//------------------------------//
// Chapter 27: And Ran Away 
// Story: Through the Aurora 
// by Starscribe 
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Summer fell amid a gale of roaring updrafts, each one rising from the front of a different skyscraper. Some part of her had wondered why there were so few ponies flying between the dense skyscrapers, and now she learned. The sky didn’t want her here. What was worse: Summer wasn’t some master aerial navigator, able to dodge and weave and dart through the sky with dozens of named maneuvers. Emerald wanted her to learn, but Emerald wasn’t here.

They’re behind me. Someone as powerful as Kate will have people for this. She’d chosen to staff her bodyguards with the strongest ponies there were—but Summer had already seen she had pegasus ponies working for her too. She had to move.

You were right, she thought, eyes blurring with tears. I’m so sorry, Sharp. She kept her wings spread, not so much gliding down towards the docks as she was falling very slowly. Occasionally she caught another updraft and went spinning, and had to desperately catch herself.

No highly-trained kill team caught her in the air to slit her throat, or anything similarly grim. Finally the ground came rushing up to meet her—an empty backroad, not far from the dock. She skidded to a halt, tumbling and landing against a rusty dumpster.

Summer whimpered, trying and failing to sit up. Her whole body was shaking, and not just from the strain of her brief glide. I should’ve listened to you, Sharp. You’ve been helping me since my first day in Equestria. It was true the pony had kept things from her—but what had she done? Basically cost Sharp his whole life.

She knew she should be running, that Kate or some Feather agent would be after her. Her path through Manehattan had been erratic, but the city was only so large. They’d find her.

But instead of running, she curled up and cried, there in an empty back alley.

She couldn’t have said how long she lay there on the empty concrete. Position didn’t matter to her, time hardly even seemed to pass. If ponies walked past her on the street, they kept their distance and didn’t ask questions. But this wasn’t a main street, there hadn’t been any traffic when she landed.

Eventually though, she did hear something. A set of hoofsteps, moving purposefully towards her. She didn’t sit up, didn’t even open her eyes. Should she run? Why bother? Where could she go?

The hooves stopped only a little distance away. She didn’t open her eyes, didn’t get up. She wasn’t going to make it any easier on them.

“That doesn’t look very comfortable,” Sharp Edge said. “I’ve got an airship with extra seats, if you’d like.”

She blinked, opening one eye. Sharp and Emerald stood in the amber glow of a streetlight, watching her. Finally she sat up, wiping away tears as best she could. “Y-you… how did you…”

“Find you?” Emerald finished. “You were pretty obvious going down. How many hippogriffs do you think there are in Manehattan?”

She winced, rising onto unsteady claws. “That… makes sense. My fault, just like a lot of things.”

Sharp met her, wrapping one foreleg around her in a powerful hug. She clung there like she might blow away in the wind, holding to him as tightly as she dared. Even with Emerald watching, she didn’t care.

“I guess you met Kat-ate,” he said. Not angry, not judgmental. His voice was flat. “How was that?” 

She squeaked in response, finally pulling away from him. “Not great. W-we should… I mean, if you still want me anywhere near you.”

“Where else would we go?” Emerald asked, hugging her too. A far more innocent gesture, though it didn’t fill Summer with any less joy. These were the ones who cared about her. There was no pile of money big enough to give them up. After all they’d done together, how had she ever even considered leaving them behind? 

“I should’ve told you everything,” Sharp said. “This didn’t have to be so dramatic. I just… didn’t want to frighten you. Or have you wander after her just because she came from the same place.”

“I know,” she said. “I forgive you. I hope you’ll… forgive me. For running off like that, and maybe pissing her off. Like… if I’m thinking about it, we probably shouldn’t just be standing around here? She’s… probably really upset.”

“If you made her angry, then… I certainly forgive you,” Sharp said. “But you’re probably right. She won’t, and she’ll make sure we know it.” 

They ran, Summer following Sharp back the way they’d come through the entrance to the nearest alley, then up towards the dock. At least they didn’t have very far to go.

A few minutes later and they were rising into the air, jerked upward by the Horizon’s oversized gasbag. Summer perched on the back of the deck, watching the city fall behind them. The spots of streetlights and the glow of buildings might’ve been mistaken for an Earth city, if she couldn’t still make out some of the ponies moving between them. 

“What are you looking for?” Emerald asked, settling down beside her near the railing. 

Assassins. “Bad ponies,” she said. “The pony I went to see was… probably the meanest I’ve ever met. But it looks like she didn’t send anypony after us. Or maybe she didn’t know we had an airship.”

Emerald nodded, looking down at the city herself. “What about that?”

Summer followed her hoof, and her heart almost seized in her chest.

There were dozens of other airships in the air, many larger and far newer than theirs. But until that moment, none of the other ships had diverted from their paths.

A massive hulk slowly turned on them, its bow pointed unmistakably on the diagonal of their current path. “Shit.”

Theo turned, running up the deck as quickly as she could. “Sharp! Sharp, there’s…” She stumbled to a stop beside the helm, clutching at her chest. “Sharp, we’re being followed!”

The earth pony had a chart pinned to the deck beside him, marked all over with hatches in red and blue. Summer had no idea what they meant, but obviously it was something.

Sharp lifted the telescope to his eye, staring back at the airship behind them. He smacked it closed a second later. “Well buck.”

Emerald landed beside them another moment later. “Master? Should you be using—”

“Yes!” he interrupted. “That’s a Purple Dart-class. It’s an old naval ship, maybe twenty years… from the look of it, the lightning projector is still working.”

“Oh.” Emerald winced. “Wait, if it’s the navy, then… what’s so bad?”

“Those aren’t navy ponies on it.” Sharp froze, his face scrunching just a little. Theo knew that look—it was how he looked when he was thinking intently about something. He followed the path of the little ship, then glanced back at his map. “Alright. I think… I think I have a plan.”

Theo watched the distant ship. No others seemed to be turning in their direction, which was far from the ordinary lanes of traffic. She stared for several seconds, watching as it got closer. The ship had four massive engines, spaced along its hull. She imagined she could already hear them roaring.

“Summer, helm. Keep us on a heading of…” He glanced at the map. “Fifteen degrees southwest. There’s a compass above the helm.” 

“Uh… are you sure that’s a good idea, Sharp? Last time I tried to fly your ship, I crashed it into a lake.”

“We were trying to do that,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “Emerald, with me. We need more speed, and I’ll need your help to get it.”

She saluted. “Aye, captain!”

“What are we…” Theo wasn’t imagining it. Their pursuers were definitely gaining on them. Already she could make out the shape of ponies on deck. At least a dozen of them, probably further down. Almost all of them were pegasus ponies this time. “Sharp, they’re faster than us!”

“I know.” He rested one hoof on her shoulder, meeting her eyes. “That chart you’re almost standing on? That’s the weather report for the Badlands. See those red swirls?”

She nodded weakly. 

“That’s a tropical storm over the ocean. It’s about… fifty kilometers south. We have to stay out of range of that ship for…” He frowned, his face scrunching again as he worked out the numbers. “Too long. Got to go!” He turned, darting down the steps.

“Why are we flying into a storm?” Summer asked, but he didn’t respond. There was nothing for her to do but clamber resolutely up to the helm, settling her claws on the wheel. Sure enough, there was the compass—they’d already drifted off course. 

She twisted slightly to the side, watching the little needle spin. It wasn’t a passive endeavor—they were flying into the wind, and it was strong enough that it might’ve lifted her right from the deck if she spread her wings and jumped.

At least something works in our favor. They’ve got a much larger volume than we do. They’ll have to fight harder.

Even so, the distant ship was gaining on them. She looked back again, and sure enough it was a little bigger in the sky. But it also wasn’t rising nearly as fast as they could. That probably means it’s going to catch up even faster once we reach our equilibrium height.

She shuddered, remembering the rage she’d seen on Kate’s face as she shattered the window. Would some misunderstood… environmentalist… really order her killed to prevent her from going back to Earth? 

Theo was out of the emotional energy to consider it. In one day she’d learned that her closest friend in Equestria had lied to her, had an evil hippogriff try to lock her in golden handcuffs, and jumped out of a building. 

Somewhere below her, the Horizon’s engine went from a quiet purr to a roar. The gentle white smoke behind them turned black, and the deck visibly lurched under her claws. Suddenly the gasbag was dragging them back, instead of lifting them up. It wasn’t a healthy sound. The whole ship was shaking now, as though the engine was trying to rattle itself into a pile of screws.

The distant ship, which was close enough now for her to make out the strangely forked bit of metal emerging from her prow—stopped getting closer.

Emerald emerged from the doorway just ahead of a cloud of smoke, her mane greased up and standing on end. “Hey Summer! Sharp wants to know if we’re gonna be boarded.”

“Not yet!” she yelled over the engine, her claws digging divets into the wooden wheel. “Is Sharp going to blow us up?”

“I, uh… I don’t think so?” She tilted her head slightly to one side. “I’ve never seen him work so hard. I think it’s… magic? Like, special talent stuff.” She blushed, looking to one side. “He’s really good at this.”

“Good!” Summer pointed at the ship behind them. Manehattan had long since faded into the distance, only a faint orange glow on the horizon. But if she let her eyes lose focus just right, she could see the little lights of the other airship, and its crew darting back and forth on the deck. “Not a second too soon!”

The other ship wasn’t rising as high as they did, and it didn’t seem like it would go any higher up.

“Do you still like Sharp?” Emerald asked, as though they weren’t running for their lives. “He’s not sure if you’ll want to be his marefriend after what happened today. He’s too shy to ask.”

“Is now really the time for—” Summer’s frustrated question was cut short by a sudden roar, and a flash of light so blinding that she covered her head with one leg. It seemed to glow right through her leg, blasting up into the air and shattering into a thousand different forks. A bolt of lightning, one that went up instead of down.

Finally her ears stopped ringing and she glanced up at the gasbag. Had they… no. They’d missed—it wasn’t on fire.

She’s really trying to kill me.

Emerald squealed in shock, darting over and wrapping her forelegs around one of Summer’s legs. Summer didn’t dare let go of the helm, not with the wind buffeting them and apparent lightning being shot at them from behind. But she did fold a wing down over Emerald, holding her as best she could. “Why would they do that?”

“I…” Because Kate wants me dead. 

Sharp emerged from below, his eyes obscured with a pair of thick goggles. “Was that what I think it was?” He stopped, glancing briefly between them, then back at the airship pursuing them.

There was no mistaking it now, the entire front of the ship was glowing a bright orange. The aftermath of the shot, maybe.

“We should turn me in!” Theo yelled. “I can’t let you two be in danger because of me!”

Lightning flashed again, lighting up the sky for another terrible moment. Only it didn’t come from below them—this time it was a storm cloud.

Summer had no words to describe the vast scale of the dark cloud, towering over them like a god. It was hard to judge the power of something so much larger than herself. A wide base with a skinny middle and a flat head, raging with internal flashes and surrounded by angry black clouds. At a distance, she couldn’t tell if they would fly above it, or directly into it.

“It’s a little late for that!” Sharp yelled. “How would you propose surrendering to them? If a shot like that hits us…” He reached down, taking Emerald out from under her wing and fixing her with an intense glare. “You will fly to safety, apprentice. This isn’t a request.”

“But—” 

Thunder rolled across the ship, so loud it was practically a physical force. The wind of the oncoming storm finally overpowered the engines, lifting tools and rope and bits of scrap from the deck and blasting it off into the void. Summer glanced down over the edge, but she couldn’t see either ground or ocean below. There was only darkness.

“You too, Summer!” he called. “There’s nothing more I can do to keep the engine together, so I can take the helm!” He strode up, wiping the ash from his goggles before resting his hooves into the grooves. 

He was an expert. With a few slight twitches, they were cutting directly into the wind, and the gasbag didn’t sound like it was trying to tear its way free anymore. They stopped rocking back and forth, and the struggle became the contest between wind and motor.

“They’ll get one more shot before we make it!” he said. “If they miss… pray the storm doesn’t go up! We have to crest it before it hits the Foal Mountains, or it’ll tear us to pieces. No ship could survive in that!”

Now probably wasn’t the time to point out that human aircraft flew through storms all the time, and might take dozens of direct lightning-strikes in their service lives. The barn-sized bag of gaseous hydrogen over her head didn’t make her feel especially brave just now.

Instead she held onto his shoulder, clinging to Sharp without disrupting his hooves. There was nowhere to be safe from what might come next—nowhere she could go to hide from the explosion that would certainly kill her. “If we make it through this…” she called, her voice thin and reedy in the wind. “I want to—”
 
Lightning flashed, ripping through the air, turning the sky a brilliant white. She heard the explosion, felt the deck lurch under her hooves. She smacked into the helm, snatching Emerald before she could get ripped away.

Then the rain hit them. Not just a trickle—it felt like running into a wall, smacking into her from all directions. The engine choked and coughed below them—and they were still moving. She opened her eyes, looking desperately around in the maelstrom.

Below them was an ocean of dark waves, broken by faint flashes of white from within like angry fish. She couldn’t see more than a few meters away from the deck of the Horizon before the rain too thick. “We’re alive!” Sharp let go of the wheel, looking up at the gasbag. “They hit us, but we’re… we’re alive.”

He met her eyes, and for a moment the pounding rain and roaring wind faded into the background. Summer knew what was going to happen, and this time there was no resistance in her mind. She kissed him, right there in front of Emerald. She didn’t care if every assassin on that bucking ship wanted to watch.

That passionate moment lasted only seconds, though. The wind was still pounding them, and the storm was precariously close to the bottom of their hull. 

“We need to lose some weight!” Sharp called. “Apprentice, dump as much sand as you—no, just cut them off! Summer, help her!”

They did. She couldn’t move any faster than a slow walk, without the gale trying to lift her right off the deck. She watched Emerald carefully, afraid that she might get torn up into the sky, but the little pegasus spread her wings and somehow held to the deck.

“Same ones!” Emerald called, standing on the other side. “Ready?”

“Ready!” They cut, lurching suddenly upward. They passed through the swirling black, then breached another layer of clouds. 

The wind quieted, settling enough that Summer could hear the rumble of the engine again. It spluttered unhappily, the rattling thoroughly unbalanced now. That poor thing was going to need repair all over again.

But she hardly even thought about it—hardly thought about the chill of altitude, or the rain soaking every inch of her.

We made it. We’re alive.