//------------------------------//
// The Empire Emporium 
// Story: Detour: The Road to Uprise 
// by Jetset0099 
//------------------------------//

      The barrier around the Crystal Empire was one of the greatest achievements ever since magic had been harnessed in the ancient times. It protected the city from the harsh elements that laid beyond that were far too powerful to be controlled through pegasi. During the day, it shone a light purple, and from inside, made the sky a beautiful blue canvas scattered with occasional clouds. Now, as the sun set and night started to take the helm, it eased into a cool blue that cast a rich night sky over the empire. 
In the center of the city, a large square was located for social gatherings. On the north end sat one of the busiest restaurants around: The Empire Emporium. Newly opened, it housed hundreds of ponies looking for a new nightlife experience. Inside was very quaint looking, but with a modern flare to it. It had a stainless steel bar on one end of the building that was lined with oak wood trim, where many gathered to drink and watch as the three bar tenders flipped the bottles of alcohol around like they were a circus act. Glass shelves lined the back, chock full of assorted booze and glasses. On the other side of the building was the restaurant portion. Smooth granite floors with wood tables and cushioned brass chairs gave it a very progressive look. Like the bar, it too was packed to the brim with dinner guests socializing and taking in the new experience. 
Jake, his crew, and the Royal Couple sat in the bar section around a high table. The pilot took a sip of his ale as Shining Armor continued the conversation. 
"It just doesn't make sense. I train the recruits harder than I ever have in the past, and I still don't get the results I'm satisfied with. Half of them don't even know the proper way to draw a sword! Their ignorance just leads to more discipline, which just wears them out and leads to even more ignorance. It's a vicious circle, but I can't just let their mistakes go without consequences. If they mess up, they're running laps or dropping and giving me fifty push-ups. That's the way the military has to be run. I just need a way to make them learn."
Jake thought for a moment and nodded in agreement. 
"I don't disagree with you. Discipline is the key to a successful soldier. However, I think you could maybe tweak the way you train them in the first place to eliminate the mistakes BEFORE you make them kill themselves with laps or push-ups. More personalized training instead of large ranks lined up attempting the maneuvers all at once. Maybe split them off into three groups and go one group at a time. Less recruits to keep an eye on at once."
He took another swig of his drink and sighed as the glass hit the table. 
"I don't know. You're the captain of the guard, not me."

"No I get it. I've thought about what you said before. I just might attempt to reconfigure our training around a method somewhat like that."
Just then, Klauss came back from the restroom and sat down with them. 
"Jeez this place is packed. Can't use the john without standing in a ten mile line."
Cadence laughed. 
"This is just the newly-opened-bustle. It'll calm down in about a week when everypony's been through here already."
Sleethoof looked out a large bay window in the front of the building and up to the sky. 
"I wonder how the weather is. We can't stay here overnight."
Shining Armor looked confused. 
"Well if it stays as bad as it was, surely you'll stay over, right?"

"We have plenty of rooms in the palace." Cadence added. 
Jake just shook his head. 
"If I stay over, I'll be a day behind with the next delivery. Which will roll over to the next day and so on until I have a couple days off, which will be replaced with me flying overtime to make up for it. We have to leave tonight, unfortunately. We made it here in one piece, and we'll make it back in one piece. But for now," he finished off his drink and gestured for the waitress to bring him another, "let's relax."
Kline looked off to the entrance of the building to see four Royal Guard ponies walking in and taking off their helmets. They donned golden breast plates and side armor, and wielded swords on their left front leg. He turned back to Shining Armor and got his attention. 
"Do those guys wear their uniforms all over the place, or are they just off duty?"
The Guard Captain looked over to the small group of new recruits, and narrowed his eyes in anger.  
"Hold on."
He sprang up from the table and marched over to them. When they saw their captain standing right in front of them, steam emitting from his nostrils, they were instantly drained of color, despite them already being white-coated. 
"This is a decent, public, place." he said in a low, furious voice. "So I'm not going to make a scene in front of everypony. All of you to the barracks and await further instruction. Right. Now."

"Y-yes sir." One of them muttered. With that, they all fumbled out into the streets and started for their barrack. 
Shining returned to the table, still outraged at the event that had just unfolded. 
"I can't believe that! Four guards on duty, waltzing into a bar for a break! How do you think that makes me look?!"
Cadence put a hoof around his back to calm him down. He finally did after a couple seconds, and ran a hoof through his mane out of pure stress. 
"How do you think this makes US look? The Royal Guard. The symbol of peace in Equestria. Slacking off on duty."
Kline tried to reassure him. 
"It's not like everypony in the guard was there. It was only four. Every Guard member I've come across has been nothing but professional and polite."
Shining Armor just shook his head. 
"First it's only four. Then eight. Then fifteen. Then the whole guard is slacking off behind my back, unprepared for anything that may come at us."
Jake chuckled, attempting to make light of the situation. That had always been his way of dealing with things, no matter how serious the matter was. He never came off as rude the way he did it, he just tried to make them see the lighter view on their problems. 
"You're overreacting to this whole thing. So what. Four stallions got bored one night and decided to stop into a bar while they were on duty to get a buzz going. I'm not saying it was the right thing. I think they deserve whatever discipline you throw at them. But odds are this is just a one time deal. I'm sure everything is running smoothly in the Guard as we speak."

"I hope you're right." Shining said. "We, the Royal Guard, are the divide between peace and uprise, and we're only as strong as our weakest link. One troop slacking off causes an entire unit to fail. One unit to fail causes another unit to fail, and so on. Do you see why this bothers me so much?"
The pilot nodded and took another sip of his fresh drink. Sleethoof, who'd simply been listening the whole time, looked over to Shining Armor. 
"Continuous effort, not strength or intelligence, is the key to unlocking our potential. Give them time, sir. They will learn through their mistakes and be pushed towards success no matter what the stakes may be. This nation can sleep at night knowing that a bunch of stallions suit up and keep the peace around here. They're one of the most vital aspects of our day to day life, and half of us don't even know it. So like I said, just give them time. You give a stallion the armor and a weapon, the soldier eventually follows." He looked out the window once more and continued thinking about the weather. He looked back to Jake, who was impressed at the sudden speech he'd just given. 
"Let's get going. I have a feeling the weather isn't going to let up anytime soon."
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"Now lets jes think about this fer a moment."
Applejack paced the floor of her brothers room as he sat on the edge of his bed in thought. Mac interjected before she could speak again. 
"Now sis, it's very possible that he jes asked about this place and somepony told him our names. Ah don't mean ta boast er nothing, but we're kinda well known 'round these parts."
She shook her head in disagreement. 
"That whole conversation was jes off ta me. They didn't seem honest. Ah bet ya whoever them two missing ponies are, are actually runnin' away from them."
Mac tried to talk some sense into her. 
"Now c'mon AJ. It's highly unlikely that that's what was happenin'. Ahm not gonna write it off completely, because ah surely can't disprove that theory either. But let's try an' be rational here, ok?"

"Fine. But ah have a bad feelin' 'bout them two, and ahm gonna get ta the bottom of this."
She broke off from her pacing route and headed for the door. She stopped on the threshold and looked back at her brother. 
"Tomorrow we're gonna go into town an' ask around about those two an' see if we can't get any info from 'em. Ok?"

"If y'all think that's a good plan, ah'll follow along."

"Thank you, Mac. Goodnight."
She shut the door behind her and walked downstairs, leaving the farmer alone to think. 
His theory wasn't irrational. Sure it seemed suspicious the professor knew his name, but odds are someone had told him who he was while asking for directions. But why them? Why come all the way out to the secluded farm and ask? It's not like it was a busy area. If two students wanted to conduct research on lightning they wouldn't go to the middle of an apple orchard where trees could easily be toppled and or burnt by the feat of nature. Or would they? He'd sleep on it, and finalize his thoughts in the morning. 
Mac turned off the light and slipped under his bed sheets. The wind picked up again outside, and he could feel yet another storm approaching. He shrugged it off and closed his eyes. After a long days work, sleep came easy to him. 
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"One thousand."
The C-130 rattled around in the harsh wind. It hadn't let up at all since their landing, and it wasn't going to anytime soon. 
"Two thousand."
Sleethoof read off the altimeter as they climbed. The goal was to get above the cloud cover as quickly as possible. After that, they were home free until they needed to land.
The wind pounding the nose of the aircraft just made the temperatures even colder. Ice began building on the wings faster than the de-icer could work. Jake noticed this, and began to seriously get worried. 
"This is not good. Not good at all. We're taking on too much ice for the system to melt it. We'll lose lift soon if we don't get above the clouds."
Kline spoke up from the back jump seat. 
"Well if we go higher won't it just be colder?!"

"Hypothetically, but in weather like this with the wind chill, ice will form here faster than it will up there.  It's a desperate climb to the top."
Everyone sat back and held on as the plane was tossed around like a hackie sack. A warning light came on indicating a stall, causing Klauss to panic. 
"We're going down! We're going down!"

"NO WE'RE NOT!" Jake roared. "All it is is the stall sensor being covered with ice so no air gets in. It thinks we're doing zero knots right now. I'm sorry for yelling, but don't panic. We're gonna make it."
After ten minutes the wings were caked in ice. Fortunately, the leading edges allowing the lift were still clear. But the back edge still contributed to the lift as well, and it being covered created an immense amount of drag. 
"We're only fifteen-hundred feet away!" Sleethoof said. Klauss banged on the wall behind him a couple times in encouragement. "Come on, baby! Lift your ass for us."
Jake, realizing the wings could barely take any more, pulled back and raised the nose to a forty-five degree angle in a last ditch effort to clear the last thousand feet. 
The air speed indicator dropped rapidly as the engines just couldn't muster up the power to pull them. They clawed through the air as the altimeter slowed it's ascent reading.   
They had five hundred feet to go. Four hundred. Three hundred. Jake thought for a split second that he was going to lose the battle with gravity. That he'd never touch land again other than the inevitable fireball that would be his plane hitting the surface. He closed is eyes, and for the first time since he could remember, prayed. Prayed for his three friends he'd drug into this mess, and himself. 
Seconds passed, which seemed like ages, and the plane finally broke free of the clouds and was basked in the moonlight from above. Everyone sat still, making sure it was reality and they hadn't already crashed. They gathered themselves, and Jake breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. 
"See, I knew we could do it." he said. "Hopefully that ice melts before-"
He was cut off by a giant bolt of lightning shooting up into the sky from below about twenty miles ahead. It danced around the clouds as it was continuously shot up via whatever was powering it from the ground. Jake was confused. Lightning didn't go straight up, did it? His train of thought was interrupted as well by Sleethoof making a disastrous observation. 
"It's heading this way!"
A lightning bolt, much slower than normal, slithered through the sky, bouncing towards them on the clouds like a skipping stone on a lake. Before they could say anything else, it hit. The cockpit was illuminated harshly with white light as all the instruments went off and began malfunctioning. As quick as it came, the bolt receded and tapered away, leaving them awestruck. 
All the light faded from Jake's eyes as the four RPM gauges went down and every single component on the plane shut off, leaving them in complete darkness. All four propellers stopped turning as the airspeed began falling. Jake pulled up a little bit on the yoke only to find that the hydraulics had failed as well. He had no control. 
"Brace yourselves. Guys just...just brace yourselves."
Once again, the crew found themselves headed back towards the storm as the nose tipped down and led the aircraft into the icy abyss.