//------------------------------// // Chapter 43: Authorities // Story: Fillies and Monsters // by Solaris Vult //------------------------------// This had the potential to be quite the political nightmare, luckily, it wasn’t… Shining Armor led a team of crystal guards and trained battlemages along the rail line, the Friendship Express had departed from the Crystal Empire three days ago, but had yet to arrive in Equestria, the demi-legion crossed the borders only a few hours ago in their trek, and were well on the Equestrian side of the Crystal Mountains, it was Shining’s experience that nations didn’t like the military of another nation inside their own territory, but the ponies aboard that train were mostly Crystal Empire citizens… Were this any two other nations, it would have been a mess. But, this was the Kingdom of Equestria and the Crystal Empire, and with Cadenza on the Crystal Throne, and Celestia in the marble palace that was Canterlot Castle, aunt and niece, both on good standing with one another, and Shining was a former captain of the Solar Legions, the royal-royal guards… Thus, the crystal guard had free reign to conduct the search of their citizens, and a quick scroll to Celestia had given him the assistance of a Wonderbolt team. The pegasi had identified the train, wrecked in a gorge about two kilometres from the base of the easternmost tip of the mountain range. Shining and his guards quickly approached, the battlemages clearing the path and keeping them free of dangerous animals. Unbeknownst to them, above, a black phoenix, a rare breed, not native to this region, was watching them. When the guards reached the ruined form of the train, they were stunned… Many ponies lay dead, both equestrian natives and crystal ponies, the train’s engine was ruined, it looked like a dragon had used it for target practice, melted and fused to the track. Another thing, everything of value had been looted, gems had been ripped from clothing, every single bit had been taken, even the gold inlays on the train’s cars had been removed. There were two possibilities. Shining Armor, once he was done inspecting the massacre, turned to one of the battlemages, “This was either the work of diamond dogs or dragons, get me a list of all the passengers on this train and count the bodies, identifiable or otherwise… Diamond dogs tend to take prisoners rather than outright slaughter… And contact the wonderbolts, have them patrol the mountains and search for any dragon caves, but keep out of sight, we don’t want the dragon to come down on us next…” The battlemage nodded and sent his telepathic messages. Soon, the pegasi started putting together some cloud cover, meanwhile, the phoenix swerved back toward the mountains. Only thirty minutes later, one of the wonderbolts, Blaze, returned with word of a cave on the nearby mountain. “Manta-2-3, you are cleared for landing in hangar bay three, over.” Twilight, Rarity, and Spitfire were in the back of the airship, cuffed, flying to a much, much, larger airship, currently flying over the ocean, night had just fallen and the ship, covered in blinking lights and windows, glowed in a beautiful and ominous way as they approached. Despite being cuffed, the only one really impaired was Spitfire, Twilight could snap the little metal thing holding her bound with a flick of her wrist… A superheating spell to melt the cuffs off, or a tiny forcefield to slice them clean in half, or even just some strong telekinesis… Rarity on the other hoof was a master of matter manipulation, particularly with minerals and metals. But, Twilight had told them both to stay put and let her handle this, there was no reason to get into another fight. A door on the big airship opened and they came to land in an immaculate hangar made from white metals, ceramics, and plastics. Then the door on their airship popped open, and they were ushered out by human guards and a pair of automatons… Standing there in the bay was an important-looking human stallion, the man was large, with black hair, a shaven face, and wearing a white coat and white pants over a black and navy blue undershirt and red tie. “You there, bring them to me…” The man said. “Yes sir!” A human guard responded, and starting guiding the ponies to the man. “They will stay in confinement cells two through four for the time being, until we’ve arrived in Vale, at the very least.” The pony faunus weren’t happy about the mention of those confinement cells, and Twilight moved up to the man, not bothering to notice the weapons pointed at her, “I would like to talk to your leader,” “You are talking to the leader,” The man informed her, “I am General James Ironwood.” Twilight stood up a bit straighter, “General James Ironwood, I am Twilight Sparkle, and I would like to sincerely apologize for whatever wrongdoings myself and my comrades have done.” “You are responsible for several charges of destruction of military property, the murder of at least one soldier, possibly another and a civilian, and combatting the grimm without a license…” Spitfire and Rarity looked shocked, but let Twilight continue talking, “I’m not sure what you mean by these murders, and we attacked your automatons in self-defence, they shot first.” “Even if you had proof that you weren’t the instigator of those attacks, that still doesn’t excuse you of killing a soldier…” “Who, may I ask, did I kill…” “Argon Actin, private first-class. And, depending on if you are capable of reversing their condition, one Abraham Locke, also a private first-class, and a civilian named Jhon Mann.” “Abraham?” Twilight said, trying to remember the name, “Oh yes, him, I’m surprised you haven’t already undone his condition, it is a complicated stasis to apply, but a relatively simple one to dispell.” Ironwood stood there, thinking for a moment, then turned back to Twilight, “Very well, your friends will need to be escorted to their cells, but you will come with me to the medical bay, we brought the subjects aboard the ship in hopes that someone from Vale might have a way of undoing the condition.” Twilight nodded, “Then, you can receive testimony from this Abraham guard about our innocence in the battle, as he can prove that he shot first.” “We will see about that…” Ironwood replied and motioned for Twilight to follow, meanwhile, Rarity and Spitfire were taken off to another part of the ship. Celestia stood in one of her many, many, private workspaces… Being immortal certainly had its perks, it also had several downsides… The first of which was boredom, Celestia had done a little bit of everything by this time, and most activities bored her, but she took it stoically, and would occasionally find joy in an activity she had forgotten about. Thus, she had an entire wing of the castle dedicated to whatever she wanted at the time, thus, for the first time in a dozen centuries, she opened up the forge room… This was a miniature smithy, with all the tools she needed, of course, she didn’t need many of these things, she could just use her magic to shape the parts to her will, but it was fun to do things the earth-pony way sometimes. Raven landed with a poof of fire, transforming back from this strange new species of bird, into a the fiery horse she had been for the past few days. “Everyone, pack up and start moving as quickly as possible, they’ve found us-” She said, then, suddenly down in the forest below, there was a loud pop, accompanied by a flash of pinkish light, then, an orb of energy started to fly right at the camp, “Incoming!” She finished. Everyone scrambled, and when the blast struck the ground, it went off in an explosion of energy that left a tent liquified, turned into glowing pinkish goo, what the hell kind of weapon was that! From what she had seen, these pony-creatures didn’t have anything more advanced than a crossbow! There were more flashes from down below, and a series of orbs started flying toward them in all sorts of colors, Raven ran forward and summoned the powers of the earth and pulled the rock-wall of the cave over them, sealing them all inside, there was the sound of explosions just beyond the rock-wall and some parts of the newly formed surface started to glow, but they all backed away, deeper into the cave, “I’ll carve a new way out, everyone, gather what you can and follow me, we’re heading north! They won’t follow us into the tundra!” She had spent those days scouting out the immediate area, and knew that, to the north, was an icy wasteland, and she hadn’t seen any cities out that way, of course, food was going to be hard to find, but it was better than getting captured or killed. Once everyone had grabbed what gold and gems they could carry, Raven led them to the back of the cave and started tunneling. One of the pegasi had spotted an encampment on the cliff, and through the eyes of the pegasus, the telepathy specialist knew exactly where that camp was, with a shout, he called all the battlemages into teams of three, “Prepare liquefaction spells, fire at a distance of one-point-two kilometeres, east-north-east, fifteen degrees!” The battlemages did as ordered, grouping up, putting their horns together, and charing spells… It was well documented that comunal spellcasting worked better between ponies of similar or same magical aura color, so they were grouped by color, the pink-team was ordered to fire first to act as a rangefinder, that way the telepath could see if he had misjudged the range or bearing of the target, but the first blast was right on target, so, next he ordered the rest of the demi-legion to fire at once while the regular guards worked their way to the mountain. There was a spike of magical energy from the cliffside, and it seemed that the brigands, or at least, the guards assumed it was brigands, had set up a shield of some kind, and through the eyes of the pegasi scouts, the telepath noticed a rock barrier. The magical artillery was ordered to keep casting, and eventually batter down the wall, there was no way the bandits could escape, they had trapped themselves in the mountain… When the guard got there, the rock shield, and most of the cliffside, was not much more than glowing gooified rock. They carefully trudged through the pools of goo until they got into the cave, there was plenty of gold, it was certainly a dragon cave once upon a time, although there wasn’t much left other than bloody dragon bones, and, when the reached the back of the cave, Shining Armor was furious to discover that the bandits had escaped through the mountainside, although, that was a possibility, if they had a geomancer that was capable of throwing up that rock shield. Worse, they were heading toward the Crystal Empire. “Princess Luna,” An abyssinian soldier in his gold-coated and luxurious armor said, approaching the princess… It had been a while since she had last seen one. “Approach, what is your business…” “The Storm King’s forces attacked our capital approximately five days ago, we have held them off and have reinforced the guard along our borders, in preparation for another assault,” “Are you asking for Equestria’s assistance?” “No, Princess, we have come to give you a gift, in fact… You can consider it a bit extra, on top of the new weapon prototypes you had given us that helped secure our victory…” Princess Luna raised an eyebrow, very well, what is it?” Then, in was dragged a pony, she was beaten, and had plenty of injuries, many recent, some old, including a broken horn… She was a bit larger than the average pony, and had been chained up and gagged. Luna looked curiously at the pony. “This is one of the Storm King’s generals, she was scheduled for execution, but the Grand Sorceress and the King had both insisted we give her over to your for judgment, she was one of your citizens, after all…” “Thank you, we will deal with this traitor… You may leave.” “Very well, Princess…” The abyssinian gave a short bow and walked off, along with the two cats in robes who had dragged the pony in.