A Mote of Dust - Standard Procedures

Hi, it's me again, That One Guy (s'alright if you forgot who I am, its been almost half a year of inactivity D:)
I felt horrible for getting hopes up for a Mote of Dust: Hearts + Hooves edition and failing to deliver, and so if you resent me for pulling that, however unintentional, lead-on, I suggest stopping now :<

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For anyone still reading, put up a tag, beause here's the first chunk of the next chapter, which will hopefully be out before the end of my school year (mid-June)! (If not soon afterwards :<) ~ This time I shall do it right, and do the writings! Enjoy, I do hope :O
(Also, formatting will change to what the rest looks like; at the moment, just a fragment copy/pasted from the aMoD .doc)

It was a glorious day.
Not because it was dark and dank (granted, that was a bonus), nor due to the bolts of relatively harmful electricity that cracked through the sky to accentuate his every sentence (though this occurrence was so common, even on the most horrible of sunny days, that nodog really paid it any mind), and not even on account of the recent reveal of the giant, sword-wielding statue that had been labored on for nearly a year (though the occasional flare of flash photography still rang out from time to time).
No, it was a glorious day for a much more important, spectacular matter – the matter that their glorious leader now had ready from the push of the glorious button held within his glorious paw. With a shudder of excitement, he adjusted his ominous cape and readjusted his grip on his stylish canestaff.
“Status report on ze propulsion systems!” He shouted in his incredibly gravely northern accent, pointing dramatically at the group of diamond dogs huddled around the control mechanisms, half-wishing it would rain (for added glorious).
“Flight systems one to sixteen operational, sir!” Hollered back one of the generic soldier-scientists, a spotted husky known by all as ‘Stripes’.
“Veapons check!”
“Ninety-eight percent of systems fully functional, sir!” Yelled forth a panther named Grace from her place at the sophisticated machinery. (She was adopted, an overbearingly awkward trait in the closely knit canine world, which was pretty much the only reason she wasn’t head scientist at that point.)
“Vat?! Und ze two percent?”
“The cannonball gun was never finished,” She shouted back informatively, “we were forced to put it’s development time onto the more vital weaponry systems!”
“Ah, dat is irrelevant – vat purpose could shooting metal do anyvay? De development of dat vas such a vaste… Ach, qvickly, of ze main veapons?”
“Pie dispensers one through forty-two at one hundred percent!”
“All eighteen cotton candy sprayers at maximum capacity!”
“Choc-milk blasters primed and lukewarm!”
“Gumdrop bombardments onboard!”
“Laughing taffy snares prepp’ed and chewy!”
“Minor weapon subsystems, from the lemonade to the ice cream, all chilled!”
Their glorious leader sucked in his breath and pointed at the seventh generic diamond dog scientist. “Unt of ze V.C.G.G.?”
Generic scientist seven (his name was Phil) was quiet for almost three whole, glorious, dramatic seconds (as was mandated). Then, in a voice that spoke of countless years spent in choral development (he sung bass as a pup in all the musicals), he spoke.
“In one word, sir, the V.C.G.G. is glorious. It is ready.”
Baron von Lazuli grinned. He snickered. He let out a giant, maniacal laugh! With an overdone flourish, he turned and faced the audience – no, army! – of loyal diamond dogs (typically those with considerably low intelligence scores), cackling madly.
“Zey laughed at my might! My brilliance! But now, they shall see my strength! They shall see our strength!”
Lightning exploded in the background, followed shortly by applause, shouts of primal joy, and swoons. The blue-eyed baron raised the button into the air and pressed down on the indicated portion firmly.
“All shall know of the power dat is Baron Lapis von Lazuli! The mightiest and most valuable of all ze gem-blessed dogs!”
With that, the ground gave a mighty crack, and a fissure appeared far behind the malevolent canine baron. Unseen gears and belts worked overdrive deep underground, and with a violent heave, a truly massive machine rose forth.
First to be seen was the incredible, hulking floatation device. An incomparably enormous blimp balloon, reinforced ten times over with a coating that would withstand the sweeties of pastries with ease. It was painted a bright, crystalline blue – not quite as shiny as the color of the noble lord of Gem-Encrusted Bay, but sparkling with a color all its own. Lazuli. Several more audience members (diamond dogs and diamond… dogettes, alike) swooned under the glorious display of military might.
The war machine - evident as an airship that would dwarf even Equestria’s own ‘Eclipse’ (the most powerful known vessel known to Equis, up until that point, commissioned by the princesses and run by the supposedly merciless and mysterious captain Jack H) by a factor of at least three (maybe even four, if you counted the festive blue wartime ribbons festooning from the back) – continued to rise. And then it paused. Baron Lazuli glared at for a moment, then pressed the button a few more times, much to his embarrassment (he was in front of well over a thousand soldiers, for crying out loud).
The craft idled for several more moments, the rear end raising up several dozen feet, before the ground directly in front of the fissure, right up to Lazuli’s platform, bulged outward and made cracking noises. Dignity immediately thrown to the wind, the baron took one look at the quaking ground beneath his perch, and took a running leap right into the crowd.
Thankfully, the (adopted) timberwolfdog that caught him was leafy enough to protect him from too many injuries, not counting the hundred or so splinters that embedded themselves into his underarms. One belated thanks and a barked order later, he was hurled high up into the air, and dropped ceremoniously onto the back of a flying dragon dog (also adopted).
Several tension-filled moments of eager waiting passed. Somedog caughed.
And then the earth simply exploded upwards.
The diamond dogs in the crowd could only stare, breath taken away, as the bow plowed out from its tomb. The wooden cockpit itself was easily large enough to accommodate half their number comfortably, and as several more auxiliary floaters affixed to the front expanded up, the rubble cleared to reveal the figurehead.
Scratch that. There wasn’t really a figurehead, at least traditionally speaking. Instead of a silly point on the front with the image of a human or some other imaginary creature carved underneath, the entire front of the ship was stylized, breaking from the typical ‘front of a boat’ look, this glorious airship had a rounded point, filled with indent after indent, each a long, thin window complete with a 135 degree view and two marshmallow guns affixed beneath. In the center lay a larger version of this, and those with the sharpest eyesight could see a vacant cockpit, glass tinted a glorious blue, with seventeen seats (and a big throne-like one that had a plethora of buttons to push and levers to pull), and bordering the intimidating window lay ten massive nozzles – the powerful whipcreamthrowers, capable of eating away through even solid stone at a close enough range, with all of their delicious power.
About then, most everydog realized that the bow looked uncannily like a lapis lazuli rock, and despite its incredibly intimidating structural security and doubtless capability in battle, they had to bite back laughs at how stupid it looked, in that context.
(Not to say it wouldn’t be scary if it was rushing up to you at speeds well over fifty miles per hour, especially attached to an airship that was probably as long as Canterlot city. Because it was. Every single scientist made sure it would – otherwise the glorious baron would probably throw a tantrum.)
Soon, the bow had passed above them, and the massive hull could be seen. There was no doubt that it was less flashy than the front, but judging from the plethora of oversized projectile projectors arranged on swivels, mounts, and rails designed to be able to shoot in every direction at once, and if need be, shoot One Direction with everything.
And underneath, there was a sealed hatch, as large as the floor plan of a building, marked with four glorious letters.
V. C. G. G.
“Behold!” Shouted Baron Lapis von Lazuli as the dragon dog set him on the ground, atop a pile of rubble large enough to allow everyone to see him. “Gaze in awe unt vonder at our glorious veapon!”
“The incredible!” Shouted somedog.
“The amazing!” Hollered someotherdog.
“The indestructible!” Barked anotherdog.
“The state-of-the-art!” Added some(adopted)dog.
“ZE GLORIOUS AUDELSHVITZELMAR!” Finished Lazuli, flourishing his canestaff at the giant, floating weapon of mass destruction and grinning like a maddog.
A dog in the crowd, a literacy teacher also from the north, cringed at the inexcusable mangling of her native language. Everydog else cheered like mad (even the adopted ones).
“Unt now!” He cried out after the applause had died down, “chief scientist, program ze – vat vaz it, ze AI? Yah, zat! – on ze Audel for ze nearest Eqvestrian settlement! Today, ve begin a var!”
A scrawny diamond dog nodded once, and pressed a few buttons on the ground console. With a mighty hum, the windows on the bow of the ship flashed blue in a mesmerizing array, and the propellers went from static to maximum speed, and began to inch towards the ground, docking bay dropping open. Countless complex mechanisms within began churning out orders, and somewhere deep, deep within (invisible and unknowable to everyone present), a fuse went ‘pop’.
“Yez! Yez!” Shouted the baron excitedly, hopping up and down and being pretty much happily oblivious to the stares he was getting, “Finally, ze time has co-“

The giant propeller mounted on the right stopped spinning. The Audelshvitzelmar began to tilt sideways. Lazuli blinked once, then turned on his scientists.
“Vat is this incompetence!? You just said zat ze program vas flawlezz!” He screamed, lighting flashing out from the clouds to accentuate his accentuated words and further scare the living daylights out of his crew. “IMCOMPETENCE!”
One of the bolts of lightning hit one of the normal-sized, automated interceptor blimps that had since risen up around it. It exploded. And, due to the nature of the supercompressed gas within, a gale in of itself blasted against the side of the Audel, worsening it’s tilt to the point of where it was veering sideways at an almost humorous rate. Lazuli watched it flop around for several seconds, then placed his face gracefully into his paw.
“Hoookay, so maybe ve start ze vartime activities some other day… Ven ve repair ze Audel. At least ve still have ze thing, unlike viz ze SkvidDog, ve can just-“
The ship continued to careen right onto the sharp end of the massive statue’s sword, puncturing straight into the left side of the cockpit. Lazuli’s eye twitched.
“Vell, it’s stuck zere, unt ze AI eez programmed to sit ztill in ze case of emergency, so I don’t theenk zat-“
With a loud, metallic screech, the gargantuan airship tore the sword right out of the copper statue, and a cascade of sparks exploded outwards. The speakers clicked on, and with an accompanying burst of static that made the majority of the canine audience whine with auditory discomfort, a soothing female voice roared over the crowd.
“Audelshvitzelmar coordinates accepted, and fully loaded. Departing at the nearest convenience. Please verify, baron.”
“No!” Screeched said baron, hopping up and down on his makeshift pedestal. “You do not have ze permissions to leave! You shall be staying!”
“Vocal match 100%. Prepare for overdrive.” The AI (lovingly named ‘Zuli’ by the glorious baron) said, before pausing for several seconds. “Error. Propeller disengaged.”
“Ha! Take dat, technology! Defeated by yourzelf!”
“Connection Y-189 erroneous. Rerouting operational order.”
The seemingly broken propeller began to spin again. Baron Lapis von Lazuli blinked.
“Have a nice day.” Said Zuli.

Two minutes later, when the ringing had finally stopped bouncing around in his head, Lapis clambered up from where the wave of supercompressed air from the overdrives had smashed his (and his army’s) collective muzzles into the ground. He took a long, hard look around. The Audelshvitzelmar, his pride and joy (at least, this year’s pride and joy) was gone, probably never to be seen again. He placed his thumb and forefinger upon his glorious forehead and let out a long sigh.
“Vell… At leasht things couldn’t get any vorse, at zis poi-”
And then the statue fell on him.

Royal knight Dawn Guard, defender of the Eastern Border, collapsed to her knees with a strained grunt. Shortly after, her rapier dropped from the sky and imbedded itself in a nearby rock. The pegasus mare looked upward to her opponent and gave a stubborn whinny.
“Defeated… so soon?” Panted out Dust, Master Assassin from Akosthcee. The elite changeling, while victorious, had sustained heavy wounds and won only by the smallest of margins. “I… had expected… more…”
Her hoof struck out like lightning, knocking him clean off balance and tumbling into the dirt to face her, chins smashed against the warm ground and faces nearly pressed together. His blade clattered away. He raised a chitinous eyebrow, and at an unmarked signal, their hooves swung around to collide simultaneously with the other’s set. Another standstill.
Beads of sweat began to roll down Lady Dawn’s face, and Dust felt his forehooves quiver with exhaustion. But each held steady, and the seconds dragged into full minutes.
“I must say,” Began Dawn, trying unsuccessfully to shove him back, “if you weren’t a changeling, I’d have mistaken you for a knight, not a cowardly assassin.”
Dust grit his teeth. “My weapon is a clear indicator of my clan, even taking into account our… interesting first impression, you are a fool if you ever took me for one of you sniveling knights!”
Dawn flexed her shoulders, and channeled more energy into her screaming muscles. “Some assassin you are! You announced your intentions, and challenged me in a fair fight. Even I, a knight of the royal table, know that you have no such code of ethics.” Her eyes narrowed. “And what better way to catch me off guard than to steal the face of an ally? Yet you did not. Why.”
“You are in no position to demand I answer!”
“On the contrary, we are locked evenly, and I demand that you tap me!
Dust blinked, and was almost overcome in her powerful grip. With a roar, he swung around, flipping her about, until they landed in a haphazard pile of grappling pony.
“I know not what trick you are attempting, Dawn Guard!” He said as he dodged a wicked horn kick. “Yet I shall not, as you say, tap you!”
“You shall! Tap me right now! I demand you tap my tap!”
She flipped around, and they soon had their hooves at each other’s necks, foreheads butting together.
“Tap me! Tap tap tap - tap!”
“What sorcery is this?” Gritted out Dust as their noses crashed into each other violently. “Why do you persist with this tapping, and why do I feel so oddly aro-“
Lady dawn pressed her lips onto his own, and all of the struggle immediately left Dust’s body. After a moment, the pegasus released his face and allowed his jaw to hit the ground. Her eyes were half-lidded, and love had begun to pour from her like a waterfall.
“Tap tap… tap…”
Without hesitation, Dust dove in for another kiss.

And that's all for now, hope I get my rear in gear to break Dust's lil' fantasy :O
Til' next we write,
- That One Guy

Comments

[BakaBoy]

Oh hey~ A new story! Coolios!
Getting back into League as well, been playing DoTA way too much though so yeah XD