//------------------------------// // 2: We Have Guards for a Reason // Story: SNABU: Situation Normal: All Bucked Up // by RDDash //------------------------------// "Well, that could have been done better!" Princess Celestia shook her head watching clones engaging in a fearsome firefight with gorilla-like creatures. They kept throwing grenades where Pinkies would end up crystalized, the clones returned the favor in kind by slagging them with the autocannon. "I think I just saved you from the terrible fate of becoming a glorified garden gnome. You know, at this point I've spent way too many joint missions during the time when my brother was still in charge of the royal guard. Not only that opponent preferred to use force instead of reason, they were often too arrogant at the thought that they would win and we would lose. "What is the story of that Storm King anyway? Are we talking about a terrorist organization or is that something else?" Princess Luna pitched in, "Well since you've asked from what we could tell from what we could salvage from reports from a joint Changeling Independent group and the Changeling Traditionalists Storm King was mostly kept to himself and building the power base from whoever had been insane enough of living in the middle of the wasteland." "We do have a wasteland?" "Yes, go to the most Southern part of Equestria, and then turn left and walk thirty hoof-miles in a hot scorching desert. The economy there relies mostly on imports where they import pretty much everything from food and water." "Importing? What do they trade back?" "Sometimes exotic goods, sometimes exotic services!" "And by exotic you mean slavery? We do have a city of slavers just living in a close proximity from us." Princess Luna cringed "Don't think about it this way, it's more like whoring out for money. Goods and services are still getting circulated and this is all that matters sometimes. They earn just enough capital from the quote-unquote tourism, to survive in there." "So what would of been our plan B in the worst case scenario if a bunch of a terrorists slipped out from under our radar and basically tried to take over whole Equestria, because apparently, the public image of friendly defenceless pony worked so well that it now got everyone fooled into thinking that we can be just pushed into submission." "Oh, that? The I would of recommendation for anyone who managed to escape to contact our allies hippogriffs." "Hippogriffs? Is that just like a very famous OC on the Internet, wee!" A random Pinkie Pie clone had been pushed all the way into Princesses direction. Immediately Twilight focused her attention on her "Status report?" "Well they managed to push back us deeper into the city and then we started to push them back toward the cliff, then maybe we just could push them off the cliff Spartan style." "Good strategy carry on, soldier." "A little help with the lift?" "Uh, sure! " Twilight grabbed clone with a telekinetic grip and threw her back into a combat. She then turned her attention back towards the three princesses "So Hippogriffs, how are they going to help us?" "Honestly, I am not really sure if the auntie is aware of constantly changing the state of affairs." "What is this supposed to mean Cadence?" Celestia acted out in surprise. "Last time when we interacted with hippogriffs was over seven years ago, and it was during your Reign, then we just forgot about them. I am not even sure how they are going to react to us!" Princess Luna then started to kick everypony else out, "Well I suppose that's is settled then. Twilight with Celestia and other girls will go on the quest to find lost Hippogriffs. I will stay here and Cadence can go back to Crystal Empire!" "Well, actually I wanted to join them too Shining Armor can handle a few things without me!" "Well, that's perfect then! Come on, move along there is no reason for you to stay here!" "Yay! Princess Cadence can join us!" Pinke the real Pinkie was extremely excited. "But what about the clones?" "Twilight I can handle them really easily, besides they already finished to push those anti-bronies to the edge of the cliff! Did I said anti-bronies, what I meant those gorillas!" Ten minutes later The girls plus Princess Celestia, as well as Princess Cadence, had been trotting down the road, Pinkie Pie had been bouncing all around them. "Do you think they need me as the source of cloned material?" "Nuh, they just need a just one of them to mass-produce the others by a multiplier of twos. Like this, from one to two, from two they have four. We now easily do have the force of eight thousand, one hundred and ninety-two of them How much is a legion" said Twilight. "So what now do we have to walk all the way to that city?" "Well, we had to we have about eight hundred words to fill! Also in it, we are going to steal the airship!" "Pinkie, we don't need to steal anything, we are rich we can afford it" "Okie Dokey! Who wants to guess how many words we do have right now?" "Uh!" Rainbow Dash didn't know just what to say, "Okay, I will start there are eight hundred and seventy-six words right now!" "Uh" Rainbow slapped her head with a hoof "I don't know! "Me neither!" Twilight replied. "Come on girls this is easy, there are nine hundred and six words right now!" "Oh, I get it!" Rainbow Dash grinned. "You get what, darling?" Rarity! There are nine hundred and twenty-seven words right now! She starts with there are and pulls the number out of the word editor, right after the counter hits right now! "That, um nice?" Fluttershy offered her opinion. "Yeah well, that's kind of an idea, there are a few issues where information might become inaccurate due to stream editing, but who cares about accuracy. The number is just made up changed constantly. For example, Twilight how many stars are there in the sky right now?" "Oh, no Pinkie I am not doing this again! If this is your goal to cause me to go mentally insane, well congratulations this tactic wouldn't work!" "Oh poo! You are no fun!" Ten hoofs behind them Princess Celestia and Princess Cadence having a slightly different conversation. "I am glad they are having fun! Although I am disappointed that we had to leave early. I was hoping to catch the Songbird Serenade's concert. I promised Shining Armor to get an autograph." "I am pretty sure you will still get the chance. I've made sure that Princess Luna would do everything in her power to delay it until our return." "Oh thank you, Tia, you are the best! Hug?" "Hug!" Celestia agreed and they both hugged. After about ten hours ride to Somnambulla, they were now walking in the scorching desert, with Rarity's assistance Twilight managed to charm eight umbrellas. There was a small magical breeze that's been blowing for each of them, and the average temperature had gone down a bit. "This is quite nice isn't it thanks Rarity for giving me an idea!" "Your welcome Twilight, I am glad I could help." "So what are we going to do now anyway?" Pinkie grabbed Rainbow Dash and waved the hoof over the horizon, "Equiss, the final frontier, These are the voyages of Starship Crusader. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations to boldly go where no pony has gone before." "Pinkie! stop leaking top secret information!" Rainbow grumbled. "Eh, why not? Here I thought that this is the season of the leaks! I mean why can't we just have nice things the way they were meant to be enjoyed! of course, some pony just had to go and ruin it Oh look, its yellow brick road! I guess someone was nice enough to animate it for us." Princess Celestia came close to them, "Well, now I suppose it would be a good idea for me to say this, but Pinkie is correct, we would need an airship, for all of us to be able to travel to hippogriff mountain, this is the deal ladies, make sure to create just enough noise to make sure to flash out anyone who is wishing to do us harm! But still, act friendly enough to gather potential allies. Okay great, now that I summarized everything up we can continue onto our epic adventure!" "So we want bad guys to follow us? Wow, she is savage! Now we all know from whom Twilight learned her trade!" "Why yes Rainbow, Princess Celestia has always been the best chess master!" "Twilight, no offense, but to this day Celestia had always been killing off her Princess leaving the Prince unit completely defenseless." "That's true Rainbow, but one of the pawns always ends up on the furthers edge of the board and therefore promoted into the next Princess. So then the new Princess in a completely savage maneuver is going to defeat the enemy knight, and declare the checkmate." "I imagine we would have to pay the toll to enter the city?" "Yep, that's the idea! Let's get over it as soon as possible!" she then addressed the city guards that were posted on the edge of the yellow brick road "Hi, how are you doing? Its always being sunny isn't it? Anyway, do you take cash or credit?" "Credit would be preferred miss, the new anti-scammer policy you see, and not anyone wants to be robbed! that would be twenty bits toll payment per person miss!" "That's perfect do you accept the Equestrian bank?" "Sure, why not?" "Once again thank you for understanding!" With that Twilight scribbled a few lines on the scroll and levitated it to the guard. "It's being a pleasure having business with you Princess, please consider visiting again!"