The Sunseekers

by Candypony

Chapter 1 - The Captain

Act One

“NO!” screamed the unicorn, waking from her nightmare. She held up a hoof and wiped the sweat from her face. She looked around in a daze. It had felt so real, as if she had been in the handsome colt’s place, plummeting to his peril.

A knock sounded twice from the other side of her door, and it slid open. An orange-coated stallion poked his head in, wearing a face of concern mixed with just a hint of frustration. “Is everything all right, Captain? I thought I heard screaming.”

The unicorn dismissed the stallion with a lazy wave of her hoof. “No, Trail Blazer, I’m fine. Just had a bit of a nightmare. You can go back to bed.” Her first mate yawned and nodded his head.

“As you wish, Captain. Good night,” mumbled the polite stallion, dragging his head back out and closing the door. Left alone once more, the captain fell backwards onto her bed, folding her hooves behind her head, and stared at the ceiling. It was just a dream... why did it feel so real?

***

“Prepare to board.”

All around the seemingly eccentric ocean-blue unicorn, her crew shuffled and stretched their wings as they prepared for the action. Dusk Dancer could feel their anxiety building, and how contagious it was. Her long, straight mane, colored her natural purple-pink with a few softly-glowing cyan stripes, waved from side to side as she shifted back and forth on her front hooves. Her mind was elsewhere, despite the imminent action. Her thoughts constantly slid back to her dream from several nights ago, the most vivid she’d ever experienced. She was beginning to slip into paranoia, convinced that her dream wasn’t a dream at all, but a reality, feeling strange concern for the well-being of a pony whom she’d never seen before in her life.

The unicorn shook her head, taking a moment to readjust her tricorne hat, a hole cut through it to make room for her horn. The design may have been ancient, but it was unmistakable to others as a sign of her profession. Clearing her thoughts, a blade levitated from its sheath to the front of the unicorn’s vision, a soft purple glow surrounding the blade. She observed the blade, hoofmade just for her by one of her close friends, the Inventor. A purple gem was embedded directly into the hilt, and it seemed as if the blade were made around it. Where the Inventor had acquired the gem, Dusk Dancer never knew, but it was unlike any other she’d ever seen. Soft cyan trails glowed outwards from the gem, etched along the length of the blade, giving it a frightening strength no other could hope to match. The lines pulsed, as if catching the anxiety in the air and reveling in it.

“Okay, boarding crew, listen up. Tonight, dinner’s on the Lunar Empire.” At her words, her crew of about twenty pegasi grinned as their captain began, though only three would accompany her, considering the unarmed nature of their victim vessel. “Trail Blazer,” she said, nodding towards an orange-coated stallion in the pilot’s seat. “You’re in charge until I get back. Fillies and gentlecolts, take what you can.”

“And give nothing back!” they roared in unison, the volume belying the number of ponies behind the shout. Dusk Dancer felt her mane stand on end, and found herself intensely proud of her meager crew. Behind her, the bay door opened, assaulting the gathered pegasi and unicorn with the chill of the night air.

“This one’s for you, mystery colt,” whispered Dusk Dancer to herself, getting a running start before leaping into the night, her goggles keeping her eyes safe as she plummeted. Dusk Dancer jerked as a device on her back sprung outwards in either lateral direction and ignited, both rockets screaming and belching fire. The unicorn soon found herself rocketing towards the lone Lunar Imperial Tradeship.

***

“Ma’am, the unidentified craft is not responding.”

The mare in charge of the unarmed tradeship stamped the ground nervously, gazing out towards the craft that had dropped seemingly out of nowhere and matched their speed. It seemed similar in build to one of the standard Imperial aerial personnel carriers, but the skeleton was where the similarities ended.

The aggressive airborne vessel was roughly trapezoidal in shape, growing wider toward the bottom. Four sets of wings jutted out from the sides, the rear two hefting large engines pointed at an angle. The front two carried two smaller engines, as well as what appeared to be large missile launchers under each one. Underneath where the pilot’s cabin should be, there was mounted a large swiveling ball-turret, the two thin cannons jutting out menacingly. The most startling feature of the craft, however, was a large inscription on the side she hadn’t noticed before. It was a name, written in the pony’s runic language. She froze in fear when she realized that the ship was the very same from the stories.

“It’s the Eventide.” Almost as if on cue, twin explosions rocked the tradeship, threatening to knock the entire crew to its feet. Alarms began to sound and several monitors glowed red with status warnings. "Status report!"

“Ma’am, engines are offline!” shouted a pony above the roar of the alarm

“Showtime, gentlecolts,” a gravelly, masculine voice sneered from the ship’s sound system. “Leave them to us and stay out of our way.”

The top hatch of the craft sparkled with a dark purple glow, a sickening crunch resounding through the hull as it was magically ripped apart. A unicorn dropped into the shocked crew’s midst, brandishing a wicked ebony blade in her telekinetic grasp. Two miniature rockets resembling those aboard her own craft retracted as she landed. Three pegasi dropped in behind her, beating their wings to stay afloat, each cradling a charged kinetic rifle, each weapon’s twin rails pulsing with magnetic energy, filling the atmosphere of the tradeship with a low, distinct hum. The unicorn levitated her personal blade and aimed it at who she assumed was the one in charge of this pathetic craft.

“We are the Eventide crew! Do you s—“

“Yes! We surrender. Don’t hurt us! We’re unarmed!” a mare squeaked from behind the captain, wiping the grin fade from Dusk Dancer’s face.

“Aw, really? Now, where’s the fun in tha—“ Static crackled in her ear. Trail Blazer’s voice broke through the static.

“Captain, I’m seeing movement aft.” Static filled her ears once again, and the three pegasi began looking at her in worry. The captain’s ears twitched and she whirled around to find herself facing a mounted turret, manned by a smirking stallion bearing the armor of a Lunar Knight. The unicorn and her pegasi companions had almost no time to react before the ruthless Knight’s uplink to the turret triggered its firing mechanism.

Two pegasi fell screaming to the ground as kinetic rounds tore through them, leaving faint blue-green trails in the air, ripping right through their feathery wings and their light bodies. The captain and the remaining pegasus managed to avoid the initial volley, taking cover behind a metal crate. She wanted to mourn her fallen comrades, but why mourn when you can have revenge?

“Dammit! It was a trap! Help us out here, Blaze! Blaze?” Dusk Dancer screamed into her microphone. She kept an eye on the unarmed portion of the crew, seemingly just as terrified as she was. Only static answered her. The buckaneer to her right stood up after the fire stopped, an electric-blue flash and low hum accompanying his weapon as it fired, the recoil shifting the lighter pegasus back slightly. The round entered through the Knight’s exposed neck and knocked him backwards with a howl of agony. Two more Knights emerged from the shadows to replace their bloodied comrade, bringing their own hoof-mounted rifles to bear. Dusk Dancer’s eyes and horn glowed a deep purple as the Knights’ hoof-held railguns spat rounds that sliced through the air towards her, aimed right at her head.

Impact.

Instead of colliding with the unicorn’s head, however, it impacted against a purple shield of light, the force of the kinetic round still bouncing her back somewhat. She kept up her shield as she charged, teeth bared, deflecting the deadly lightning-fast rounds. She heard a scream from behind her and a thud as her last crewpony hit the deck, momentarily closing her eyes as her horn glowed brighter. The aura around her ebony blade grew even brighter, the edges beginning to refract the light and turning into a rainbow of screeching death as she swung at the nearest Knight.

The Lunar Knight laughed at her as she charged, confident that his Lunite armor could withstand such a primitive tool. In his mind, she might as well have been coming at him with an apple. He expected her blade to bounce flimsily off of his mighty chestplate, leaving her wide open for a quick and easy killshot.

What he had not expected to happen was for his head to fall to the floor with a sickening sound, the unicorn’s blade cleaving through his armor, his flesh, and his bone with the ease of a knife through butter. The other knight brought his own railgun to bear, aiming for the mare’s exposed head. Dusk Dancer remained facing the decapitated knight, keeping her tail-end to the last Knight standing. Seizing the opportunity, the steadfast knight tried to fire his weapon.

And he would have succeeded, if the knight hadn’t found himself engulfed in a hellfire of twin rocket flames. The roar of Dancer’s twin engines drowned out the stallion’s screaming as his armor quickly became his fiery tomb. Looking out the glass viewport, Dusk Dancer could see that the Eventide was now facing the tradeship that she currently inhabited, its twin cannons primed and ready to fire.

“Ladies and gentlecolts,” Dusk Dancer turned about, a sad smirk on her face, her eyes hidden underneath her lengthy straight hair and tricorne. “You will remember this as the day you almost caught… Captain Dusk—“

Before she could finish her sentence, Dusk Dancer felt something penetrate her side. The impact of several kinetic rounds knocked the breath from her lungs, and she collapsed sideways.

“...Dancer.”

She turned in time to see a crippled but smirking knight, the one who had been manning the turret. She only had to endure his arrogant face for a moment before the sound of splintering metal filled her ears, the tradeship cracking in half from a combined cannon volley. The half of the ship she currently inhabited tilted downward as it began falling to earth. Gravity wrapped its unforgiving fist around the injured unicorn, pulling her, the knight, and the corpses of the fallen into the night sky. The loss of blood combined with the sudden change in atmosphere was too much for even the unicorn. Dusk Dancer lost consciousness as she fell, while watching the half of the tradeship she’d been in crash into the other and erupt into a fireball in the sky. For a moment, right before fading, she saw a gray pegasus out of the corner of her eye racing towards her.

“It’s him...”

***

“What’s so special about this pegasus punk? All he did was try to steal some—”

“Are you questioning a direct command from the Empress herself? Your orders are to keep the pegasus detained and quiet until She can personally attend to the matter. However, Her Majesty is being kept busy by preparations for the celebration of a millennium of Equestrian rule. Until She is able to find time to take personal custody of the pegasus thief, he is not to leave this facility. Clear?”

“Clear, ma’am. Oh, and do send my regards to Empress Luna.”

***

When Dusk Dancer awoke, she could still feel the wind whipping around her coat. She curled up and winced in pain after breathing, having forgotten about the puncture in her side. She looked up at the pegasus stallion who’d been carrying her in his arms. Her guardian angel. “The colt of my dreams...”

The stallion let out a confused cough while beating his wings furiously to carry them both upwards toward the Eventide. “Captain, are you okay? You might be injured worse than I thought. Let’s get you to the ship. We’ll get you help soon.” The voice that answered her definitely wasn’t the cocky drawl of the dream pegasus. It was too calm, too subordinate...

“Trail Blazer?” Her guardian angel nodded. Now that the darkness had begun to fade from her eyes again, she could clearly see the orange coat of her pilot and second-in-command of the ship. She winced harder with each breath, holding a hoof to her side. It quickly slicked with her own blood. She passed out again before they reached the ship, and Trail Blazer double-timed it to the ship’s infirmary.

***

Pain.

Why am I in so much... pain? The pegasus’ first thoughts echoed through his throbbing skull, and he glanced shakily around the room. He appeared to be in some sort of prison cell. He lay on a cold bench, alone. How did I get here? The stallion’s mind swarmed with questions.

Looking over his body, it looked as though he’d been beaten savagely, bruises and dried blood decorating his otherwise neat gray coat. The entire right side of his body ached with a special pain, but that pain was nothing like the agony that shot through the colt’s body when he tried to flex his right wing. The poor pegasus almost passed out once again.

The memories came flooding back to him. He had been in the air, flying far, far way from his pony pursuers, who fired spell after spell in an attempt to ground him. One knight had gotten lucky and clipped his wing, dragging him straight down. But that felt so long ago. The memories between now and then were missing.

The gray-coated colt suddenly became aware of an odd noise in the room - a very ragged, wet breathing sound. The sound of a pony close to death, a pony who’d been beaten until he could bleed no more. He glanced around the room, finding only himself. It took his fractured mind a moment to realize the sounds were coming from his own mouth.

What the hell is going on here? The confused colt wanted to cry, but no tears came. It felt as though he’d run dry. The colt curled up on the freezing bench, trying to warm himself up a bit, and soon found reprieve from his pain in the form of sleep.

***

“Easy, captain.”

The unicorn had awoken again with a start, immediately regretting the involuntary motion as a sharp pain raced through her side, though the pain was not as intense as it had been before. She looked down and noticed a long bandage wrapping up around her midsection.

Her thoughts immediately went back to the previous battle. How had they known we’d be coming after them? The physical pain was soon overwhelmed by the emotional anguish of losing more of her crewmates to the scourge of the Empire she so viciously rebelled against. For a moment, her struggling mind swam with images of the pegasus from her dreams, his young face contorted in pain that no pony his age should yet know.

“Now, ma’am, with all due respect, you’re hurt pretty badly, so you shouldn’t be up and around... so... soon.” However, the pegasus medic watched in awe as his captain swung her rear legs over the side of the medical table and landed on them, and then onto her front hooves, trotting out of the medical bay as if she had just been in for a routine checkup. She hadn’t even shown any signs of pain when she moved. The resilient unicorn headed for the bridge of the carrier with an air of urgency.

“Trail Blazer,” the mare started, working her way to the pilot’s chair. “Get us back to Eclipse. We’ve got to make sure the rest are safe. We might be compromised.”

The orange stallion looked at her with concern for only a moment, before nodding and beginning to make preparations to double-time it back to the city. After the initial roar of igniting airship rockets faded, the Captain pulled up her contacts on her cyan eyepiece, and dialed for the Artist.