//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Battle of Canterlot: I Want to Break Free 
// by Captain_Hairball 
//------------------------------//

Wind whistled loudly across the parapet and tugged Blueblood’s mane across his face. He’d expected it to be dawn, outside, by now. What a foolish fancy – it was still early afternoon, as it had been with Celestia died. And it would be early afternoon until Twilight got her act together, or somecreature else seized control of the sun and moon.

The secret exit from the throne room had been guarded, of course. They’d managed to charge through that, but they’d been pursued and driven away from the airship dock. It didn’t matter – the airship was gone, hopefully with the escaped prisoners in it. Blueblood’s task force had made it outside, but they were trapped on a causeway, pressed up the crenelated parapet, waiting for the raiju warriors surrounding them to make their final attack.

“I wish I had done better,” said Blueblood, watching lighting crackle at the end of advancing shock lances. He was down to one revolver with one shot in it.

“At least the prisoners got away,” said Spearhead.

“You did better than I ever would have expected,” said Raven. “You’ve done your grandmother proud.”

“I say! Your highness!” shouted Fancy Pants from behind and below them. “Jump! Hurry!”

Blueblood whipped around and looked over the edge of the parapet. There below them hung the long golden balloon of his airship, the Anan. Its steam engine strained under the weight of its passengers; it couldn’t fly any higher. The loading ramp was out; Fancy Pants standing at its base.

Raven summoned a blinding flash of light to cover their escape. Blueblood hopped onto the loading ramp, and the remaining guards jumped after him. Spearhead swooped down directly onto the deck, carrying Raven on his back. The deck was packed gunwale to gunwale with ponies; it stank of their dirty, bloody bodies. The whole ship lurched under the weight of the extra ponies, tilting towards the loading ramp, and then starting a slow, graceful plummet. One of the ponies on deck screamed, and that started up a whole chorus.

Blueblood forced his way to the bow of the airship, shouldering aside ponies, clearing the way with his magic. “Out of my way, you peasants! Let me at the helm!” The pink, goggled pony from earlier sat at the controls, small body trembling, at a loss before controls much more complicated than whatever commercial airship she was used to flying. He grabbed her by the scruff of her neck with his magic and set her gently to one side.

Anan jerked as he twisted the airfoils, leveling out the ship and bringing her nose around. She drifted down over the parade grounds of the castle, keel barely missing the parapet of the outer curtain wall. Gunfire crackled from the towers of the castle – inaccurate at this range, but Blueblood didn’t want to take a chance that a bullet would find the Anan’s unarmored balloon.

“Raven! Can you raise a force field behind the ship?”

“Already on it!”

The spires and rooftops of Palace Tier whipped past below them. Blueblood pushed the throttle all the way forward until the engines shook and hissed. “Come on, come on, you piece of trash,” he muttered to  Anan. “I just need to get you over the edge of the tier.” He winced as he felt the keel scrape across the curve of an onion dome, the whole ship shuddering and lurching. He heard a disturbing metallic clank from one of the propellers as it clipped the dome. But then the were free, hurtling into open air over the expanse of Saddle Buckle tier.

Battle lines were drawn up near the Canter river. The Storm King’s army had come into the city from the east, near their landing point in Platinum Plaza. The Canter river, fast, wide, and deep, had stopped their advance in most places. There were several bridgeheads where only improvised barricaded protected ponies from raiju attacks.

Blueblood banked to the west, away from the battle lines. The Anan dived rapidly. Ponies screamed. Ponies were sick over the side. Blueblood ignored them, aiming for a tall, white stone apartment building with a turret at the front, ridged with vine-covered wrought-iron balconies.

“Blueblood, we’re going to hit that…” said Raven.

“Don’t talk to me!” shouted Blueblood.

He spun the airships’ wheel hard to port, and the Anan slammed sidelong into the top floor of the tower and came to rest, dented balcony to cracked gunwale.

Blueblood turned and bellowed at his frightened and disoriented passengers. “Off! All of you! Get off my airship! You’re all too heavy, and you’re sinking her!”

“Even the guards, your highness?” said Spearhead.

“Yes, especially the guards!” said Blueblood. “They’re the heaviest ones!” He hesitated. “But not you or Raven. I need you.”

He raised his head, watching the ponies climb onto the iron landing and into the building through an open window. Civilians he’d saved, guards he was getting back into the fight. All them, alive and free because of him. Aside from the guards who’d died on the raid in the throne room, but again: Omelets. Eggs. But he was getting sidetracked. What was important was that in spite of all the trauma and pain he’d endured to get to this point, knowing that he’d helped other ponies made him happy! Happy! In a way nothing else in his life every had!

At that moment Blueblood realized what an amazing pony he was. He’d always known, of course, but it had taken a war to truly bring it to light. Only an exceptionally noble soul could gain happiness from helping others. In fact, he might be the first to ever experience…

Wait.

Helping others was Twilight Sparkle’s whole project, wasn’t it? Curse her. “I hope she drowns in lava,” he muttered.

Blueblood looked to the sky, and his petulance turned to excitement. One of the raiju airships was leaving! Probably with Tempest on it! It grew smaller in the clear blue sky, taking the architect of the most successful non-magical attack on Canterlot in history with it. He looked up towards the palace. Two more airships hung tethered over Platinum Plaza. His forehead wrinkled as an idea started to form.

Was what he was imagining possible? Yes, it might be. And it would be what the city needed. “Captain Spearhead!”

Spearhead turned from supervising the disembarking ponies to look at Blueblood wide-eyed. “Dude. I mean, Your Highness. You know my name!”

Blueblood smiled and pushed Spearhead’s messy blue bangs back up under his helmet. “I always knew it. Listen: you’re my field marshal now. Raven, you’re my chief adviser. Gather close: I have an idea, and I need you both to tell me how brilliant it is.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The Anan was dinged and scuffed but intact, and the damaged propeller was behaving itself for now. Carrying it’s intended load of three ponies, it bounded away from the apartment building like a schoolfilly on a snow day.

“This is a horrible plan,” said Raven. “We’re all going to die.”

Blueblood set a course for Easy Glider square and stood in the bow, letting the breeze of their passage blow back his mane. “During the first phase? No. During the second phase? Quite possibly. But we will be remembered as heroes. Which is more than I could ever have hoped for. We will become immortal!”

“I don’t want to become immortal in history,” said Raven, clutching the edge of the gunwale and looking over at the thousands of desperate, dirty ponies looking up at them. “I want to become immortal by not dying. Listen: They need you. They need a leader. They need a prince to…”

“Inspire them,” said Blueblood, slowing the airship and bringing it to a stop over Easy Glider square, just outside of rifle range. “They don’t need a prince to rule them. Look what they’ve done down there – using the river to stop the raiju’s advance? Building those barricades in the street? I never would have thought of that. It’s far too prosaic. What they need is an icon. Something to aspire to.”

“A tall order,” said Raven, turning towards the bow as Spearhead rushed to run the loading ramp out over the figurehead.

“A bit easier if I’m dead and can’t do anything else awful. But I think we’ll come back alive. Harmony blesses my every action.”

“Because she favors fools,” muttered Raven.

“Do you know an amplification spell? The royal Canterlot voice only carries so far. I want them to hear this on the other side of the river.”

Raven’s magic humming softly around his throat, Blueblood stepped out onto the loading ramp. It wobbled under his weight. He looked down below him. Ponies thronged Easy Glider Square, heads hanging out the windows of buildings, climbing up on the statue to see him. More hurried in from the streets around the square. With his sharpshooter’s sight, he saw that they were not all happy to see him. He noticed them whispering and imagined what they might be saying. His stomach wobbled, both from self-consciousness and from the dizzying drop to the square below.

He took a deep breath, imagined all the ponies wearing silly dresses, and launched into his speech.

“Citizens of Canterlot!” He began. He could never remember quite what he said after that. He told them Celestia’s bloodline had not abandoned them. (Hesitant cheers.) He praised them for their bravery. (Stunned silence, as if it hadn’t occurred to any of them they were being brave.) He told them Twilight would return. (Enthusiastic cheers!) He asked them if the raiju airships were causing them trouble. (They were!) He told them that he was going to go take care of that, and he’d be back presently. (Uproarious cheering!)

“Smart of you to tell the raiju our plan. That should set them off guard,” said Raven.

Blueblood pranced back down the loading ramp to the controls and eased the throttle forward. “I did, didn’t I? Oh well. nothing for it now. Spearhead!”

Spearhead saluted. “Yes your Highness SIR!”

“Go gather some pegasi. Make us an escort. They may have griffon mercenaries or something else nasty waiting for us.” The Anan pulled up and out over Easy Glider Square, its shadow moving over the assembled ponies, who cheered and waved after it. The raiju showed a different sort of enthusiasm for the airship’s advance – gunfire crackled on the opposite bank of the Canter.

“Raven! Force field if you don’t mind very much,” said Blueblood.

Raven climbed up next to his seat at the bow, hooves hanging over the prow, horn glowing, eyebrow drawing down under the bandage over her left eye. The shimmering purple field in front of her sparkled when bullets struck it.

Dozens of winged forms rose up around them – pegasus ponies in royal guard armor, pegasus ponies in Wonderbolts uniforms, civilians of all sorts including a handful of changelings and griffons. Anan rose after them, drifting almost straight up along the buttressed terrace that supported Palace Tier. Blueblood kept the Anan moving slowly, for now, so that his escort could keep up. Once he had a better idea of what waited for him up there he could show the raiju what his ship could do.

As they flew up past the edge of the tier, a flock of pointy brown and gray shapes flapped up from amongst the buildings – armored griffon mercenaries. Casting aside their breakfast liquor bottles, the griffons drew blades and guns and dove towards Blueblood’s ship. His escort banked to engage them, but a clever, low-flying fellow outflanked them and headed straight for the Anan.

Blueblood squawked in alarm and fumbled for the throttle as the griffon zoomed up towards him – a fat golden fellow with a crack in his beak and larceny in his eyes. He landed on the port railing and waved his cutlass inches from the end of Blueblood’s snout. “Pull her over, Pretty Pony,” he roared, “This ship’s mine n…”

And then Raven slammed a forcefield into his face. He fell off the side of the ship like a bird hitting a glass window.

“Thank you,” said Blueblood.

“Sorry I was slow,” said Raven, looking over the port side of Blueblood’s airship. “He came up on my blind side.”

“Is he coming back around?”

“No,” said Raven. “He hit a roof and when right through. He’s in somepony’s attic now.”

Behind them, Spearhead’s squadron enveloped the outnumbered griffon mercenaries. Soldier ponies distracted the griffons in aerial duels while civilians closed in behind to knock them out of the air with improvised weapons.

Blueblood looked ahead towards Platinum Plaza. The airships were still tethered there, trapped and vulnerable. He cranked the throttle into the red area near the top. Anan’s steam engine began to shake and hiss as pressure built. The propeller that had = clipped the onion dome earlier rattled ominously. “Hold together, you piece of trash. We can’t let them get away!”

Rooftops and streets blurred beneath them.

“I didn’t know an airship could go this fast!” said Raven.

“Yes,” said Blueblood, “We should be safe, now,” said Blueblood, heating the gas in Anan’s balloon so that they rose high over the city, bringing them up to the level of the raiju airships.

Raven looked back and forth across the city below them, alert for danger. “So what exactly were you planning to do when we got to the…”

Something boomed from down in the city. Seconds later Raven’s force field shattered and wood splintered as cannonball tore along the port gunwale, ripping the railing away. Wooden splinters peppered Blueblood’s hide. Raven screamed and hit the deck. Heart hammering, Blueblood made the Anan dive close to the rooftops, veering away from the direction of the attack. “Raven! Are you all right?”

“F-fine! I think?” she said, hopping back to her hooves. There was another crack of cannon shot, and Blueblood saw a cannonball arcing up towards them from a rooftop ahead. Quicker than Blueblood would have thought possible, Raven raised a triple strength shield, stopping the cannonball in midair. Her horn sparked as transferred inertia pushed her back across the deck.

“I can’t take another hit like that!” she said.

“I’ll get us out of the line of fire!” Blueblood gritted his teeth. He recognized a gap in the roofs up ahead as Marple Street, one of the long straight boulevards that led into Platinum Plaza. He vented the balloon and spun the wheel, aiming the Anan for its relative safety.

Spearhead and two dozen Wonderbolts dove towards the cannon and its crew. Blueblood found himself staring after them as the landed on the rooftop and engaged the gun crew hoof to hoof. Spearhead was hard to pick out, just an occasional flash of orange amongst the darting figures. Blueblood needed to know he was all right! But in seconds the buildings of Marple Street rose up around him, blocking his view.

The two lanes of the street were divided by a row of ornamental trees. The keel of the Anan scraped across them, shaking the hull and making the deck list to port.

“Blueblood! Pay attention!” screamed Raven, hooves scrambling to keep her from sliding over the now-rail-less side of the ship.

Blueblood gritted his teeth and cranked the engine to pull them to starboard. The Anan surged forward, spraying branches from its underside. The hull swung close to the buildings on the right side of the street, knocking decorative planters and container gardens off of balconies, but soon righted itself.

Blueblood laughed with fear and delight as they zoomed down the boulevard, keel a little over the tops of abandoned carriages and omnibuses, trees and buildings whipping past on either side. He worried that somecreature would have thought to set up a cannon facing down this way.

But no. Relief flooded his heart as Platinum Plaza opened out below him. The once beautiful area had become a military camp – raiju tents, ponies in cages, pallets of supplies. The two remaining raiju airships perched like fat black beetles at the docks along the edge of the plaza. Raiju were unloading cannons from the far one. The nearer one’s decks were in a frenzy of untying ropes and detaching weights, readying for takeoff.

“Oh no. We can’t have that.” Blueblood flipped an entire row of switches, disengaging the pressure limit on the boiler and making red lights flash all over the control console. The whole ship shook. Steam screamed from the overworked engine. He cranked the throttle into the region of its run marked with black and yellow stripes like a wasp’s abdomen. The damaged propeller screeched and died, outraged at the extra work it was being asked to do, and the Anan’s course jerked to starboard. Blueblood cranked the wheel to compensate and roared, “Raven! Force fields to the front of the balloon!”

“Yes, your… wait. What are we doing?” said Raven. “We’re ramming the other ship! How did you think we were going to do this? Do you see any weapons on board?” Raven gasped. “We’ll be killed!”

“Not if you shield the balloon! Grab onto something sturdy!”

Raven gripped one of his hind legs.

On the deck of the raiju airship, mayhem. Creatures darted back and forth, yelling contradictory orders. The enemy airship rose and turned, the helmscreature attempting to make a run for it. But the airship was still tethered in several places, and it jerked to a stop, balloon perpendicular to the Anan’s.

Blueblood gritted his teeth and braced himself against the wheel.

The impact shook his ship. Military airships’ balloons were armored, but only against shrapnel and unlucky birds. The thin metal plate gave way with a screech against Anan’s shielded balloon, and the raiju airship began to plummet towards the loading dock. Blueblood yanked the throttle into reverse. He was almost away when one of the struts of the raiju balloon’s framework crashed down behind the edge of Raven’s force field. The Anan jolted and jerked downward, remaining propellers whining as they tugged uselessly against the strut.

“We’re stuck!” said Raven.

Blueblood swore a bright purple streak, pounding on the throttle, twisting the wheel, flicking switches, trying to break free. Beneath them, the enemy airship’s hull slammed into the marble of the dock with a symphony of crashing, shattering, and shouting. Blueblood saw propellers and machinery skitter away, throwing sparks. That ship wouldn’t be flying again any time soon.

The Anan, on the other hoof, seemed to be intact, but the twisted remnants of the balloon’s armored skeleton held it fast. Blueblood was about to shout to Raven to see if she could pull them free with her magic when an ear-shattering crack sounded off the port bow. The crew of the other airship had maneuvered one of the cannons they were carrying into a gun port, and aimed it at them!

The Anan’s balloon exploded in a puff of flame as a cannonball tore through it. The deck went from horizontal to vertical in the blink of an eye. Blueblood shrieked, saving himself from splattering on the marble plaza only by grabbing the steering column. He felt Raven dangling from his leg.

They were only still alive because the Anan’s balloon and the raiju airship’s balloon were tangled together, a mess of twisted steel.

“Our balloon blew up!” screamed Raven. “Fire!”

Parts of the deck were indeed smoldering. Blueblood’s mane felt singed. “Airship balloons are full of flammable gas!”

He looked down at Raven and saw a smile bloom on her face. “I have an idea!” she said. “Do you have any bullets left? Can you hit the other airship from here? We can light their balloon on fire!”

Blueblood levitated out his last revolver and flicked open the cylinder. “One! And we’re barely in range! I might be able to penetrate their armor, but it won’t make a big enough spark!”

Raven’s horn glowed bright, and a cylinder of rotating disks appeared, hovering in front of the barrel of Blueblood’s revolver. “A friction matrix!” she said. “It’ll superheat the bullet!”

“Won’t that slow it down?”

“I’ve compensated for that! Aim straight, that bullet’s going to come out very fast!”

Blueblood cocked back the hammer of his pistol. “Are you sure?”

Above them, the airship frames creaked, and the Anan dropped several inches lower.

“Just shoot!” screamed Raven.

Easy for her to say. What did she know about bullet trajectories? Accelerating the bullet would throw off the arc he was used to. The wind was strong out of the east, that would be a big factor at this range. The enemy balloon was about as far away as Tempest had been when he’d tried to snipe her yesterday afternoon. He’d missed then. Why should this be different? And what if the extra heat burned up the bullet on the way to its target?

But the raiju gun crew had already finished reloading.

No time left.

Blueblood gave the shot his best guess and squeezed the trigger. A bright orange bolt flashed out of his revolver. It arched, a little up and a little to the side, and vanished inaudibly into the balloon of the raiju airship.

No effect.

Nothing. That was it. It was the end for…

BOOM! The raiju airship’s balloon bust like a firecracker. Blueblood glimpsed the hull, flaming, slamming into the dock. Then the shockwave hit them, knocking the Anan free, and sending Raven and him spinning into the air.

Blueblood felt weightless, even as Platinum Plaza rushed up at him. This was it. This was death. Had his life been worthwhile? He’d made a lot of poor choices. He’d done a lot of awful things. But at least he was going to die a hero’s death. That was something. Was it enough? He didn’t know.

The shock of impact wracked his body. Death was less painful than he’d expected; softer, and much more… orange?

“Got you, Dude!” shouted Spearhead.

“Spearhead! You’re all right!” said Blueblood, hugging his neck for dear life. “You are too, dude!” Spearhead touched down on a clear space in the Raiju camp, next to a looted fashion boutique. 

Panicked raiju rushed towards the fires of the wrecked airships, ignoring them for the moment.

Wonderbolts landed all around the two of them. Raven clung to Fleetfoot’s back; she slid off the first moment she could and started kissing the marble.

Blueblood didn’t want to get off of Spearhead. He didn’t want to stop touching him ever again. “Oh, you magnificent beast!” he moaned, squeezing Spearhead around the neck and kissing the back of his neck over and over. “You saved me! Remain at my side forevermore!”

“Easy, Your Highness, dude. The war’s not over yet.” Spearhead knelt, and Blueblood reluctantly slid off and got to his own hooves. “We wrecked the cannon that shot at you, and scared those griffon mercenaries off, at least for now. But we saw at least three more cannons, and the raiju are setting up some kind of big mortar. If they start shooting down into Saddle Buckle with those, things are gonna get bad down there.”

Blueblood nodded. “So, we need to destroy them, too. Do you think we can do that?”

Spearhead saluted. “If those are your orders, then that’s what we’ll do.”

“They are. Let us make haste.”

And they charged off into history