Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows


Chapter Two, Airship Mauled: To begin a flight.

-Spitfire-

I was a rising pegasus rookie in the Wonder Bolts and lately… things have been pretty weird in Canterlot since Celestia put the royal guard on high alert. The guard had been catching things left and right all day yesterday. They were putting out previously undiscovered figurative fires all over the city, who the buck would embezzle an orphanages funding? It’s stallions like that that make me despise nobles sometimes.

There were just some things that weren’t right here in Canterlot, then there was the odd stranger that the guards were supposed to be looking out for.

Where did they find this stranger? Escaping from Canterlot Castle under mysterious circumstances. Even I was curious as to what she had been doing there, apparently there were a lot of rumors about the cat and nothing criminally substantial other than badly mussing up Blueblood’s mane while knocking him out with a stomp to the head. A lot of the royal guards would have wanted to thank the being who was unafraid to do that.

As per usual nature of our lands, a spontaneous musical broke out in the streets. Only this one had an interesting beat to it and it was surrounding the singing cat in the cloak running from the guards, I was impressed that she could sing while running like that. The cat even gave Sturdy Spear a fierce knock to the head with his own weapon for trying to slow her down with violence, she even sung a scathing line about the royal guard and she wasn’t exactly wrong.

At least my squad could keep up with her, we even witnessed her stop another crime in progress while the royal guards were still trying to chase her down. I thought it odd that a supposed criminal would stop to put down another one, it got some guards off her butt at least. So I’ll give her a win on that one and some benefit of a doubt that she was a real criminal.

When she was launched onto the roof tops by the… let’s face it, she was a chubby large bulky pony of a mare with a cutie mark of her own face on it. Larger than life that one. We took our chances to try and grab the cat as she jumped across the rooftops. She was unusually agile for her scrawny appearance and the music even had me singing ‘darn cat’ after I slammed into the rooftop trying to grab her.

It was near the edge of Canterlot that the cat did something that got me and many of the other guards angry, the music was hitting a crescendo as she snatched some loose feathers from one of Celestia’s wings. I was now definitely taking that as a personal offense against Princess Celestia, who just looked after the cat in utter confusion. Wasn’t this the unusual visitor that she had warned the guard about?

The cat then had the gall, and even some very large stones, to just jump right off the side of Canterlot. Was she crazy, what was going on? Celestia moved towards the edge while looking worried and we flew up right next to her.

“Don’t worry Celestia, we’ll catch that feather stealing feline before she goes splat!” I turned to my friends and comrades. “Soarin, Fleetfoot, Surprise, Blaze, come on, let’s catch us a cat burglar!”

“No, why would she…!” Celestia’s frightened eyes weren’t on us or me, but on the form still falling through the air and then a bright blinding light shined from the cat and a loud tinkling noise rang throughout the area. It made us all pause and then, the cat was flying on wings made out of pure light as if it was from the sun itself. “W-What… she’s… that’s incredible… I’ve never seen any of them do something like that before!”

“Well of course she chooses now of all times to learn how to fly, let’s move!” I swooped down after the cat with my friends following my lead. Celestia started saying something and I yelled back. “Don’t worry about us princess, we won’t endanger ourselves unnecessarily!”

-Celestia-

I am the sun princess of pony kind, the crown is always so heavy upon my head and my false smile is a rictus that I wish wasn’t needed to appease my little ponies.

“Wait! I-I don’t want you to… hurt…. her…” It was too late, the youthful Wonder Bolts squad was already out of ear shot before I could finish telling them what I wanted and they were after the admittedly strange Abyssinian.

Where had this all gone so wrong? I… I just wanted to talk to the sun priest, not have her arrested! I mean, I might have been a bit too… hasty… in my assumptions that she was here to help me and join my court I admit. Seeing her jumping over the edge of Canterlot scared several years off of me, thanks to my longevity that wasn’t the issue. I didn’t even care that she had stolen some of my loose feathers.

I just… I wanted a friend who knew how the sun truly felt. I never even got the sun priestess’s name or even had a chance to explain myself.

Though I did kind of spook her when she woke up, curse my natural habit to doing naturally awkward things… and that was supposed to be a prank! I… I should have known better. I mean after Sunset… I tried not to remember that. I was blocking out the memories of those once innocent eyes slowly becoming filled with greed that I didn’t curb at all.

There were plenty of moon priests still around and they were waiting on Luna to be free of being Nightmare Moon, they were still telling the very real tale of Luna’s sealing. I even had a prophecy to that effect, one that I had hoped I would be able to handle with some ample help from the young Abyssinian that came to inform me of an airship crashing thanks to that Sonic Rain Boom.

Even if I had stamped out most of the truth of the matter in the public eye, it still bothered me that there was a holiday based around my sister’s fall to darkness. Nightmare Night was my most hated holiday, one that many ponies have come to enjoy.

The moon priests didn’t hate me, but they didn’t want much to do with me either. They were all thestrals, so I could understand why. They were nocturnal and they hadn’t helped Luna a thousand years ago and they regretted failing the princess of the moon every single day since through the various generations.

We shared our regrets. Even if we weren’t too great at working with one another, I still received thestrals for the night guard. They were always Luna’s knights, I shouldn’t even be in charge of them.

I had to find out why the Abyssinian was on the run like that and just what kind of mess my guards had started! I also needed to focus on other things… like Twilight, yes I needed to focus on her and the baby dragon that was born not too long ago. I couldn’t let myself get too caught up in this, even if it was my fault and I had to live with the consequences.

If the priest ever came back, I would approach her personally and apologize for all the trouble that I’ve caused her. I would absolve her of any crimes she may have committed today in her fleeing of Canterlot, it was all… just a big misunderstanding. A misunderstanding I should have paid more attention to, I thought I was better than this after what happened to Luna because of my ignorance.

-Jade-

Well I could say that partially fit into the role of a rogue now, a rogue priest that does what she will! What I’m going to do now is fly and I felt a brilliant song building in my heart with the music. I had expected a different effect, maybe feather falling or I become ‘light’ enough that my fall would have slowed to a safe speed.

I was not expecting wings or another song after the first one, but the magic filling me wanted me to sing again and I couldn’t help it or stop the words from exiting my mouth. I was getting really tired of musical numbers. If you ever come to Equestria, this is what will happen to you even if you aren’t a pony.

“What is this feeling, that I feel~? Am I flying, is this for real~? At least I’m not splattering across the ground and dying~!” I passed under the cloud and suddenly my wings dimmed and started fade until I got back into the sunlight, I had fallen quite a distance thanks to that. Passing under that cloud had weakened my magical wings tremendously. “It appears that my magical wings are really bright~! And they just happen to be made of pure sunlight~! This is certainly not a spell I’d want to use around the time of midnight~. I certainly enjoy this soaring feeling as I burst through the sky~! My heart swells and I feel as if the air itself can tell no lie~. As I feel free, like that all is quite well and that I am happy~.”

“Hey you get back here you stupid crazy cat~. Do you really think we’ll let you get away, especially with stealing the princesses feathers just like that~!” I turned and saw a young yellow furred Spitfire singing to the tune of the whimsical music that had me feeling great. “We’ll show you what us Wonder Bolts can do~. Because we’re a flying team unlike you~! Form up Soarin with Surprise and Fleetfoot with Blaze~. I am Spitfire and I can keep flying for days~! We’re coming for you and you’ll see, that you’re not getting away from them or me~!”

My good feelings were certainly gone now and at least the music wasn’t urging me to sing anymore. Apparently the magic won’t force you if you were upset enough about it, good to know as I turned and started fleeing towards the south with the five Wonder Bolts coming after me.

There was a certain irony of this situation, it was that I had to stay in sunlight or my wings would weaken and become faded making my flying become a crawl. Which was of course, bad. I couldn’t stay too high off the ground either, because when the cast ended… Yeah, I might want to fly as quickly as I can while avoiding the Wonder Bolts.

Spitfire swooped at me and I swerved out of her way. I started to fly lower and towards a lake with that flaming mane on my butt with her four friends flying higher and keeping up with us. Didn’t a goddess control a similar spell like this for her chosen hero?

Well I don’t think I had an auto-pilot like that, also I didn’t know how to fight in the air like this. This was the first time I’ve ever flown before.

I swerved and rolled between several trees and amazingly Spitfire was keeping up with me. I had been slowed down by nicking the shade and shadows too much. She was also using my wake to accelerate at me, her friends were just likely waiting for an opportunity to come at me themselves.

Idea! I swerved towards the lake and skimmed across the lake at high speeds and instinctively straightened out the energy wings on my back. Jets of water sprung up behind me and upon catching the tips of my wings they immediately turned into clouds from the heat the wings were giving off.

I lifted away to see that Spitfire was shaking her hoof at me, she had gotten stuck in the straight line of cloud that I left hovering over the lake.

Spitfire had thankfully lost all her momentum. I’m glad I remembered that clouds were, relatively, solid for winged ponies and I found out that I didn’t really need to flap my wings all too hard to get some height again. I was still moving at an incredible speed as I approached Ponyville, that’s when Soarin and Surprise swooped down and sped up towards me.

They chased me down the streets at high speeds above a bunch of surprised ponies, I tightly swerved and turned corners on a dime. Why did this feel so easy, when flying should have been far more difficult than this? Oh right, I was still using my knife as my magical sustain and it seems to be greatly improving the effects of my cast.

Blaze and Fleetfoot were still flying high, while Soarin and Surprise were literally almost on my tail. I swerved down a street and suddenly, I felt something get shoved into my hands. I looked down at the wrapped up cupcake with a note on it and I looked back to see a smiling Pinkie Pie. Soarin was on his back with his face was covered in the remains of a cupcake and Surprise had stopped to sit down and eat her sugary snack, much to my surprise that she wasn’t continuing pursuit.

I smiled stowing away the cupcake and gave a nod to Pinkie, she just winked at me and stuck out her tongue cheekily. Apparently I had flown by Sugar Cube Corner and she had to have used her Pinkie Sense to set that up. I should do her a big favor sometime later.

I quickly angled upwards sharply and shot towards Cloudsdale, I was veering around patches of shadow from the clouds above me and avoiding my wings being hit with any kind of darkness. I’d try losing the last two Wonder Bolts in the drifty city, I might even see Fluttershy on the way. I just couldn’t stick around, because who knew how long these wings would last me.

Blaze and Fleetfoot were catching up as I reached the edge of the cloud city and I started swooping around the many pillars and other Greek styled cloud architecture. I was trying not to be out the sunlight for too long. I flew over a home and saw Fluttershy talking to Rainbow shyly, I swooped for them.

“Hey Fluttershy, bye Fluttershy!” I had made the poor filly squeak and fall on her back before she got up and looked after me. At least her friend seemed excited about the two Wonder Bolts still trailing after me, I just couldn’t shake them.

Flying between clouds and the houses built out of them, I swerved through air traffic. I even performed a quick loop when they got too close. The two ponies on me just wouldn’t give up, then I had another idea.

I dove down sharply with my claws out and forward, air pressure building up and…

I would like to silently apologize for anyone inconvenienced by this like me and my mom were days prior.

I exploded downwards creating a small Sonic Light Boom that sent my dazed pursuers flying, then I went horizontal and kept going.

It was quite unfortunate for me that I wasn’t built to handle the stress of moving so fast and I was beginning to black out from the pressure of several G's being put on my body.

I was soon the center of a blazing corona of light heading south... and I wasn't exactly in control of it.