Twilight and Spike walked down the path towards Ponyville.
Unlike the last time, there was activity in the town. Quite a bit, actually.
“Well, my castle is still gone,” she said, referring to the crystal behemoth which had shone with its absence the last few times. “But… this looks… better, I think.”
“Yeah,” Spike said. “At least there are ponies in Ponyville this time.”
“And at least we’re not attacked or abducted,” Twilight said, before spotting a familiar figure trotting down with a bounce in her step a bit to their side.
“Cheerilee!” Twilight happily called. “Hey, Cheerilee!”
The school teacher turned in confusion to the unfamiliar voice, but greeted the stranger with a tone befitting the hospitality of Ponyville. “Oh, hello there. New to Ponyville?”
Twilight and Spike didn’t respond immediately, being horrified by what they saw.
Half of Cheerilee’s face seemed to have been torn off. One of her ears was completely missing, staples held scarred and coatless skin in place at the side of her head, an eyepatch covered a clearly empty eye socket, and a heavy-duty bandage was wrapped around where a disturbingly large chunk of her muzzle seemed to be missing.
Cheerilee on her part, just smiled, acceptingly, with just a hint of ruefulness. “Yeah, I know it looks bad, but don’t worry about it,” she said, before walking up and looking closer at Twilight and Spike, her remaining eyebrow rising in surprise. “Are you a dragon... and— oh my, are you an alicorn?”
“Uh, yes, I,” Twilight started, before shaking her head. “Never mind that! Cheerilee, what happened to you!?”
Now Cheerilee was looking with Twilight with a hint of worry. “I’m sorry, do I know you? You have to tell me if you do. The doctors said I didn’t hurt my brain, but I should still keep an eye out for worrying signs.”
Twilight and Spike looked horrified for another moment, before Twilight let out a forlorn sigh. “No, don’t worry about it. You don’t know me.”
Cheerilee looked uncertainly at Twilight, before accepting her words. “Well, alright. Although I would think most ponies would have seen worse by now. I consider myself lucky.”
“Lucky?” Twilight asked in disbelief, and pointed at Cheerilee’s muzzle. “How is that ‘lucky’?”
“Well, I saw a lot worse on the front,” Cheerilee said. “And aside from a few scars, I’m gonna be good as new.”
“Front?” Twilight asked, before realization struck. “You were in… the war?”
“Yep,” Cheerilee said. “I was in the mid-ranks at the ambush at Horseshoe Dale. I was part of the group that covered the withdrawal of the sixth army.”
“You don’t say…” Spike said.
“Mhm. When I first woke up in the hospital and saw myself, I figured I should’ve joined the navy,” she said, before playfully nudging Twilight and blinking at her. “Then I learned that stallions really like a mare that saves her buddies in arms.”
“Oh, haha,” Twilight laughed nervously. “So, uh, there seems to be a lot of activity in town.”
“You don’t know?” Cheerilee asked, and looked at Twilight in surprise. “It’s Grand Admiral Desrochers’ victory tour. We won.”
“Gabe?” Twilight asked. “Is she here?”
Cheerilee eyebrow rose in surprise. “You know her? I know a lot of the Doomtroopers don’t like it when you use that name, but I’ve met her. She likes it. She said she was gonna make sure I was as good as new,” Cheerilee said, and smiled.
“Doomtroopers?” Spike asked.
“Yes, her new military branch? They man the ships?” Cheerilee said. “Wow, you’ve been missing the news,” she said, and pointed to a number of extremely large shapes flying in from the distance. “There they are.”
It was an armada of airships, the large ones being hundreds of trots in length and tall like the town hall, and flanked by packs of smaller ships flying in tight formations, forming a perimeter around the fleet. All the ships were covered by long metallic rods and barrels sticking out of the hulls, forming impressive and intimidating arrays of weapons and cannons.
“That’s the Angel Wings,” Cheerilee said, pointing to one of the larger ones. “That’s the one that picked me up when I was injured, and I’m gonna report to it later to get measurements for my prosthetics.
“And that’s the admiral’s flagship, The Thunder Of Guns,” Cheerilee said, pointing at the largest ship, an absolute behemoth, brimming with gun batteries and cannons, making it look a bit like a giant, upside down porcupine.
There, at the edge, was the admiral, In full dress armor, covered in so many medallions that some of them had to have been transferred to her impressive hat. It looked like a few soon would have to be placed on her eyepatch.
Her legs were all metal, and covered in shining lights, displaying power levels for systems that nopony except the creator would understand, and behind her, a large cloak billowed in the wind.
She calmly waved at the audience cheering from the town square in the distance, though she also kept glancing at the other ship Cheerilee had mentioned, almost eagerly.
“Yeah, this is… better,” Spike said after a while. “But maybe we should try again.”
“... That might be best,” Twilight said, and turned around towards the map.
“You’re not staying?” Cheerilee asked. “There’s a party later. Free food.”
“That sounds lovely. We’ll try and make it back in time,” Twilight said.
“Hope to see you there,” Cheerilee said, the happiness radiating from her face standing in stark contrast with all the chunks missing from it.