//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Catching Up // Story: Terra Invicta // by Sammyboiii //------------------------------// It was yet another quiet night in Canterlot. From her room, Luna could see a few lights which dotted the dark landscape surrounding the capital and those restless enough to remain awake at this hour were all gathered in the pubs that formed Ponyville's southeast district. It was nice to get some fresh air after several hours of work she had done. Luna's room was a nightmare to look at; parchment was strewn across nay horizontal surface that was available. Aboard the marble balcony that provided both of these views stood a blue alicorn. Her coat was splotched with the occasional black ink blot around the mane, which was frizzled almost beyond recognition. What was once an ethereal entity comprised of the very matter of the heavens had become nothing more than navy-blue cotton candy. Her eyes, bearing the weight of the brown bags directly beneath them, began to close shut as the princess started her descent into a deep sleep. But, she couldn't go to sleep just yet. She had closed Night Court after waiting three hours and receiving no complaints from any of her subjects. But that wasn't the only reason. As she re-entered her drawing board of a room, she meandered her way to the other side of it and sat down at her desk. As she did so, she had brushed up against several of the protruding pieces of parchment, creating a quiet crinkling sound. With a soft sigh, she levitated her quill, scraped the bottom of her ink pot, and resumed writing the 57th page of her report. Surrounded by the warm light of her oil lamp, the scratching of her quill against the parchment had resumed while all other slept. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next morning, the sun shone through the stained glass windows adjacent to the ceiling as the courtyard, green and lush with almost every plant species in a 100-mile radius, was easily visible through the windows on ground-level. Within the beams of light, there could be seen dust particles dancing their way through the air. An alabaster alicorn sat at the end of a long, white-silk-covered table. Upon it was a feast of what could only be described as royal; at the center was a large pile of fresh fruit, flanked on either side by stacks of pancakes, bottles of syrup, eggs, and hay-con. Despite all of this, something was missing. Celestia sighed as the chef came to personally deliver the omelet that she had ordered. The chef took note and spoke up. "Your Highness, I hope I'm not intruding but, is something on your mind?" Celestia snapped out of her daze and turned to head to the chef. Smiling calmly, she replied, "Oh! I apologize, chef Gourmane. Yes, something has been bothering me lately." "Would you mind me talking about it with you?" the chef cautiously inquired. "You know what? That would be rather nice. Guards! Inform the royal staff that day-court is canceled." Celestia responded with previously unknown excitement. This made Gourmane a bit nervous as to what he had just gotten himself into. After all, with how prim and proper princess Celestia acted all the time, there were times when she just had to let off a little steam. Three hours later, the princess and the head chef found themselves in their 124th lap around the palace garden in the courtyard. Celestia, he believed, had relayed almost her entire history of family troubles to him at this point. "... and yet she feels that she has the authority- Nay, the audacity to stay in her room and ignore me. Does she have any idea the amount of sacrifice that has been required to keep her- no, our reputation afloat?! I mean, lately, she has just seemed so distant and sometimes I wonder if I- Chef? Are you still there?" Celestia asked as her 3 word-per-second rant came to a halt. Form behind her, she heard heavy hoof-steps approaching and as she turned around, she saw a very sweaty colt in a chef's hat attempting to catch up to her. "Hah, hah... Just... let... me.. catch my.... breath... your Highness...." Gourmane wheezed out in between pants. "Oh! Of course, Mr. Gourmane. I apologize if I am rushing. As I said, there is a lot on my mind, heh heh..." Celestia embarrassingly stated. "It... is no problem... Princess. I am here to serve, after all. I would like you to know, however, I have arrived at a consensus as to how to deal with your situation." the chef responded, regaining control of his breath. "Oh goody! Please, do tell." The princess excitedly  exclaimed. "Talk to her." the chef bluntly stated. "Wha..?" The princess, expecting a much more complex response, dumbly responded, still holding her wide-eyed expecting smile. "If you really feel that your relationship with your sister is in jeopardy, then go talk to her. It is a personal problem and doing anything other than directly confronting her will create a basis of mending your relationship based on indirect interaction and separation. If I am being perfectly honest, your Highness, this really does not seem like that big of a deal. It is a normal problem for friendships to encounter." Gourmane continued, hitting the princess with a wave of philosophy she did not know resided in her head culinary expert. "Wow, Gourmane. I-I mean, thank you. I appreciate your input and apologize for wasting your time with my problems." Celestia regretting said. "Nonsense, your Highness. I am, again, her to serve. If you don't mind, however, I really should be returning to my work. My employees are not the most competent ponies in the kitchen." the chef stated, finally relaying his true feelings. "Hehe. Of course, my little pony. Thanks again for your time." Celestia returned. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Through the marble corridor perpendicular to the hallway outside throne room, muffled footsteps could be heard, gradually becoming louder. Celestia rounded the corner that connected the two corridors and made her way over to Luna's bedroom. The lunar guards, seeing the diarch approach, ceased their chatting and stood at full attention while stepping aside to make way. "Good day, your Highness." one of the guards sternly greeted. "Hello, Strongheart. Swiftwing." she nodded her head to each of the guards. With that, she opened the door to Luna's room and entered. From just inside the doorway, she heard the guards resume their chatting. "S-she knew my name!" one guard exclaimed in a whisper. "Mine, t-too!" the other returned. Celestia leto ut a warm giggle as she continued into her sister's room. However, upon entering, her warm smile that accompanied her giggle turned into a look of confusion. With a raised eyebrow, she tiptoed around the bedroom, narrowly avoiding the scattered parchment sheets on the marble floor. She noticed her ink-covered sister was sleeping at her desk, quill leaning against her head. She was going to wake her sister considering it was noon but she decided to wait until the afternoon. In the meantime, it may be a good idea to see what had drained all of her energy. Levitating the piece of parchment that she was standing on, she took a moment to try and figure out what exactly was on the paper. On it was what seemed to be a flag or emblem of some sort. it was a rectangular symbol with two horizontal stripes, red on top and black on bottom, with an upside-down triangle in the center with several sections missing from its inner area. Celestia knew not what this was but, judging from the hundreds of different attempts or renditions cluttering the room, she knew it was something important. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The cobalt mining colony-turned-city of Nova was a sight to see. It was located directly under the surface of the Atlantic ocean, roughly 250 miles off the east coast of the North American Commissariat. The city had two main industries: tourism and alcohol. I mean, seriously. Aside from the hotels, the only other official establishment nets were bars and pharmacies to ensure you did not die from your bar tour around the city. However, there was one group of people that seemed rather out-of-place here considering that they were not tourists with beer bellies and camera contacts glued to their eyeballs. It was the crew of one of the most advanced starships in the entire Union, who else would it be? The crew had taken a dropship to the entrance to one of the underwater low-drops (like high-rises but, like... totally not)  and watched as the robotic arms carried and stowed the ship in the underwater parking garage that descended 50 feet below the surface. Upon paying their toll for the parking, they made their way through the white arches that formed the entrance gate on the surface platform. They found themselves in a long and wide lobby. On the left, there were elevators labeled "Descent" and, on  the right were ones labeled "Ascent." "Guys, do we really have to do this?" inquired the now nervous Brantley. He had never liked any of the underwater cities. He had always been claustrophobic and, even though there were millions of people who inhabited them without any health risk, he hated the idea of being protected from a completely unsurvivable environment by only a few meters of graphene-enforced polycarb. "I'm afraid so, Captain. High Command told us that our briefing was to be conducted in secret and that meant in the back alleys of the deepest floors of the deepest structure in an unsuspicious city, such as this one." Consoled Dahlia as she led the group over to join a group of tourists into an elevator. "So, where exactly are we headed?" asked Usher, showing no signs of emotion, let alone nervousness, at all. "Probably some VIP room in a strip club." chimed in Roger. "Roger, I swear to God, if you show any of that behavior in front of the High Admiral, I will make sure you regret it." replied Dahlia "If yOu sHoW anY Of thAt bEhaViOr iN frOnt oF thE HiGh AdMirAl, I WilL mAke SUre yoU regrEt It." mocked Roger "Why, you little..." Dahlia attempted to finish but was overcome with annoyance and tackled Roger. "Guys! Guys! Come on, break it up! If this meeting truly is as important as it is then we had better not go into it looking like we just got out of a fight." reasoned Brantley, attempting to diffuse the situation. The fighting ceased and the two soldiers scrambled to regain composure, standing at attention. "Yes, sir! Sorry, sir! It's just that sometimes physical violence is the only way to get anything through Roger's thick skull, sir!" Dahlia stated as Roger merely grumbled. Brantley was surprised at the quick change of mood and tone. He sure had missed these guys. He had forgotten how much of a role model Dahlia could be, even if her methods were, at times, unorthodox. Brant's thoughts were interrupted as he noticed the stares of the dozens of tourists in the elevator that had given them a 15-foot-diameter circular space and all had one eyebrow raised. "Relax, folks. My name is Captain Brantley Johnson of the USS Archer. My crew here just has a few quirks. Nothing to worry about. They only want to harm each other, not you. Have a nice one!" Brantley quickly saved. With that, the tourists closed the gap and began waiting for the rest of the elevator load to fill in before they began their descent. It was at this moment that Brantley began to feel his nervousness set in again. Chase, realizing the forehead of his superior getting shinier and shinier, rushed in to comfort him the best he could. "You know, sir, there really is nothing to worry about. I understand you realize the mass amounts of people that move in and out of the city each day  are still alive but even this elevator is nothing to worry about." This set the captain at ease and he began to hunker down from the descent into the civilized abyss. This was until the comms expert continued. "I mean, sure that doesn't mean that there couldn't be an accident that was previously unheard of. There is a first time for everything, after all. This elevator could even fail. As a matter of fact, that is rather likely. This elevator accelerates to 5 meters a second in, like, 2 or 3 seconds. Even with the self-repairing alloys, there could be an error in their programming or somebody may have sabotaged this whole complex. There, actually, has been a bit of a resurgence to the Resistance terrorism activity so-" Chase's rant was cut off as the captain put his sweaty finger over Chase's lips. "Chase, please. I mean this in the n-nicest way possible but, for a comms officer, you suck at picking up social cues." squeezed out Brantley as he came to terms with the torrent of information Chase had just released. Just as soon as Brant finish that sentence, the ambient lights inside turned from white to blue as holographic text started wrapping around the perimeter of the elevator and an automated monotone voice rang throughout the elevator's intercom. "Please stand clear of the closing doors. Brace for downward acceleration. Por favor, manténgase alejado de las puertas que se cierran. Apoyo para la aceleración hacia abajo. Qǐng yuǎnlí guānmén. Zhīchēng xiàng xià jiāsù. Pozhaluysta, derzhites' podal'she ot zakryvayushchikhsya dverey. Gotovnost' k uskoreniyu vniz" Not long thereafter, the pneumatically powered doors of the elevator slammed shut with a hiss and doors along the perimeter of the elevator cabin and harnesses protruded. Brant made his way into the u-shaped apparatus and the semi-circle swung around to complete itself, locking the captain in place. Once everybody else in the elevator had done so, Brantley felt his insides lurch upward as his surroundings rushed upward. After a few seconds of speeding through a vertical corridor in the elevator and watching iridescent rings fly upward indicating service floors, the artificial structure gave way to a most spectacular view of the Atlantic ocean. Mining drones were propelling themselves through the blue abyss, providing small blips of light among the darkening gradient of the water. At the endpoint of the drones' network were gargantuan metallic structures of both residence and service. They stood like pillars of light, one after the other for miles upon miles. Brantley knew he was here for possibly the most important mission briefing of his convoluted career. But, he couldn't help but be captivated by the spectacular sight before him. Maybe this whole shindig wouldn't be so bad after all.