She knew she had not seen the last of him, but she never expected to see him too soon. The Diamond Princess and the Duke stared down each other for a minute, ignoring the fidgety movements of Pinkie Pie, or the shifty slides of the ex-viziers Flim and Flam. Rarity and Blueblood evaluated each other’s health and disposition: both were well-fed, and both retained the same mindset from the last time they had seen each one another. Some things had not changed.
"Not only you nearly destroyed and betrayed our beloved Empire," said Rarity, "but now you've sided with Pegasopolis?"
"It's funny, really," said Blueblood. "When I told them that it was my weapon that took out one of their cloudlands, they were ecstatic. The Empress Commander immediately appointed me as the chief of their Weapons Division with the task of completing the Chaos Bomb in time for the final battle against the wretched mud ponies of Gaea. Present company included."
"I'll take offense on behalf of Pinkie Pie, and while I will enjoy beating you senseless one more time, I am in dire need to rescue a friend captured by your brutish new allies."
"I'm sure you will, but you, my Princess, have seen too much of my operations, and I am afraid I cannot let you go. You will not defeat me like last time.”
Three lights flashed like stars in between Rarity and Blueblood, and after a momentary blindness she felt several heavy pieces zoom right beside her. The black armor pieces that were at the other side of the room attached themselves onto Blueblood's body. The angular black crystal armor bulked him up nearly twice his mass from horn to hoof, all that could be seen were his eyes and parts of his mouth.
"Prototype Anti-Element Armor," proclaimed Blueblood. "This is made from the densest of all black crystals. There’s no way your Element will be able to hit me now."
"Pinkie Pie," said Rarity. "Don't interfere. I've got a score to settle with this Duke."
"Does that mean I can play with the Song and Dance Twins?" Pinkie asked.
"Of course."
"We're not letting ourselves be defeated by a mere earth pony!" cried Flam. "Element or no Element! Brother of mine, let's put the pink one in her place."
The former viziers leapt forward and disappeared from Rarity's view. Shortly thereafter a burst of green magic illuminated the room while pink blur circled around Rarity and Blueblood along the walls. The Diamond Princess heard punches into the face. She heard kicks to the groin. Glass broke, and she swore heard a cat's painful meow despite knowing full well that no felines had been present upon her entrance. Girlish screams sounded out from behind Rarity, though none of that came from Pinkie. A tooth or two might have flown past Rarity's eyes.
Rarity activated her Element of Empowerment, and its diamond aura floated behind her. She waited for Blueblood to make his next move. And she waited. She could hear Blueblood grunting and shifting helplessly in his heavy Anti-Element armor, barely mustering an insignificant tilt on the left and right side. Right now, he could only force to retain his arrogant smile in spite of his nervous sweating.
"Are you afraid, dear cousin?" asked Blueblood. "My armor has rendered your Element useless!"
"You can't move," said Rarity.
"So what? My armor is designed to interact with Pegasopolis's computers through voice. I can signal them to come in and take you away. All I need to do is wait."
"Your armor is quite formidable," said Rarity as she paced before Blueblood, “and the design is not entirely bad. Alas, I cannot risk calling your bluff, and I cannot allow you to continue manufacturing destructive weapons for Pegasopolis. Say, does this armor completely protect its user by any chance?"
"This armor absorbs ninety-percent of any impact dealt to it, and it is completely gel cushioned from the inside."
"That is good to know."
Rarity directed Element of Empowerment onto the cloud floor beneath Blueblood's hooves, and instead of enhancing its sturdiness, she rapidly enhanced its intended softness. The disgraced Duke squirmed in its stiff armor as he began sinking, and in no time, he fell through while uttering a girlish scream. For good measure, Rarity closed the hole, and enhanced its stiff structural stability.
"How are you doing there, Pinkie darling?" Rarity asked.
Pinkie sat on a table drinking down a bottle of crystal berry ale. She had finished tying up a bruised and beaten Flim and Flam, and then she chucked an empty bottle at Flim's horn.
"A-okay, Rari-sister!" Pinkie saluted.
"We do not have much time left," said Rarity. "The guards may come soon, possibly sooner if Blueblood alerted them. Be a dear and assist me with using this 'computer' contraption over here."
"Okie dokie lokie!"
Sewing machines and looms were the extent of Rarity's technological aptitude, and while she was indeed a unicorn, everything aside from her trained telekinesis might as well be magic to her. Slowly she stroked her hoof across the glass "touch-screen" with no direction in mind, while Pinkie Pie, given that she lived in a civilization brimming with technology, zipped through screen to screen quite expertly. To Rarity, Pinkie was the Magisister, and it made her feel a bit envious.
That was until one of the gyro machinations came to life and spun its propellers towards the ceiling before exploding on impact. Rarity was sure she was not the cause as she had stopped using the computer a while ago, and she could see the guilty smile on Pinkie Pie.
"Didn't mean to do that," said Pinkie.
"Are you sure you know how to use this thing?” asked Rarity.
"I know how to rig remote explosives, so it should be similar. Watch!"
She pressed a button, and the Crystal Tank turret fired a shot at a wall.
"Okay, stop touching any more buttons!" Rarity cried.
"Okie dokie lokie!"
Then she accidentally brushed her mane on another. A drawer in front of Rarity popped out and knocked the wind out of her. Curse this infernal technology!
"Um, Rarity," said Pinkie. "I found Fluttershy's Tele-Orbs."
"You have?" asked Rarity. "We can use them to signal for Twilight and the others to rescue us."
"About that... On that screen over there, we got a pair of baddies in front of our door."
Rarity looked up to the monitor on the corner. She did not understand how it worked, but it was like remote viewing magic practiced by the Magic Corps back at the Empire. No mistaken that there were two pegasi guards, one tall one and one short one, right outside the door, and each one were garbed in dark blue armor.
"Come out now!" cried the taller pegasus guard. "Or we'll use force to take you down!"
Pinkie leapt over and grabbed one of the crystalline artillery shells she held above her head.
"Come and get us!" she cried. "Also, you smell!"
Even if they were the enemy, that was a rude thing to say. But Pinkie was right. They did smell bad, and it almost made Rarity want to throw up.
Applejack did not have time to give any sort of parting words to Spike and the others as they rode the furnished slave skiff back to the Spitfire. She would like to, but that would mean that she and her three companions would not be returning. However, she made her a promise to herself that she would for Apple Bloom’s sake, for the sake of her family, for the sake of her friends, and the sake of the world.
Compared to the other slave skiff, the one Applejack, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Sunny boarded was bare and rickety. Befitting of Pegasopolis and its citizen-warriors, it also smelled like blood.
The stolen slaver skiff whirred painfully as if it had been mercilessly beaten over its years of service, much like the slaves of Pegasopolis. Every step Applejack took to acquaint herself with caused unconfident squeaks and murmurs. The slave hold was further back down the hall, but she dared not venture there to suffer any kind of shock of finding any evidence of brutal torture. Earth knows she had seen enough.
Subconsciously, Applejack sought the warm company of another pony, but she did not realize that Rainbow Dash, in contrast to her normal character, lingered behind the group with lost eyes. By now, she would have already been up ahead at the cockpit, but here she stood softly and timidly scratching the floor with the tip of her hoof.
“Hey, uh,” Dash started, “over at Gaea, is it against the law to marry your cousin?”
“What?” Applejack blushed. “What kinda question is that?”
“It’s just a question, considering that earth ponies are known to be, well, you know…”
“What the hay do you mean? Look, it doesn’t matter if it is against the law to marry your cousin. It ain’t right!”
“Hey, you two!” cried Twilight. “Get over here! We’ve been spotted by Pegasopolis’s soldiers!”
Applejack and Rainbow Dash galloped to the cockpit to where Twilight and Sunny had seated themselves in. The Rebel Mare and the Chroma Pirate took their places in the last two available seats, namely the communications and the navigation workstations. Just as Twilight had said, they spotted a large aerial formation of pegasi soldiers, but none made any move yet. The purple unicorn magicked a microphone from the dashboard close to her mouth.
“My name is Twilight Sparkle, in affiliation with the Chroma Pirates and the Rainbow Falls Rebels,” she spoke. “We are requesting an audience with the Empress Commander and safe passage to Black Cloud.”
Safe was all relative. Pegasi soldiers were known to fight than negotiate, and there was that distant possibility that one hotblooded pegasus would break ranks and attempt to down the slaver skiff with their Atmos Art skills. Surely, Twilight and Sunny had something in plan should the worse happen, being that Rainbow Dash could not carry three ponies all by herself, despite all her boasting that she had done so before. Fighting now or later, Applejack would prefer neither to happen, but after several seconds of unnerving radio silence, no pegasi had directly struck the slaver skiff. The Empress Commander was worshipped like a god in Pegasopolis. She did not need to be present to issue her command. She accepted the group’s request, pitiful before her eyes, through the aerial formation parting themselves to create a pathway for Applejack and her companions to pass through.
There were some daring ones who had gotten a little too close to slaver skiff. Some pegasi flew head on as if attempting to crash their bodies through the windshield, but then quickly pulled up at the very last second. Applejack heard some of them walking on the hull above them. A few of them chuckled loudly, and even banged on the hull as a sign of intimidation. From the looks of it, Applejack saw more variances in their personal armor design of these soldiers. While not as imposing as the Empress Commanders, some had hard angular designs that looked almost robotic, while others had wild designs adorned with bones, skulls, horns, leather, and other pegasus wings.
The Rebel Mare directed her focus at Rainbow Dash sitting across from her in a daydream state. Applejack knew the real question she wanted to ask, but she half pretended to be disgusted. It might be that Rainbow Dash discovered the truth, but with Fluttershy being captured, the urgency had become greater.
Dash did not appear to be altogether worried. There were brief flashes of smiles on her face, followed a few frowns. Eventually, Dash went from being wistful to determined, and she pounded the console in front of her with a proud hoof and a proud smile. It alarmed Twilight and Sunny briefly, and Dash reassured them sitting back with a foolish grin on her face.
“Keep your mind focused, Rainbow Dash,” said Twilight. “We’re almost at Black Cloud’s main docks.”
Applejack might as well be guilty at having distracting thoughts. Ever since she learned the truth of Fluttershy’s genesis from Apple Bloom, she could not stop thinking about herself and Twilight. If magic could create a child from an earth pony and a pegasus of the same gender, then surely it could apply to an earth pony and a unicorn…
Focus on the mission, Applejack.
Gaea has banned same-sex relationships, punishable with life imprisonment…
Focus on the mission, Applejack.
Twilight’s mother was awfully conservative…
Focus, Applejack.
Magic might as well be an advanced form of science, right?
The mission, Applejack!
“Applejack, are you okay?” Twilight asked.
The Rebel Mare nearly fell over when she came to. The slaver skiff had already come to a full stop, and Twilight and Sunny were the first to vacate their seats and lead the way to the port exit. Half-sheepishly, Applejack followed, but Dash caught up to her bosom-to-bosom, making a facial gesture for the Rebel Mare to listen.
“Uh, I know you’re having some dirty thoughts,” said Dash, “but like Twilight said, we gotta focus.”
Dash was the last pony Applejack wanted to hear those words from, and it did little to keep her in focus until she stepped outside of the slaver skiff.
She had seen the demonic silhouette of Cloud 01, A.K.A. Black Cloud ever since they left the Factory, but it towered over her like a titan. This was supposed to be the main entrance to the Grand Hall, but it looked more like mouth of a rabid manticore after it devoured its prey. The outer walls had rows upon rows of blazing bonfires surrounded by dragon and serpent sculptures. Thousands of pegasi soldiers and the under-armored citizen-warriors hovered above Applejack and her friends almost like vultures, hissing and loudly yelling racist insults to the intruders below.
A normal pony would succumb to the pressure and the dread Pegasopolis offered right now, but Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Sunny maintained an erect posture as they trotted into the beast known as Black Cloud. The massive and spiked doors swung open before Applejack’s eyes, and she could hear the raucous voices of the pegasi swell to near-deafening levels. She felt the heat suddenly rise when she followed her friends inside, and though she knew this was a trap, it felt like they were forced to march to their execution. The long walk through the initial hallway also felt similar to the stark stadiums of Gaea where they too held their executions in a similar fashion. While Gaea had their own brand of ostentatious display for the celebration of the deaths of their enemies, Pegasopolis took it to a new level.
The Grand Hall looked more like a stadium, and their bleachers stood nearly twenty floors in height. That would be expected to a nation where all its citizens flew, but Applejack could not help that they suddenly built it for this very occasion. The thousands of citizen-soldiers continued yelling out their insults at Applejack and her friends, like “unicorn cowards,” or “mud pony scum.” The loudest insult she heard was of Rainbow Dash’s name in the most negative of light. Calling her “traitor” did not begin to describe the hate lobbed at the rainbow-maned pegasus, and that was on top of a few citizen-warriors lobbing rotten fruit squarely at her. Some hit her hard, but Rainbow Dash never flinched at their words and their produce. Her eyes had zeroed in towards the center of the Grand hall where on top of a raised circular platform surrounded by an ever-burning fire stood a chained Fluttershy. Towering over it was the throne platform containing the helmeted Empress Commander, Lord Generals Surprise and Flash Sentry, and about a hundred toga-dressed slaves.
Only one path led to the execution platform. When Twilight and the others attempted to use it, the stationed guards blocked them with their pikes. Nearly the entirety of the spectators in the bleachers screamed louder, and several hundred of them leapt from their stands to fly down to deliver their own brand of perceived justice for the honor of Pegasopolis. Applejack and her friends readied themselves for a fight.
Then, with a simple gesture of raising her hoof, the Empress Commander silenced everypony. Such was her power, and such was the respect she commanded. It was so quiet that only the crackles of the ever-burning fire could be heard. She motioned to both her Lord Generals to float down from her throne level to the execution platform beneath her. No other pony accompanied her or met her there. These were Fluttershy’s executioners.
“Welcome back, Prodigal Daughter of Pegasopolis,” the Empress spoke through her dragon-helmet. “I sincerely hope that you’ve amassed an army worthy of challenging my country. If not, then surely you are here to rejoin our holy flock.”
“I ain’t coming back to Pegasopolis as your soldier!” Dash cried out. “I came here to rescue Fluttershy, and I’m gonna kick your flank if you don’t get out of the way.”
“That’s it? No threats to my life? You don’t wish to behead me? Or disembowel my organs? You are weak, Rainbow Dash. I told you before that hatred is the only way defeat me, and yet you cling to pacifist ideals like peace and love.”
“I’ve made friends, and they are a heckuva a lot more powerful than you think.”
“Friends? An Empress has no need for friends! An Empress has no need for love, or even peace! These are the things that make ponies complacent and weak! War and hatred is the only path to stability and survival, and they are the very things that kept the Holy Nation of Pegasopolis standing up against an atheist socialist state of mud-ponies and their useless weapons! I believed letting you live after your first attempt against Pegasopolis would make you realize these ideals, but so far you have learned nothing.
“But it appears that like all prodigal children, they need to be taught the tenets of the world one more time. Fortunately, I can use this pacifistic mare as one my teaching instruments.”
“Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy yelled. “Save yourself! I’m not worth it!”
"Soldiers!” cried the Empress. “Citizen-warriors! You all bear witness to her words! She has resigned her fate to death! Do you all concur!”
“Death to the pacifist!” cried a mare.
“Kill the traitor!” cried another.
“Eviscerate her!” yelled a stallion.
The screams swelled the Grand Hall briefly, and the Empress Commander silenced them with yet another simple gesture of her front hoof.
“You’ve heard them, Rainbow Dash,” said the Empress. “They call for her death, and as the Empress, I shall honor their will.”
Applejack would not be alone if she felt the Empress smile evilly beneath her dragon-helmet. The finality of that smile triggered Rainbow Dash into action. She shot high up above the guards with the pikes, which Applejack, Sunny and Twilight helped to occupy them. The Rebel Mare had already drawn forth her Sword of Truth as the swarm of soldiers descended upon them with bloodlust eyes. She never quite liked Rainbow Dash in the beginning, but Applejack held high respect for her bravery and her loyalty for her friends. She was fast, and if she could stop the execution, it would be her.
But it was too late. There was an explosion, followed by a high-pitch scream echoed the Grand Hall. Applejack glanced past the forest of spears, swords, and pikes to see Lord General Surprise pinning down Rainbow Dash on the walkway before the execution platform. A flame had died down from the Empress’s right front hoof. To the utter horror of Applejack and Twilight, Fluttershy lay slumped on the platform with her severed wings beside her.
For almost a minute, the Empress laughed, and she laughed maniacally. Even amidst this struggle, nopony spoke, and the soldiers gave only the bare minimum resistance against the intruders. The soldiers followed the will of their Empress to the letter, and they were purposely allowing Applejack, Twilight, Sunny, and Rainbow Dash to bask in the sight of the gruesome wing-clipping of Fluttershy.
Then gradually, the laugh changed their pitch and timbre. The heaving motions the Empress became still, and she slowly lowered her eyes towards her victim, whom she thought she would have killed through the shock and the cauterization of her wounds. The unsettling laugh came from Fluttershy, who now had an uncharacteristic smile on her face.
“Why are you laughing?” the Empress demanded.
"I'm laughing because we got you,” smiled Fluttershy.
"We?"