignity, "grinning like an idiot I'll grant you".
"Lieutenants Cola, Airheart," came a familiar voice. The injured pony turned his head and managed a salute to Captain Shining Armor, as he entered the room. "It's good to see you're all right, Cola. I just got here, and was pretty worried when I asked where you were and was directed to a hospital."
"It's good to see you, Captain," Cherry Cola said, unable to hide his mixture of excitement and worry, "I'm sorry you had to find me like this. If you were looking for me, you need a good face-kicker, right?"
"Nah, not this time," the Captain said, "It's that brain of yours I need for this job. I've been told to take command of Project Red River. You know about it?"
"Just that it involves that big-dang building at Engines Equestria that we're not allowed inside, Captain."
"You're allowed in it now," Shining Armor said, setting a stack of parchments on Cola's chest, "those documents are top secret. I want both of you to memorize and then burn them. I'm going to track down Firecracker Burst and Blue October, I'll be back soon. Also, I heard about the attack. Good work dealing with that helljack, you two. Frying its cortex and dumping it in the river was an excellent tactic, I'm thinking of asking the Weather Patrol to always leave a few clouds in the skies in the future". With that, the Captain left.
Airheart picked up the documents, saying, "let me have a look at... oh sweet mother of Celestia..."
"What? What's the -oh," Cola trailed off as Airheart passed him the first page. "That... that's quite a thing".