Thanks to Thorax’s spell concealing them by making them “unnoticeable,” as Thorax had put it, he and Spike were able to arrive at the Vanhoover airship yard without further delay or trouble, not seeing the city guards again after they’d successfully lost them. But by the time they had landed, Thorax had grown weary from maintaining the spell and was glad to let it collapse. The experimental spell clearly had proven itself to be rather inefficient in practice, draining and requiring more thaums than would be practical. Thorax estimated that he should probably only maintain the spell in no longer than ten or fifteen minute bursts because of it, and wasn’t eager to do it again anytime soon, needing a moment to let his magic recover first. But the important thing was that they arrived at the yard safely thanks to it.
Better still, the employees on duty at the yard seemed unaware as of yet of Twilight’s crusade against them and were more than willing to help them. The clerk at the front desk even recognized Thorax in his disguise as Thornton (already switched back to his usual unicorn appearance), having seen him in the yard fairly often as of late as the changeling worked to get the airship pilot’s license he now held, and was very friendly. She at most seemed surprised to learn that they wished to launch the Vergilius now rather than later that weekend like she knew they were originally planning, especially on such short notice, but didn’t ask questions about it. As the airship yard was presently not especially busy at the moment, she and the rest of the yard staff didn’t foresee a problem with it and quickly set about making the necessary preparations.
This included sending a team of ponies out to the hangar where the Vergilius was parked, so to see to it that the airship was properly filled with the required supply of hydrium lifting gas and the engines were magically charged fully for the planned flight—all a service Thorax had paid and arranged for in advance with consideration for the originally planned weekend flight, and he was glad he had done so, because while he knew enough to do all of this himself too given the needed equipment and supplies, he didn’t have as much practice actually doing it and knew he couldn’t do it as quickly as the yard staff could. And he trusted they would do so effectively and efficiently, enabling them to make their getaway all that much sooner.
In the meantime, a flight plan needed to be registered, which Thorax entrusted with Spike to handle while he turned his attention to one final affair he wanted to do before they left. When asked what sort of flight path Spike should give to the yard staff, Thorax told him it didn’t matter; he didn’t plan to follow it at all, thereby giving their pursuers nothing reliable to follow and give chase with. So Spike arbitrarily chose to file a flight path that would lead to Los Pegasus, mostly following a common airship trade route, making the planned flight seem all that more mundane than it really was. That decided, he then sat down to quickly work out all the needed paperwork with a second but also helpful navigation clerk, this one a stallion who hadn’t met either of them before.
While he did that, Thorax sat with their carry-on supplies at one of a small cluster of simple tables serving as a waiting area within the yard’s main offices, and for the first time since noticing the city guard was in the process of surrounding Fly’s shop, he let his mind wander and think about just how much he didn’t like their situation, inwardly lamenting that they had to leave like this, or leave at all. It especially bothered him that he couldn’t take the time to give proper farewells to everypony he had made the acquaintance of during his time in Vanhoover; Ragg, Monterey at the cheese shop, some of the regular customers at Fly’s shop like the friendly Mrs. White or the kind zebra mare that liked working the most with Thorax because he could speak her native language…he’d even want to give Gervas, the gruff griffon who had led the training cruise Thorax had participated in, a parting farewell, even though Thorax hadn’t seen hide or tail of the griffon since the day of the training cruise. Since he was already at the airship yard, Thorax asked around if Gervas was present and available to speak with, only to be told that today happened to be Gervas’s day off and he hadn’t been at the yard all day.
Thorax especially lamented that he hadn’t been able to give Fly Leaf a proper farewell either, as Princess Twilight’s abrupt return to the shop and Fly’s attempts to stall her so he and Spike could escape had prevented that. He felt that was the most unfair part of all of this, especially after finding out that Fly had known their secret this whole time only moments before. However, despite all of that, he knew there was at least one he still had one final chance to give a proper farewell to, one who deserved it the most but it was also the one he dreaded giving the most—Trixie. Nonetheless, pulling out a free piece of stationery that was offered at the main office’s front desk, Thorax took up a quill and proceeded to write a painful but unfortunately quick farewell letter.
Curiously, it didn’t take much debate for Thorax decide there was only one way he should write this letter; to give in to the temptation he had long been toying with since meeting the stage performer and tell her the truth. So after starting the letter with his customary greeting and acknowledging that this letter would arrive in Trixie’s possession only shortly after receiving an earlier letter Thorax had sent out only the day before, he proceeded to admit that he had not been truthful about his identity to her as gently as he could think to do it. He then didn’t beat about the bush and proceeded to immediately reveal that he was a changeling, what his intentions in Equestria were, and to explain the situation that had led him to this point in brief…and why they now had to part ways.
It intrigued Thorax that once he had started putting down the truth, he couldn’t stop. In fact, he found there was plenty more he wished to tell Trixie, but knew there wasn’t time, so much so that he noted as such in the letter as he proceeded to wrap up, apologizing for this and that he didn’t have more time to write a more carefully thought-out letter than this rushed one he feared it could only come across as. But he assured Trixie that he had never meant harm no matter what other ponies said, and certainly none to her. He then added that he had genuinely and truly enjoyed their interactions and their friendship (the only term he was comfortable to describe it as at the moment, as he still wasn’t certain how else to describe it or if other terms would even be accurate) and that had never, ever, been a deception. He especially lamented that this meant they would not get to cross paths again and meet in person once more like they had planned.
He then proceeded to bid Trixie farewell, the hardest part to write as Thorax very much didn’t want to put the words down, but he forced himself to, and then before he could let himself get too emotional or allow his mind or the hurtful ache in his chest to talk himself out of doing it, he finished the letter, sealed it in an envelope, and left it in a courtesy mailbox the airship yard kept for the use of travelers, effectively sending it on its way. He wondered to himself what Trixie’s reaction to the letter might be, fearing it was going to be a hard blow for her no matter what, but he knew he would never find out as he would never receive a reply from Trixie; he had deliberately not given her any new contact information, explaining that this was for the safety of both of them. Besides…he had no idea yet where he and Spike were going to end up next. He couldn’t give an address for a location he didn’t know he was going to be at, not even for a mobile mailing spell.
He hung about the mailbox sadly for a moment after he had put the letter inside, tucking his hooves into the pockets of his jacket, then, snuffling to himself, he wandered back to the table to sit and wait in silence. A few minutes later, Spike joined him after having completed filing the flight path they both knew they weren’t even going to follow, looking much like how Thorax felt.
“It is done,” he remarked with a depressed sigh as he sat across the table from Thorax, leaning his elbow wearily on the edge.
“Mm,” Thorax grunted, unable to bring himself to say anything more than that. Nothing seemed appropriate, given the circumstances.
A very long moment of silence passed between them, only amplified by the fact that it was already utterly silent in the waiting room they sat in, as there was no pony else present. Even the stallion clerk Spike had been working with had left so to finish his end of the paperwork somewhere else.
“I’m sorry, Thorax,” Spike said finally, breaking the silence.
“As am I,” Thorax replied.
Simple as it was, that seemed to be all that needed to be said to sum up their depressed mood. Both then voluntarily allowed the silence to fall again, hanging heavy over their table as they awaited final word that the Vergilius was prepared and ready to depart, word that by now they were expecting to receive at any minute. The only sound to be heard was the quiet tick of a small clock that sat on the desk of the stallion clerk, still off elsewhere finishing filing the forms for their flight.
It was then that Fly Leaf, panting and out of breath, suddenly came barreling around the corner and into the room at a full gallop. “You two are STILL here?!” she exclaimed in alarm as she hurried up to their table.
“Fly Leaf?” Thorax and Spike declared together in surprise, twisting around to stare at her.
Fly Leaf motioned urgently for them to get to their feet. “Hurry, hurry, hurry, you two need to go, NOW,” she stated in a near panic, looking about the empty room like she was expecting a monster come to eat her was going to jump out at any second.
“What are you doing here?” Spike then asked, still shocked to see her. “I thought Twilight…”
“I escaped,” Fly explained, turning her attention back to them, picking up their bags where they had set them on the floor and stuffing them into their hooves and claws respectively. “But they’re going to notice and come after me at any time now, and I just know that princess of yours is going to figure it out about the Vergilius soon and come down upon this place immediately. I’ve tried to buy us some time by locking them into the shop when I left, but…”
“How will that help?” Spike asked. “You know, Twilight could just teleport around that…”
“Not when there’s a magical ward prohibiting teleportation on the building,” Fly reminded.
Spike blinked, surprised. “Wait, really?”
“Most businesses have such wards in place as an anti-theft measure,” Thorax explained patiently for the dragon’s benefit. He regarded Spike with some mild surprise. “You didn’t know?”
Spike shot him a look. “Do I look like the sort of person who’d be going around, teleporting willy-nilly?”
Thorax shrugged. “Well, teleportation’s overrated anyway.”
“Whatever the case,” Fly urgently interrupted and getting back on topic, “they could be coming after us at any moment! You two need to be out of here well before that happens!”
“We’re still waiting on the ground crew to finish fueling the Vergilius though,” Thorax objected, motioning one hoof out one of the windows in the room that overlooked the actual yard of the facility. “Until they finish…”
“But what happened exactly?” Spike interrupted, wanting details. “You said you escaped?”
“Yes, I tried getting Princess Twilight to listen to the truth, but she wasn’t having it,” Fly explained urgently.
“I had warned you about that,” Spike remarked pointedly as he pulled the straps of his loaded backpack over his shoulders.
“You did, but the point is that she didn’t listen and basically put my whole shop on siege with me in it while she searched for clues or tried to get me to confess.” Fly shook her head. “Look, more importantly, she sent out guards to bar any means of transportation in and out of the city, including grounding all flights here at the airship yard.”
Thorax blinked in surprise. “Really?” he asked as he hesitantly placed his saddlebags on his back. “Then word must not have reached here yet, because everyone here has been more than happy to…”
“Excuse me?” came the voice of the stallion clerk as he strolled back into the room suddenly. He approached their table calmly, but was giving the still panting Fly Leaf a puzzled look. “Who are you?”
“Just a friend here to give a quick farewell before these two leave,” Fly covered quickly and without any hesitation.
“Oh!” the clerk remarked with a brief grin, which was sadly gone again all too soon as he proceeded with bad news. “Unfortunately though, no one is going to be departing for now. I’m afraid we’ve just been told by the local city guard that there is some sort of emergency taking place in the city at the moment, and that we are to ground all flights until further notice. I regret that I don’t have more details, but this means that until they give the all clear, no airships may takeoff or land.”
Thorax pulled a face. “Me and my big mouth…” he muttered to himself.
The clerk only partly heard him. “Pardon?” he asked. It was ignored.
“There must be some exception you can arrange,” Fly pleaded quickly.
“It is sort of an emergency,” Spike added just as quickly.
The clerk, for his credit, looked genuinely apologetic. “I’m sorry, I wish I could do something to help,” he admitted. “But there’s really nothing more I can do.”
Fly heaved a heavy sigh, almost appearing to deflate some. “That’s terrible news,” she admitted glumly.
The next moment she was suddenly upon the surprised clerk, swinging her hooves skillfully as she quickly sought to bring the clerk down with a flurry of guizhou fa moves. Startled, the clerk reacted instinctively to shield himself, managing to block the first few moves, but he was still utterly unprepared when Fly managed to get her hooves upon him and secure enough of a hoofhold on him to slam his head down on Spike and Thorax’s table. Dazed, the clerk was barely able to struggle as Fly, in the blink of an eye, switched her hold on the stallion, putting him into something of a headlock. It was then that Thorax, also caught by utter surprise by the sudden attack, reacted without much thinking to light his horn and fire a stunning spell at the clerk. This resulted in the clerk abruptly going limp and sinking out of Fly’s hooves and onto the floor.
The three of them stood around and stared at the fallen clerk for a second, all a little shell-shocked that this actually happened. “Sorry,” Thorax hissed aloud, lamenting he had to resort to such actions.
Spike threw his claws to the sides of his face. “Are we really doing this?” he asked, incredulous. “Attacking innocent ponies just to get out of here?”
“If you stay, Princess Twilight will find you two, and then where will you be?” Fly reasoned as she stared at the unconscious clerk herself. Her voice had a tone of finality to it, but even she was regarding the fruits of the deed with mixed feelings. “Spike, you were right…it’s not safe for you to stay. Even if it means we have to fight your way out.” She returned her attention fully to her two about-to-be-former employees. “You two need to go,” she repeated. She motioned for the door that led out onto the yard. “Get to the Vergilius and takeoff as soon as you can!”
“What?” Spike declared, his head snapping up to stare at Fly.
“We can’t just takeoff!” Thorax declared. “Because they’ve grounded all flights, we’ll stand out like a sore thumb! The control tower will never—”
“I’ll deal with the control tower!” Fly assured. “You two get to that airship!”
“But there were a group of workers out there servicing her!” Spike objected. “They’re probably still out there in her hangar—they’re not just going to let us aboard!”
“Do whatever you need to get aboard,” Fly said, then abruptly pulled the two close and into a hug. “I don’t care how we do this. But this is the last chance either of you are going to get to escape, or else that Twilight Sparkle is going to catch up and have her way with the pair of you…and neither of you deserve what she has planned…and I’m not about to let her have the satisfaction.” She pulled back again. “Now…about how many ponies would be in this group of workers?”
“I don’t know for certain,” Thorax replied, a little taken aback by Fly’s show of affection. “But I would guess about anywhere between five to seven.”
“Do you think you can successfully subdue that many on your own?”
Thorax thought about it tactfully for a moment. Spike was shaking his head almost immediately, but Thorax wasn’t so quick to rule it out. “Maybe if we were to surprise them…”
“Surprise them then,” Fly said. She sighed. “Look, trust me, we can pull this off, but we won’t be if we keep discussing this because we literally don’t have time. So get going! Now! Leave the rest to me.”
And after giving them both a nudge for the door, she turned around herself and galloped out of the room in search of the control tower, soon out of sight yet again. Spike and Thorax exchanged glances briefly, both having mixed feelings about what they were going to attempt, but both opted not to dwell on it and did as Fly instructed. They hurried for the door leading out onto the yard, and within moments were running across it, heading from the main offices towards the hangar the Vergilius was docked inside of, located to the side of the main yard. They proceeded through the first half of the run in silence, but then Spike’s misgivings started catching up with him.
“Do we even have a plan on what we’re going to do once we arrive?” he asked Thorax aloud.
“No clue at all,” Thorax admitted without hesitation, looking like he knew this was all far less than ideal.
“Oh good, so we’re both on the same page then,” Spike sarcastically replied.
“Just don’t let them catch you,” Thorax advised, the most of a plan he could offer at the moment.
Entirely too soon and before they were really ready to be, they were at the hangar in question. Thorax led the way to the nearest entrance, a pair of double doors set into the side of the building near its front. Pressing himself close to the side of the building, he silently motioned for Spike to wait beside him and to keep quiet before moving to the door and, carefully and slowly, nudging it open just far enough to steal a peek at the hangar’s interior within. Inside, he could see the Vergilius docked in its berth, looking the same, sleek and elegant, as the last time he had seen it, except now her envelope was more filled, the lifting balloon looking plump and taunt as well as free from its restraining slings so to float freely above the craft. Gathered around the still tethered craft however, working with pieces of equipment while chatting amongst themselves, were a small party of ponies. They did not notice Thorax peeking at them from across the large interior of the hangar.
Spike couldn’t see from where he was, but he saw Thorax wince at the sight of them. “The workers are still in there, aren’t they?” he asked softly.
Thorax nodded. “I think they’re in the middle of putting things away now, but I can’t be sure.”
“How many are there?”
The disguised changeling quickly did a headcount. “I see about six, but I can’t see the whole hangar from here.”
“So what do we do?”
Thorax glanced about real quick. He noticed a stack of metal pails sitting a couple feet down from the door and levitated one over for Spike to take. “We’re going to have to do what I’d rather not do if we could’ve.” He kept his horn lit after Spike hesitantly took the pail, preparing a stunning spell he could fire quickly and repeatedly while gearing himself up against the door. “We’re going to have to go in attacking.”
Spike gulped, understanding why Thorax had given him the bucket; it was meant to be an impromptu club if needed. “Oh boy,” he murmured aloud.
Thorax took a deep breath then let it out again in a slow whoosh. “On three, okay?”
Spike forced himself to nod, not feeling good about what they were about to try. “Okay.”
“Okay then…one…”
Spike made himself ready to sprint, figuring he ought to go in running, and took on what he hoped was an aggressive-looking battle stance with the bucket.
“…two…”
Thorax wiped sweat from his brow before pressing his hooves against the double doors, getting ready to throw them open.
“…three.”
Thorax threw the doors open with a loud clang and the two immediately ran into the hangar side by side, as fast as they could. Both were yelling at the top of their lungs as they ran, partly because it seemed like the thing to do in an assault charge like this, and partly because they were scared witless by what they were doing. Naturally, their yelling, echoing and booming out within the expansive interior of the hangar, immediately drew the attention of the six visible workers, all of them turning to stare at the two racing towards them nearly at the same time. The stare was incredulous and for a split second, none of them did anything except watch their attackers charge, clearly not knowing how to react. One at least managed to shout out something along the lines of “who the hay are they?” but that was about the full extent of their lack of action in that split second.
By the time any of them started to move and react though, Thorax, having given up trying to take aim at each individual target while galloping like this, started firing off stunning spells randomly and as fast as he could up and down the length of the hangar, trying to flood the space with as many fired stunning spells as he could at once in hopes that would increase his odds of hitting the desired targets. And reckless though it was, the spells quickly downed the first few workers as hoped while inciting panic in the remainder, leaving them too uncoordinated enough to find adequate shelter and soon were stunned too. The rest of the fired spells simply struck either the Vergilius or the hangar’s far wall in harmless bursts of colored sparks. By the time Spike and Thorax arrived at the spot most of the workers had been gathered, all of the apparent workers in the hangar had been struck by at least one stunning spell and were now all sprawled out and limp on the floor before them.
Spike slowed to a stop as he reached the closest worker, letting his loud yell trail off and the pail he hadn’t used hang loosely at his side. “…oh,” he concluded as he gazed down at one of the downed workers.
Meanwhile Thorax was hurriedly looking around the hangar, confirming they had indeed downed everyone here, thinking that this was a little too easy and deeply afraid there was somepony they had missed. He was proven right when he caught sight of a pony bolting out from behind the Vergilius’s prow and making a mad dash for the exit, no doubt hoping to raise the alarm. Thorax jumped in surprise at him and was briefly caught off guard.
“Spike!” he declared, pointing in the direction of the fleeing pony as Spike had his back turned at the time the pony revealed himself and hadn’t yet noticed him.
Spike whipped around to look at the fleeing stallion, already a good couple feet away from them, and did the first thing he thought of; throwing the metal bucket still in his claws in the stallion’s direction. The pail sailed upward in a very high arc, so much so that for a moment it was unclear it would actually hit the stallion or stop him in any meaningful way from reaching the exit. Indeed, he was more than halfway to the double doors leading out when the bucket started to come back down again. For a fleeting second, Spike and Thorax thought for sure that the stallion would outrun the bucket before it finished coming back down, enough that Thorax was fumbling to ready a stunning spell again as he had foolishly allowed his horn to go dark again. But Spike’s aim proved better than they both thought, and the bucket came down perfectly in time to strike the stallion in the head with a loud clang. The impact being painful, the stallion slowed and veered off course for a second to clutch at his aching skull, just long enough for Thorax to fire off another stunning spell so to finish the job.
A long moment passed as the two stood in silence, gazing about the hangar floor now littered with unconscious ponies, somewhat out of leeriness that something else would still go wrong or there was still somepony else still they had missed, and somewhat appalled that they were the ones responsible for the attack that had downed these ponies.
Thorax succinctly summed up why with a simple statement. “This isn’t going to help anypony’s views of us,” he murmured, starting to feel ashamed as he gazed at the closest of the fallen workers. The thought he knew they weren’t harmed and would make full recoveries once the stunning spells had worn off didn’t seem to help soothe this any.
“It’s Twilight’s own fault, she drove us to this,” Spike grumbled in response, a little more unrepentant once he had that in mind. “Again, I might add.”
The mention of Twilight reminded Thorax of the danger they were still in and the time rapidly running out, and he quickly gazed about the hangar once more. He had kept his horn alight this time, ready in case any other missed ponies revealed themselves, but it seemed they had successfully cleared the hangar now. “We need to keep moving,” he murmured and turned to Spike, pointing a hoof at the large hangar doors at the front of the structure, currently closed. “Spike, go open the hangar doors. I’ll go aboard and make sure the Vergilius actually is prepped enough for flight, or we’re in more trouble than we already are.”
“Right,” Spike said and turned and ran for the large doors.
These doors were manually-opened unidirectional sliding doors composed of six smaller door panels, positioned so that each panel slid overtop each other as the door opened until all six panels tucked neatly out of the way at the far end of the hangar. Once unlatched, which Spike needed only a moment to figure out, the doors were built to be easy to move, and the tracks they hung from were well-oiled so to aide in this intent. Regardless, Spike struggled initially to get the doors moving, finding that he lacked the same sort of arm strength the airship yard’s ground crews would have, and he had to strain quite a bit to get them to start moving. Luckily, once they got rolling, their own momentum helped to carry them further better, making it easier for Spike to keep the doors rolling open.
Meanwhile, Thorax hurried aboard the Vergilius, promptly heading into the air yacht’s interior. Keeping his horn lit and a stunning spell at the ready, the first thing he did was quickly glance through the craft and make sure nopony had been aboard and safe from being stunned like the rest of the crew of workers lying unconscious outside. He was immensely relieved to find this was not the case, the airship empty of anyone but himself, and there wasn’t really any good place to hide one’s self aboard the ship beyond the main general-access compartments so he could be quite confident of this.
That done then, he hurried back to the yacht’s helm and began switching things on and checking gauges on the airship’s controls, anxiously wondering just how far the worker crew had gotten in prepping the Vergilius before receiving word to ground all fights. He was again relieved to find that the engines had been fully magically charged, and the ship loaded with more than three-fourths of hydrium lifting gas, more than the needed minimum for prolonged flight (meaning he had a little extra to work with in case of an emergency). She had even been loaded with a small starter supply of regular air and water to serve as ballast even though the Vergilius bore intakes so she could take in such supplies in-flight. Their odds for pulling this unauthorized flight were continuing to improve.
Thorax threw off the saddlebags he had been carrying and tossed them into an empty corner of the deckhouse to sit for now, hurrying through a quick pre-flight check so to finish prepping the craft for takeoff. He was wrapping up as Spike finished opening the hangar doors and was dashing back to the Vergilius’s gangplank. Thorax moved to meet him on the plank so to give him further instructions, seeing Spike was all he had for any sort of a ground crew, but both were brought short when one of the devices the workers had left sitting nearby suddenly let out a crackling noise, revealing itself as a radio on a wheeled stand.
“Hangar nine, this is control,” the radio transmitted, broadcasting the formal voice of a stallion radio operator. “We see you’ve opened doors for takeoff prep and request updates. Reminder, we have been ordered to ground all flights, repeat, all flights are grounded until further notice. Do not continue with takeoff prep at this time. Please confirm, over.”
Spike and Thorax both shot glances out the open hangar doors and at the control tower that could be seen from here across the yard, next to the main offices. As designed, the operators within had clear view of everything taking place in the yard and could see signs of Spike and Thorax’s activity from here. Fortunately, they didn’t seem aware yet the worker crew had been subdued and hangar operations basically hijacked, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. They needed time and a means to dissuade the control tower’s attention for just a few moments longer.
Motioning for Spike to stay quiet and wait a moment, Thorax trotted down the gangplank and to the wheeled radio, picking up the receiver as he quickly recalled in his mind what the voice of the one worker who had managed to say anything before getting stunned sounded like. “Control, this is hangar nine,” he then spoke into the receiver in the closest approximation of that worker’s voice he could manage given the briefness he had heard the voice be spoken. Fortunately, being a changeling and naturally skilled at voice mimicry aided by radio transmission muddling the quality enough to hide discrepancies, it was hopefully enough for their purposes. “We copy; we are not prepping for takeoff. We’ve opened the hangar doors so to ease in moving some…equipment we have here while we waited for further orders in the meantime, over.” Thorax hoped that would be excuse enough, because he wasn’t sure he could come up with a better one at the moment.
Fortunately it was. “We copy hangar nine, keep us appraised of any new developments, over and out,” came the reply, and then the radio went silent again.
Thorax let out a relieved sigh, but knew the reprieve would be short, especially once they had the Vergilius moving. He would have to speed this along, and that would mean the Vergilius would need to be leaving the hangar under her own power already. He turned to Spike, still standing halfway up the gangplank and hurried back to him. “Spike, I need you to start unhitching the mooring lines. Start with the lines at the center prow, aft, starboard, and port sides, but not the lines at each corner of the ship just yet. I’m going to be getting the engines started and getting us a little positive lift.”
Spike twisted around to stare at him as Thorax slipped past and on up the gangplank. “Wait, you mean we’re flying her out of the hangar under her own power?” he asked incredulously. “Don’t we need to tow her out first?”
“Normally yes, but we’re not going to have time for that!” Thorax grumpily called back as he returned to the control cabin, fully aware that doing this would be like threading a needle and thereby risky; one wrong move and the Vergilius was liable to crash into the side of the hangar door. He wouldn’t even consider it if he thought there was a viable alternative.
This lack of alternatives was reaffirmed only a few minutes later when the radio crackled on again. “Hanger nine, this is control,” the radio relayed. “Be advised that a party of city guards will be en route soon to assist with moving equipment, as they want the yard cleared of crews as soon as possible, over.”
“Thorax!” Spike called, hearing this notice on the radio as he undid mooring lines and threw them up onto the main deck of the airship.
“I heard!” Thorax replied as he came hurrying off the airship’s sleek gondola and back to the wheeled radio, taking on the voice of the worker once more as he picked up the receiver. “Control, this is hangar nine, we respectfully request we belay the assist, we’ve got this nearly handled here and we don’t need more hooves getting in the way, over.”
The response was at least apologetic. “Sorry hangar nine, the city guard is insistent and we’ve been overruled by the officer in command. Assist will still be en route, repeat, assist still en route. ETA five to ten minutes, over.”
Thorax growled as he threw down the receiver and hurried to move back aboard the Vergilius. “I thought Miss Fly said she was going to handle them,” he mumbled as he hurried up the gangplank then started to pull the plank up after him. “New plan Spike, pull all the mooring lines now, as quick as you can! Give me a shout when you get to the last one, and I’ll pull you aboard with it!”
“On it!” Spike called back, upping his pace as he worked to undo the lines tethering the ship in place.
Thorax, meanwhile, resumed work at starting the airship’s engines, and only moments later the engines rumbled to life, though the propellers remained stationary as Thorax had not yet raised the throttle. He didn’t plan to until all the mooring lines had been freed, and stepped out onto the main deck again to assist Spike with that task where he could while the dragon circled the ship undoing the lines from the anchors they were tied to. Soon only the port prow and aft lines were the only ones left keeping the ship anchored, the center port line having already been undone earlier. Spike was just dropping down to start unhitching the prow line when the double doors leading into the hangar burst open for a second time and a quartet of city guards entered, looking shocked to see the sight unfolding within.
“Balani!” Thorax cursed with unusual volume, and without waiting for the guards to make the first move, he ran to the port side of the main deck and started firing more stunning spells at the guards.
Unfortunately, unlike the workers they had stunned earlier and were still left where they had fallen about the hangar, the guards reacted quickly and only one of the guards was struck by a spell…and only a glancing blow at that, not taking full effect. All four of the guards also happened to be unicorns, and as they took cover, they started returning fire. Soon a full-on magical firefight was taking place within the hangar, and worse still, the remaining two portside mooring lines Spike needed to undo were on the same side of the craft that faced the attacking guards. Knowing he couldn’t delay the task though, he narrowed how much of a target he was by throwing himself onto the ground and proceeding to gingerly pick the mooring line free from that position. This allowed him to be largely overlooked by the attack guards, who instead focused their attention on Thorax, the disguised changeling appearing the greater threat as he was actively attacking back.
Once Spike got the prow line freed though, he found he still had to stand for the next part, so grabbing the line and pulling it free from its anchor, he jumped up and hurled it up onto the main deck in as much of the same motion as he could muster before dropping low again. This one motion was risky enough though, as at the same time he did this, two stunning spells fired from the attacking guards and meant for him narrowly missed the dragon within inches to instead harmlessly strike the Vergilius’s beige-colored hull. Thorax retaliated by managing to down one of the guards, the same one he had only grazed earlier, this time knocking out the guard for good.
Needing safety still and one more line still needing untethering, Spike dove for the wheeled radio sitting beside the ship, tucking himself into a ball as he rolled behind the radio, using it as a shield. Again, he narrowly missed getting struck by spells when he did this, the stunning spells all coming within what felt like centimeters of Spike. Even though they still missed, the guards still had pretty impeccable aim to get that close. Nonetheless, Spike was shielded behind the radio, and better still, it was on wheels so Spike could move it aft towards the final line while staying safely hidden behind it.
The guards, to their credit, saw this, knew what Spike was doing, and started focusing their fire more on him, with several stunning spells striking the radio in some shape or form in rapid succession. One guard even attempted to shoot Spike’s feet by firing a spell through the gap between the bottom of the wheeled radio’s stand and the floor, but the gap proved just too small to get through; it sent nothing but harmless colored sparks over Spike’s feet which he only noticed because of the light they cast. It also brought their attention off Thorax even if just fleetingly, giving Thorax enough time to down a second guard with a stunning spell, cutting their attackers in half.
Arriving at the critical final mooring line then, Spike urgently went about freeing it as quick as he could before their problems got even worse, and with a hard jerk, the line was undone. “Thorax, go!” Spike bellowed to the changeling on deck, giving him the all-clear to proceed, though Spike didn’t yet know what Thorax would do.
Thorax’s response was to immediately turn and run back to the control cabin, stick his head through the door and quickly throw the throttle lever upwards. The airship’s propellers immediately spun to life, and a second later the Vergilius started to surge forward. Still holding onto the final mooring line in his claws, Spike soon found himself nearly getting dragged along behind the craft. This and the craft’s port stern elevator fin nudging the wheeled radio out of the way brought Spike back into view of the two remaining guards and drawing the focus of their fire again.
“Help!” Spike called in a growing panic, running behind the slowly accelerating ship as he dodged the guards’ fire and used a parkour move to vault himself onto the yacht’s elevator fin.
Thorax was immediately at the railing above him again, first firing off a stunning spell that successfully downed a third guard before grabbing the final mooring line Spike was dearly holding onto the end of. “I’ve got you!” he called as he quickly hauled Spike up onto the safety of the main deck. The moment he did, he pushed himself and Spike back down behind the railing to dodge fire from the sole remaining guard, but then Thorax poked his head back up and fired back, finally stunning the last of the quartet of attackers.
They had no chance to bask in the victory though as Spike, panting from the exertion of getting himself safely aboard, noticed the Vergilius was starting to drift dangerously to one side of the open hanger doors. “Thorax…” he said in warning, tugging on his friend’s shoulder and pointing ahead of them.
Thorax only needed a glance to see the problem, racing back to the deckhouse again, Spike following right behind him, and grabbed the ship’s wheel in his hooves, giving it a jerk in the opposite direction. The Vergilius veered back on course, hanging very far to one side of the open hangar doors, but far enough away to successfully start to clear the hanger and venture out into the open yard.
It was then that the Vergilius’s own radio started to crackle with chatter. “Airship Vergilius, this is control, you are not cleared for takeoff,” came the command from the control tower, who could no doubt clearly see what was taking place. “All flights are grounded until further notice. Repeat, do not take off! Stand down and cut engines immediately, over.”
“Don’t answer,” Thorax instructed Spike as he focused on piloting the airship the rest of the way out of the hangar, the most he could think to do at the moment.
Spike had no intention of responding, not seeing how responding would help any. Nonetheless, this didn’t make it any easier to ignore the radio as it continued to spew out commands from the control tower. “Airship Vergilius, you are ordered to stand down and cut engines, please respond immediately, say again, respond immediately!”
The control tower was still the least of their problems anyway, because as the air yacht pulled free of its hangar and Thorax upped the throttle higher now that they had room, the city guard proved to be in greater numbers at the airship yard than first thought when a squadron of pegasi guards rose to the sky from the other side of the yard and started to surge towards the Vergilius in an assault formation.
Spike quickly saw there were too many for them to fight off on their own this time. “What are we going to do about them?” he asked with concern.
Thorax pulled Spike in front of the ship’s wheel and moved to exit the control cabin. “Take the helm,” he told the dragon.
Spike immediately blanched at the idea, not confident he could steer the ship. “But…”
“Just keep her steady!” Thorax instructed as he galloped across the craft’s main deck towards its nose. Dropping his disguise so to free up as much magical power as he could muster, the changeling bounded up the yacht’s bowsprit then lit his horn and pointed it at the oncoming squadron. “I swore I’d never use this spell,” he muttered in dismay to himself as he charged the changeling spell in question, one of the more undesirable ones he had been taught back at the hive.
A ball of brilliant cyan magical energy grew at the tip of his horn, which Thorax held there before spitting a glob of changeling gel from his mouth and into the ball, the gel vanishing within the cyan energy. He then fired it off in the direction of the squadron like a meteor, aimed for the center of the rapidly approaching group. There still being a good distance between them and the Vergilius though, so all the members of the squadron saw it coming and almost lazily broke formation, allowing the magical burst to fly harmlessly between them, at no risk of any of them being directly hit by it. Precisely as Thorax hoped they would. Once the burst had flown as far as into the middle of the squadron’s ranks, it abruptly turned emerald and burst into a series of smaller and far faster bursts that homed in on each member of the squadron before they could react. A ball of familiar changeling gel, having been replicated by the spell to several times the amount Thorax had originally spat into it, formed around each of the pegasi immediately on impact with the smaller bursts, ensnaring them within.
As this gummed up their wings, that alone was enough to take them out of the air, the pegasi helpless but to let themselves fall to the ground. But each blob of changeling gel ensnaring them was also magically charged with a stunning spell, strong enough that each guard were quickly knocked out shortly after impact as well. Limp and unconscious, the guards then all tumbled down to the yard below where they impacted with thuds. As a live pony is more useful to a changeling than a dead one, the impact with the ground was cushioned by the gel surrounding each pony, causing them little to no additional harm. But once on the ground, the gel quickly hardened, pinning each pegasus to the ground, unable to move if they weren’t already unconscious.
As effective as the spell was, it was also a power drain, and the strain of casting it, especially as he wasn’t as practiced at casting it as other changelings due to his distaste for the spell, left Thorax feeling momentarily drained and light-headed. He wobbled slightly on his hooves, but quickly shook it off and surveyed the results of his spell, immensely pleased to see that it had effectively stopped the whole squadron of city guards, which was good because he wasn’t certain he could repeat it any time soon. He then switched to quickly scanning the airship yard for any other potential attackers. Instead, he saw sizeable wagon loaded with two tanks full of hydrium lifting gas sitting in the middle of the yard, the duo of ponies who had been working it quickly fleeing the scene as the Vergilius rapidly closed in on it, the air yacht still flying close to the ground and was low enough that it would hit the wagon in mere moments unless it raised its altitude.
Thorax quickly spun around to look back at Spike in the control cabin steering the craft, the dragon visible through the car’s forward viewport. “Spike!” he called urgently. “Take the altitude control lever and raise it up until you’ve heard it click three times, hurry!”
In a panic and only loosely familiar with the many flight controls that lay before him at the ship’s helm, Spike’s eyes flew over them, searching for the right lever. “Uh, uh,” he uttered with growing alarm before spying a label underneath a lever marked in bold letters: ALTITUDE. Quickly, he grabbed it and pushed it upwards, the lever making a regular clicking noise as it moved.
He stopped after he had heard it click three times as instructed, but the Vergilius’s nose was already starting to rise before he had done so, lifting the airship to a higher height. At the bowsprit, Thorax watched in concern as the wagon slid towards them before breathing a sigh of relief as the Vergilius sailed above it, the underbelly of the craft’s boat-like gondola skimming just above the abandoned wagon. Thorax then straightened, grinning a little in his relief before the grin turned into a chuckle then a full-on laugh of gleeful victory as he watched the craft continue to rise into the air. He was struck suddenly by how the Vergilius, his own airship, was airborne again and it felt glorious.
“Iterum Vergilius volat!” Thorax crowed suddenly in his native language. Hearing the shout from the ship’s helm, Spike couldn’t help but grin to himself at Thorax’s excited cry, knowing enough linguae mutationis to translate the sentence in his head: the Vergilius flies again.
Starting to rise out of the airship yard entirely and seeing they weren’t in the clear just yet still, Thorax retreated back to the helm, not bothering to restore his disguise seeing all pretense of their covers was already long ruined by now. He took control of flying the ship again, which Spike happily surrendered, and started to turn the air yacht about in preparation for setting a course out of the city. As he did so, he could hear the radio continuing to crackle with orders, becoming increasingly panicked, from the control tower.
“Airship Vergilius, land and cut engines immediately, repeat, land and cut engines NOW!” the transmissions were ordering. “You are not cleared for takeoff! Failure to comply and we will deem you rogue and will have authorities pursue for immediate arrest! I say again, you are not cleared for takeoff, please comply immediately!”
Thorax glanced at the radio with a concerned frown. “That just leaves the control tower,” he murmured, not knowing what to do about that.
Spike turned his focus towards the control tower itself, peering at it through the control cabin’s side window. “C’mon Fly,” he murmured to himself, “it’s your turn now…”
“Airship Vergilius, please comply!” the chief radio operator fruitlessly said into the radio receiver again. “I repeat, please comply!” He waited for a moment for any sort of a reply, but could only helplessly sigh when all he got was the soft static of an empty line. “It’s no use sir, there’s no response of any sort. I don’t know if they even have their radio switched on to hear us.”
The tower commander, who was watching the Vergilius rise and depart with growing concern through the wide windows of the control tower, decided he’d had enough. “All right then, we’ve got no other choice.” He turned to another pony working in the room. “Nav, get downstairs and alert the authorities then have a ground crew prep one of the training airships in hangar three for immediate takeoff so we can give chase and stop these guys, quick as you can.” The pony, Nav, nodded and turned for the tower’s exit while the commander turned back to the radio operator. “Ham, keep trying. Let’s at least have it on the record that we gave them plenty of warning.”
“Yes sir,” the operator, Ham, replied and resumed trying to raise the Vergilius on the radio.
Nav, meanwhile, arrived at the tower’s exit in time for a mare coming the other way, bearing a tray of steaming coffee cups. “Coffee break!” she announced cheerily as she entered.
“Oh thank Celestia, I needed this,” Nav remarked as he promptly stopped to scoop up the closest of the cups. “It’s gone all tartarus up here though, so I can’t stay and talk…” he trailed off as he started to get a good look at the mare, not recognizing her. “Hey wait, you aren’t the—”
He was cut short when the mare suddenly swung the tray of coffee into his head.
“Airship Vergilius, this will be your final warning!” the radio aboard the rogue air yacht continued to broadcast as Spike and Thorax tensely listened. “Land and cut engines! Failure to comply will—what the hay?”
Spike and Thorax both snapped their heads in the direction of the radio, surprised by the sudden exclamation and by the sounds of banging, shouting, and crashes that followed for the next moment. Then the transmission suddenly fell eerily silent. Not sure what to make of this, Spike and Thorax exchanged hesitant glances, their brows furrowed, as they silently attempted to piece together what had just transpired to themselves.
Then the radio clicked and a familiar, feminine, voice began to be broadcasted from the radio. “Airship Vergilius, this is the control tower speaking, do come in.”
“Fly Leaf?” Spike and Thorax declared together, exchanging glances of surprise once again.
Spike then immediately all-but flung himself for the radio’s receiver so to send back a response while Thorax grabbed a spyglass from a nearby drawer and, holding it to his eye, used it to peer at the control tower in the distance. Magnifying it, he could just make out Fly Leaf standing in the window and appearing to be waving at them.
“Fly Leaf!” Spike all but shouted into the radio’s receiver as he transmitted back a reply. His relieved joyfulness was clear in the tone of his voice. “What are you doing on this line?”
“Well, everypony else here in this control tower suddenly became…preoccupied,” Fly explained cryptically. It didn’t take much imagination for the two to picture what she meant though, especially after the demonstration of her guizhou fa skills eariler. “So I hopped on to tell you that you’re clear to head out, and to wish you two safe travels!”
Spike let out an overjoyed laugh at this, but Thorax, having set aside the telescope, levitated the radio’s receiver over to where he stood at the ship’s wheel. “Miss Fly, not to sound unappreciative for this, but they aren’t going to let you get away with what you’ve done,” he pointed out seriously, not batting about the matter like Fly had done.
Fly immediately shrugged that matter aside though. “Never mind about me,” she stated dismissively. “You two focus on getting out of Vanhoover. Besides, you two needed the help, and so I assisted in the best way I could. If it means you two can still go free for at least another day…then that’s all that matters, right?”
Thorax was quiet for a moment. He exchanged a glance with Spike, both of them touched by what Fly had done, both realizing what this would mean for her. “Thank you, Miss Fly,” Thorax finally stated into the receiver, speaking truthfully and earnestly for the pair of them. “For everything.”
“The pleasure’s been all mine, boys,” came the impish response, but her tone quickly turned serious and sullen. “Please stay safe.”
Spike reached up to take the receiver from Thorax. “We will, Fly,” he told her firmly. “We promise.” He frowned, voice cracking as his emotions started to get the better of him. “You take care, Fly.”
“You too, Spike and Thornton,” Fly replied, sounding a little emotional herself. “You too.”
Then with a click, the radio went silent once more. This time it remained that way. And as Thorax solemnly spun the ship’s wheel, turning the Vergilius about to speed away northward for the city’s border and for lands beyond they did not yet know for certain where they were heading for, Spike went to the rearmost window of the deckhouse to watch the airship yard, and Vanhoover surrounding it, shrink smaller and smaller as they flew farther and farther away from it.
By the time Twilight, Applejack, and the many city guards they had brought as backup to storm the airship yard for the missing runaways arrived, it was all well over, and the Vergilius and all aboard her were long gone from sight. Because of the city guards already at the yard and the crew of the control tower had all been knocked unconscious, and all other staff had been cleared from the yard prior to the hijacking precisely because the airship yard had been ordered to ground all flights, no one had clearly seen in what direction the air yacht had departed in. An educated guess could be made of course, and the city guard was sent out to interrogate any city inhabitants in the streets who might have seen the Vergilius leaving for more information, but Twilight was already fairly reasonably sure that whatever direction they had left the city in was a false trail—no doubt they would already be heading off on a notably different course so to throw off pursuers by now, and it was obvious that the flight plan that Spike and the changeling had filed would also be false for the same reasons.
The city guard quickly crewed a couple of spare airships at the yard and set off in search for the Vergilius, but the search was beginning very belatedly, and with consideration for the head start the Vergilius had, it was going to be difficult to pick up its trail again, especially without a solid idea what it’s course had been and where it might be heading now. And with the evening wearing on and the sun sinking towards the horizon, the light needed to aid in the search would be gone all too soon. It altogether felt entirely too much like how Spike and the changeling had given them the slip before when they fled the Crystal Empire by train, and it inevitably felt a bit too much like they had successfully given their pursuers the slip once again.
Unsurprisingly, Twilight was not happy about this, so much so she rather uncharacteristically began to venomously harangue the unlucky pony that had been elected to inform her about all of this immediately, and perhaps would have gone on for some minutes had Applejack not quickly intervened, reminding her that chewing out the messenger wasn’t going to help. So Twilight instead turned her attention to heading to the control tower in hopes of getting answers, marching irately up the stairs to the top with Applejack and a pair of city guards in tow.
She arrived at the top to find a city guard already waiting for them, standing guard over the scene while awaiting further orders, and every member of staff that had been working in the tower knocked out and sprawled out on the floor, all in manners similar to how the three guards had been knocked out at Fly’s shop—currently unconscious but still not hurt in any meaningful way. Spilt coffee and broken cups littered the floor in-between them. But most condemning of all was Fly Leaf casually sitting in the middle of everything, patiently waiting for Twilight’s arrival while supping the one cup of coffee that hadn’t gotten spilled in the scuffle.
“Good evening, princess,” Fly greeted with an infuriating amount of cheery smugness as Twilight entered the room, the others following behind her. “I’d offer you a cup of coffee too, but…” she glanced down at the spilled beverage all over the floor around her. “…unfortunately, it seems all the rest got spilled.”
Twilight spent a moment to take in the room, moving her head minimally as she let her narrowed eyes do the looking. She then slowly and deliberately approached Fly, making her ire very clear in her body language. Fly seemed completely unfazed by it, which didn’t help Twilight’s mood in the slightest. “I suppose you’re going to tell me absolutely nothing about where they are or where to find them,” she deduced in a low and cold tone, already guessing the direction this conversation would go.
“Nothing except where to stuff it, your highness,” Fly confirmed without the slightest hesitation, still using that cheery tone.
Twilight’s eyes narrowed further still. “You,” she said with deliberate venom, “have been a very naughty pony.”
Fly calmly set down her cup and held out her forehooves, offering them to Twilight. “Then you’d better arrest me now before I do it again,” she stated with finality, the cheeriness of her tone tainted by the implied threat in her words.
Twilight glared at Fly for a long moment, then nodded her head at the closer of the two guards. “Take her away,” she ordered levelly.
The guards nodded and solemnly stepped forward to slap cuffs onto Fly’s hooves and then lead her back downstairs, the third guard following so to take up the rear. Fly remained looking smug and completely unrepentant the whole time. It infuriated Twilight, so she chose not to watch as Fly was led away, instead turning her attention to stare straight ahead and out the control tower windows at the empty airship yard outside. Applejack, however, watched Fly be led away closely from where the country mare hovered near the door. Afterwards, alone with Twilight now, she then turned her attention back onto the alicorn.
“Ya plan ta banish her like ya did with the changeling and Spike?” she asked Twilight simply, her thoughts implied in her tone of voice.
Twilight didn’t answer the question directly. “It’s clear to me that Miss Fly Leaf’s has had enough close interaction with the changeling that it has been able to manipulate and mislead her much like how it did with Spike,” she explained levelly, though somewhat forced.
Applejack was quiet for a long moment. “She’s ain’t lyin’, Twilight. Ah can feel it in my bones. There’s a truth ta be had there.”
“And just what is that truth, Applejack?”
“Ah don’t rightly know, Twilight. Ah’m honest enough ta admit that. But Ah am startin’ ta see a pattern in all of this…perhaps there’s far more happenin’ here than ya’ve been lettin’ yerself see…and that maybe there’s been liddle ta no misleadin’ at all.”
Twilight’s anger, though still expertly controlled, was almost tangible as she glanced back at Applejack finally. “That changeling just assaulted a number of ponies, resisted arrest, hijacked an airship, and took off unauthorized,” she reminded firmly. “How can that changeling not mean to cause harm at this point? How could anyone not see that?”
Applejack gazed knowingly at her friend. “Then fer all our sakes, Ah hope yer absolutely right about this, Twilight.”
She then turned and left the control tower herself, leaving Twilight sitting in the room alone, lost in deeply emotional thoughts as she gazed at the setting sun casting shadows over the Vanhoover airship yard.