“Without you, we’re only half a person.”
----
‘Do you think we can fight her?’
‘The city needs you to fight her.’
‘Can we talk her down?’
‘What makes you think I need to know?’
‘You’re the one with the psychic powers.’
‘Uh huh. That’s definitely how this works.’
‘Was...was that sarcasm?’
‘I can be sarcastic when I need to be. Do you need me to show you ‘facetious with a hint of condescension’ too?’
‘No, thanks. I just wish I could talk to Hardy.’
‘You don’t need him right now. You need you. You need to think clearly. You need to prepare for what is coming.’
----
The War Scooter sat where I’d left her, humming softly as rain fell across Ambrock and Vexis, their scales shining in the half light as streams of water steamed off their hides. Neither of their eyes followed me. I trotted around them, hesitated as thunder shook the ground under my hooves.
Thunder, without lightning.
I looked up, and my breath froze in my throat.
The clouds overhead broke like the twin gates of a grey fortress parting and through them dove a monster whose horrible majesty took me a long few seconds to comprehend. Her giant, pale wings seemed to blot out the sky, radiating an inner light. Her claws were like scythes and her teeth curved from a giant head covered in tiny bloody cuts that seemed little more than minor irritations to the massive dragoness. She was sleek, muscular, and terrifying.
She hovered for a few seconds over the highway, then turned her head and spat something onto the street. It was a chunk of meat that’d once been a griffin warrior, sans the head and legs. I could only tell from the tufted tail, still attached despite the masticated condition of the body.
The wind of her landing blew my mane back as she settled her giant weight on the highway, light as a ballet dancer dropping out of an especially acrobatic leap with nary a sound.
We regarded each other in silence as I stood beside the War Scooter, my eyes wide, wondering when my talent was going to tell me something useful about her.
Scars criss-crossed her massive, slender body, starting at her chest and wending their way right down to her claw-tips. Some suggested life-threatening injuries that no sane being should have walked away from; in particular, a pike of some kind appeared to still be lodged in her chest, impaling her right through the collar bone. The end of it was decorated with a trio of feathers, plated in gold, which hung from a silver chain.
Something in the way her skull was shaped reminded me of a wolf, though her torso was more serpentine than most dragons I’d met. Twin tufts of thick fur trailed from her brow ridges. Her tail was wrapped in something resembling a thick layer of leather with a stiff, iron ball large enough to level a building strapped to the end. Across her chest, she wore a huge bag on a strap that looked to be woven out of a multitude of different leathers - more than a few of the skins in question still had their cutie-marks attached.
There was no getting away from it; for as great and terrible as she was, Propana was beautiful.
I stared into her shimmering green eyes that reminded me of ocean pools and saw death itself staring back.
Slowly, I put a hoof on my P.E.A.C.E. cannon and carefully unlimbered it. She watched me with only a slight curl to one side of her lip, then snaked forward faster than I’d have thought possible, stopping inches from the end of my muzzle. I inhaled and shut my eyes. I could smell blood on her breath along with the scent of burning flesh and feathers.
‘Anything?’
‘You need to keep very still. She is amused.’
‘Amused?’
I peeked out of one eye, then opened the other. We stood there, studying each other, her reptilian gaze raking me up and down. Gradually, she drew back and cocked her head, peering at the war scooter with even greater interest than she’d shown me. She raised a claw, gently waving it in front of Ambrock’s empty, staring eyes.
“Most...intriguing.”
Her voice was the sound of cracking ice on a winter’s day, so cold it sent a shiver up my back.
“A pony with two enslaved dragons...and a mark one war scooter with some very interesting modifications,” she purred, her tri-forked tongue slipping out between teeth long enough to impale me top to bottom. “This wouldn’t happen to be ‘Her Royal Grace’, would it?’
‘You need to keep her interested!’
“I-It is,” I stammered, taking a step back and incidentally toward the hatch of the war scooter.
“Aha! Most...excellent,” the dragoness replied, then reached down and, before I could stop her, snatched my P.E.A.C.E. cannon off my shoulders by the strap. She dangled it in front of her canine muzzle, then sniffed at the barrel as I fought the urge to reach for it. “And this. Police issue modification of a much older creation. Do you know, the original version of this was for the distribution of cakes and party favors in various flavors?”
‘Precious needs more time. You need to keep her talking.’
I slowly nodded. “A...A party planner invented it.”
“Aha, yes! A mare famous for parties. I have several of her earlier designs in my collection. This, however...” Dropping my gun, she rose up onto her rear legs and spread her claws to encompass the whole of the war scooter. “This will be a crown jewel to my hoard. I have just the place to sit it, as well! Imagine...Her Royal Grace. Finest of her age and driven by the Demolisher herself. Being as you have apparently ensorceled a pair of young dragons to carry it for you, I suppose the Demolisher is dead, then?”
Something told me it would be a very bad idea to lie directly to Propana.
Where was Firebrand? Was she still inside the war scooter?
“I don’t know if she is d-dead,” I replied, carefully picking up the P.E.A.C.E. cannon and checking it for damage, “The m-mare who gave it to me was one of her f-friends, but she’s gone.”
“A pity,” Propana growled, running the tips of her giant claws down the viewports in a way that suggested unmitigated lust. “I would so very much have liked to flay the Demolisher. I have the body of one Crusader in my collection, though that glorious little weapon they all carried disintegrated upon her death. A live one—to keep in crystal perhaps—would be ever so much more intriguing. Too bad it is a set that will never be completed, though I hear whisperings of a new Crusader in this city. One named...Hard Boiled?”
Propana raised one eyebrow at me and flicked her tongue as I tried my hardest to keep my expression even. I don’t think I succeeded.
“So you know him! Delicious.” Reaching down, she chucked me under the chin with the tip of a claw that could have split me end to end. “Oh, worry not. I have already recognized you, Sweet-Shine-also-called-‘Taxi’. My spies hear much and it would be impossible not to hear of Hard Boiled’s little band of creatures. A young griffin, an Archivist, a mad pegasus, and you...his pet assassin. Legends in your own time. Excellent additions.”
“Additions?” I asked, praying Firebrand was doing something intelligent.
Swinging herself back to face me, Propana leaned down until we were eye to eye once more. “Simply the finest assemblage of war-gear torn from the bodies of my foes. I kill them, strip them, mount them...and you? You have so many interesting stories! Did you truly bring Hard Boiled back to life several times?”
I nodded, weakly.
“I’ll have to have my pet unicorn peel your brain open for the methodology,” she replied. “A little immortality never hurt anyone, no? Would not wish my husband’s love to fade as my looks do.”
‘She needs to know that Carnath does not love her. He is using her for her position in Clan Avaricious.’
‘If I tell her that, she’s going to breathe fire on me.’
‘She’s going to do that anyway.’
‘Either way, I’ll keep that nugget for later.’
Propana was still talking as she circled the ancient war scooter, lightly poking Ambrock in the side of the head. “This spell. It is being cast by the vehicle. My, my, I do believe dissecting that might be worth my time! Though, I suppose with time being short, I should call my retinue to come and retrieve this. Would you like to come quietly or will I need to cauterize your leg stumps?”
I was about to respond when a thin, blue field of transparent energy rolled down in front of me.
The dragoness and I blinked at each other through it. I reached out and gently poked the field; it seemed perfectly solid and let out a faint ‘plink, plink’ like a piece of fine ceramic tapped with a metal spoon. I looked over my shoulder to see Firebrand’s pointed muzzle pressed against the driver’s window of the war scooter as she frantically gestured at me to get inside.
‘You need to know Propana is about to breathe fire on you.’
‘Oh.’
There was a sound like a blast furnace being opened and Propana’s throat bulged as the scales along her neck began to glow white hot. The pounding rain burst into steam around her, creating a cloud of mist that rolled around the edges of the shield. She opened her gigantic maw and I was afforded a glimpse down her huge throat; a sight I imagine very few ponies at that range had ever survived.
Blazing magical flame exploded across my field of vision, very nearly blinding me and forcing my eyes shut as I stumbled away from the shield, bumping flank-first into the war scooter.
Being alive after a dragon breathes fire even near you is a feat; I’d done it more times lately than I think most ponies would believe even after they’d had a few drinks.
As the fire died, Propana smacked her lips a few times and cocked her head, inspecting her handiwork. A spidery webwork of cracks the size of a dinner plate was impressed on the shield where she’d blasted it but that seemed to be the worst of the damage. The pavement just outside was a molten pool that extended around the edge of the shield on both sides.
“Well. I suppose this will be more entertaining than I originally thought,” Propana murmured, thoughtfully tapping the still smoking shield, “Not that any of our little exchange has been dull. Killing you outright wouldn’t have quite the thrill of an actual battle with Her Royal Grace.”
I hesitated, then took a step forward. “Propana...”
“Ah? You know my name!” the dragoness exclaimed, raising herself onto her back legs and clapping her claws together as though there weren’t a magical storm pelting us with rain. “Honored, Miss Taxi! Honored!”
“Propana, you know the ones who paid your troupe to be here are planning on killing everyone, right?” I asked, “Not just ponykind! Every living thing!”
The dragoness raised an eyeridge at me, then glanced up in the direction of the Eclipse and let out a meaning-loaded snort of smoke.
“So I gathered,” she said, coiling her tail around her rear legs before waving off toward the edge of town where the refugees were no-doubt evacuating. At least, I hoped they were. “Little mare, do you really think your species the first to attempt to end the world?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” I muttered.
“And there it is! The reason I find ponykind so entertaining! Such arrogance! Such temerity!” she exclaimed, dropping onto all fours as she paced back and forth in front of the war scooter’s magical shield. Reaching up, she stroked the leather pouch around her neck. “This latest foolishness is not even the first to blot out the sun! Nor the second, for that matter. Our kind slept beneath the surface of this world through many a little ‘apocalypse’. Always, we survive, and always there is some new race thinking they’ll be the one to finally turn the wheel at long last and end it all. When this is over, there will be no more Princesses and no more of their silly ‘friendship’ to infect our young with ridiculous notions. We will rise from our slumber...and this will be a world of dragons once more.”
‘You need to know she has an artifact in her pouch that is very dangerous. She keeps touching it.’
‘Right.’
“So the last memory of us is your little collection of weapons?” I asked.
“I will so very much miss pony meat,” she said, musingly, picking at her teeth with one claw and flicking what turned out to be a piece of a broken beak against our shield. “Griffins are too stringy. Now, shall we have it out? I am so excited to kill you, Sweet Shine! Pony assassins are always so creatively lethal.”
I slowly shook my head and sighed. “You know, I woke up this morning ready to die? I was really considering dying and trying to achieve the ‘perfect calm’ my zebra master used to tell me about where you could accept the end of life with peace and dignity, knowing you’d achieved your ultimate goals. It’s the zebra idea of heroism. Now I can’t even do that. My master would be so disappointed.”
The dragoness began making a few little preparatory stretches, one ear-fluke still cocked in my direction. “Why can you not die heroically, then?” she asked.
“Because I’d be giving a self-important slithering snake with bad breath too much satisfaction.”
There was a moment there, when Propana was staring down at me, when I was sure she was going to start banging her head against the shield. Then she leaned back and burst into a deafening guffaw, slapping her stomach with one taloned claw as she pitched onto her back, rolling back and forth on the pavement. After a few seconds, she raised her head and grinned across at me, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye.
“Oh, I like you little mare!” she chuckled, “I’ll take considerable pleasure in mounting your remains alongside that war scooter.”
“We’ll see.”
With that, I trotted around and wrenched the scooter’s hatch open to find a very frightened Firebrand standing on the other side, her swords drawn and her golden armored helm on her head. I jerked my nose toward the lower gunnery station and she scrambled backwards out of my way, her tail lashing against her legs as she sprinted for the ladder down to the weapons blister.
Piling in after her, I trotted through to the pilot station and wiggled around into the seat, looking up as my displays sprang to life around me. I glanced at the readout
Propana was still standing out there, stretching like she was readying for a marathon rather than a fight to the death.
Tapping the call button on the in-scooter communications system, I said, “Thanks for the shield. I’m pretty sure burning alive would wreck my spiritual flow.”
“It is no wonder the Dragon King lost the war if there were ponies as mad as you back then, Miss Shine,” Firebrand replied, grumpily, “And you can give your gratitude to Ancestor Apple Bloom. She has ponies watching and radioed to tell me how to operate the defensive measures. I almost soiled myself when Propana breathed on you.”
“Me too,” I admitted, wrapping my hooves around the yoke. “Try to get a shot off on her as we’re going up.”
“Does...does she know all the capabilities of this craft?”
I hadn’t considered that unsettling possibility.
“Do you mind if I burn the other half of my incense and pray she doesn’t?”
The radio crackled and another voice broke in. “Gypsy Danger calling Hack Mistress! Gypsy Danger calling Hack Mistress! Do you read?”
Shaking my head at the ridiculous call signs, I pulled my seatbelt tight and readied to disengage the shield. “I read, Gypsy. What’s going on? I’m about to go into a fight here.”
“Propana is there?! The griffins just got back. What’s left of them, anyway. They lost track of her in the cloud layer. Swift Cuddles is making her run and Mister Limerence sounds like he’s in position. I’m monitoring no fewer than five more dragons incoming to your position.”
“Oh that bitch,” I snapped, yanking back on the war scooter’s yoke as hard as I could. Ambrock and Vexis tensed, then sprang into the air. I heard Firebrand squawk from the other end of the corridor as the giant vehicle all but leapt off the highway.
“Come again, Hack Mistress?”
“She kept me talking. She had no intention of a one on one.”
Even as I rocketed away from the highway, the force of my acceleration pressing me back in my seat, I could almost feel Propana breathing down my neck.
Redirecting my ire inwards, I snarled into the corners of my mind, ‘Why didn’t you let me know that was what she was doing?’
‘You did not need to know. You would have tried to talk her out of letting you kill these dragons and then the shield would have dropped and you would have died right there. She might get considerable satisfaction out of watching you work, but she would have happily fricasseed you if the option presented itself.’
‘And this is why we didn’t get along for so many years! The fact that you make these kinds of calculations scares the fur off me!’
‘It is not my fault you need to be manipulated into surviving your own moral quandaries.’
I didn’t have a good snappy comeback for that.
“Gypsy, can you give me headings on those incoming dragons?” I asked the radio, instead.
“Can you see Uptown?” she asked.
“Not through this storm, but I know where it is from here. Cabbie instincts.”
“Well, they’re about five degrees east of Uptown to your position, moving together in a tight V. The one out front keeps blasting fire to clear the air ahead of snow. It’s giving me a good view of him.”
Tapping one of the controls, I reversed the view of the cameras on the war scooter’s interface. The view swung around behind me and I could just make out Propana, distantly following, keeping me in sight but not weapons range. Flicking the images back, I searched the skyline. Amid all the smoking and flickering lights, all the hundreds spread out in the burning spires of Detrot, it was tough to pick out any individual fire.
There were entire skyscrapers missing from the skyline. The Apple Consortium’s building was missing its signature sculpted apple from the rooftop. The top third of the Cheesepie Headquarters was gone. If I hadn’t been in a state close to manic fury, I might have had a tear to shed.
So many dead. So much wasted potential. So many needs that would never see fulfillment.
Lost in unhappy thoughts, I almost missed a slightly brighter flash of light just above the horizon towards Uptown. Punching up a closer view, I grinned as the five dragons came into view. They were heavily armored; each wore a set of fitted draconic plate with clan sigils carved into the scales on their forehead. I’d never studied up on the dragon clans, but that screamed ‘royal guards’ to me.
“Firebrand, check me on this. I’ve got a hooffull of dragons at eleven’o’clock in matching armor with something that looks like a sneezing cat carved on their heads.”
There was a pause, then Firebrand asked, “Are they flying in some silly formation?”
“That’s right.”
“Mmm...Dragon King guards. Most likely on loan. They’re Carnath’s personal protection squad, sent to provide honor guard for Propana. They think because they can frighten hatchlings that they are tough. I have killed two of their number myself over the years. They are decently trained, but tend to also be puffed up fools with shiny scales and empty heads. It is still Propana you must be wary of.”
“I’m going to fly us right through them. Ready on the guns.”
I pressed the accelerator, watching as the strain on Ambrock and Vexis started to top the yellow section of the dashboard meters monitoring their health. We skimmed the tops of the many burning skyscrapers, keeping low and hopefully below the sight lines of the five reptiles. On the ground facing screens, I could see dozens of little fights going on from street to street as melees broke out between the ponies of Detrot and the Black Coats.
“Propana is moving much more slowly than I know she is able,” Firebrand commented over the comms. “She could easily overtake us.”
“She knows we can only carry so many bullets and that shield surprised her as much as it did me. That’s not standard on a war scooter. I’m betting she’s waiting to see what else we can pull out of our hats.”
“She likes to wield magical artifacts in battle and that pouch on her chest is the pony equivalent of a prestidigitician’s hat, if I understand your metaphor correctly. Beware. She will have some tricks of her own.”
“I spent an hour this morning praying to the universe to keep my day uninteresting. It hasn’t listened.”
“Does it ever?” she asked.
“I should pray for terror and bloodshed. It would have a higher hit rate.”
Pushing the throttle a little harder, I aimed the nose of the scooter straight at the collection of dragons. They didn’t seem to have seen us just yet, but it wouldn’t be long.
I tapped the comms and picked up my walkie-talkie. “Gypsy Danger, Hack Mistress here...can you get me over to Apple Bloom?”
“Will do, Hack Mistress. One second. Patching you through.”
After a moment, the elderly mare’s voice bubbled out of the speaker. “Ah’m here girl. We’re movin’ bodies quick, but there’s injured. Still, Tourniquet’s people move right fast. What can Ah do ya for?”
“I’ve got five dragons incoming, all in armor. Ideas?”
“Mmm...Well, ah ain’t never got to fire it in battle, but press the button on the left side of your head with the ‘sheep’ on it when you get close. It’s one shot all around the outside, but it might take one or two of’em out of the fight. Go for point blank if ya can. Don’t forget the defenses on your engines. They won’t protect the scooter, but that’s what armor is for.”
I hunted across the myriad buttons near my head until I found one that had a stylized lamb on it. Taking a quick mental note of where it was, I tapped another beside it that said ‘Shield Engines.’ A shimmering field of glittering enchantment wrapped itself Ambrock and Vexis, surrounding them in gently pulsating energy.
That got our opponents’ attention. As one, the five dragons turned to face us and let out piercing howls that I heard even a mile away. I ran a toe over the dash and took a breath that was perfumed with decades old engine grease.
‘You with me?’
‘As long as you need me to be. The lead dragon has a badly healed left wing and the ones following him are moving a bit slower than they can out of respect.’
‘I’ll take him last. If he’s smart, he’ll know he’s slow and try to get a positional advantage on me.’
‘You need to know you’re talking to yourself.’
Rolling my eyes, I took us into a steep climb, listening to the sound of bolts and welds groaning around me. The war scooter was a little slower than the dragons. We hit the clouds and the winds tore at us, lashing the tank hard enough that I had to compensate every couple of seconds to keep us out of a roll.
The storm was vicious up there, buffeting and blinding the exterior cameras. I poked a button that said ‘heat vision’ and my display spilled into a rainbow of colors. Allowing myself a grim smile, I watched as the dragons shot up into the cloud bank just below us.
The internal communicator crackled and Firebrand came through. “Miss Shine, I cannot see to fire in this condition.”
“Apple Bloom didn’t give you heat vision?” I asked.
“Oh? OH! Yes, yes she did. I have our targets in sight...and I’m pretty sure they have us in sight, too. Their helmets must be enchanted in some fashion.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because one of them just pulled a pony anti-materiel rifle off his back and is pointing it at us.”
I jerked my head back to the displays, only to find myself staring down the distant barrel of a Maretta .50 caliber rifle held in the claws of one of the smaller dragons toward the back of their formation. A pony typically had to have a bracing position to fire one without dislocating their shoulder. Flight while carrying a Maretta is out of the question for all but the largest pegasi, but in a dragon’s claws it was barely more than an ordinary gun.
Leaning forward to grab the controls saved my life.
The shot blew a hole right through the viewport just above my head and the rest next to my shoulder exploded in a spray of foam and vinyl. I hauled us into a barrel roll as my stomach dropped into my flank, then suddenly leapt into my throat. The world turned upside down for a full three seconds before righting itself just in time for a second round to rip through the wall before proceeding to bury itself in the opposite bulkhead. Wind whipped through the holes, making my eyes tear up for several seconds before some kind of semi-liquid gel spilled out of the gaping wound in the plate and almost instantly hardened.
‘What do I do?!’
‘Three shots remaining in the magazine. Dodge right.’
I heaved the controls into a sideways roll and the next shot blew past the belly of the war scooter, clipping the armor in a spray of sparks I caught on one of the rear-facing cameras.
“May I shoot them now?!” Firebrand yelped over the comms.
“Hold tight!” I shouted, “We’re still out of range!”
I glanced at the speedometer and winced as one of Vexis’s flight muscles ticked into the ‘red’ zone and a meter measuring her pain response shot up.
The next shot was a bit wild and glanced off the roof.
One more remaining.
The range-to-target display turned bright green.
“Light’em up!” I snarled.
For the first time in nearly thirty years, the sound of four Slayer Spec High Caliber Machine Guns shook the sky over Detrot. Brilliant spots of light arced away from us like enraged fairies on the warpath. The dragons scattered like a bunch of flies interrupted mid-flight by an incoming flyswatter, dodging away in all directions. The one with the rifle, encumbered as he was, didn’t quite manage to get out of the way in time.
Even with the distortions of heat vision, it was disturbing to watch a creature come apart like that. His body didn’t so much recoil as explode into bloody viscera as a dozen massive projectiles hit him in the span of a breath. His upper half went one way, his legs and tail another, while his head—expression surprised and a bit perturbed by how his life had turned out—started to fall. One of his fellows snatched the rifle before it could follow him, buying herself a clipped tail as she did.
After the initial burst, the dragons sprinted as high as they could, trying to get out of the firing arc of the bottom gun.
“Firebrand, they’re above us! Can you switch turrets?” I called.
“Yes, one moment—”
There was a snap, then a crunch as something on top of the vehicle gave way.
“Oh...there is now no purpose to switching seats,” Firebrand murmured into her communicator.
“They shot the other gun?”
“They shot the other gun.”
“That means they’re going to try us in close. Melee combat.”
There was a sound of unsheathing steel over the radio. “They will find that a poor decision.”
“Gypsy, are you still listening to us?” I asked.
It took a second, but Gypsy finally answered.
“I’m listening to a lot of things, Hack Mistress! Got a big brawl on Tenth Avenue that’s turning bad for our people, but we’ve taken the P.A.C.T. supply depot on Pansy Street. What’s your pleasure?”
“Ask Apple Bloom if she rigged some kind of automatic piloting thing. I need to take my hooves off the controls.”
“One moment...”
Several more than ‘one moment’s’ worth of my lifespan passed before she came back.
‘Alright, Apple Bloom says you have to set your speed by pressing ‘cruise’ beside the yoke, then press ‘hold alti’ and the controls will lock at an altitude, flying in a big circle.’
“Give her my thanks and blessings of good luck!”
“Careful up there! Propana is looking real intent just under the cloud cover! Pretty sure she can see you!”
“Firebrand says she likes enchantments and artifacts. If she does anything more interesting than follow, let me know.”
“On it!”
Bracing myself, I pressed the accelerator a little harder and started a sharp dive. It might not sound terribly difficult, but if you want your opponent to follow you when trying to look like you’re running away, you can’t look like you want them to follow. That involves a certain projected panic, which can’t simultaneously actually be panic. Considering I was headed into combat with four dragons and a vehicle whose controls I was only aware of from a childhood obsession, the balance was pretty tenuous.
‘What’s our gameplan here?’
‘You need to let us do what we can do. You need to get out of your own way.’
‘W-will I be able to take control again?’
‘You are only helpless when you ignore your own needs. That is when you do the evils you fear.’
Grinding my teeth, I glanced at the floating screen showing my reverse view. The dragons were following, keeping themselves out of the bottom gun’s firing arc as they dove in like four missiles chasing the vapor trail coming off the back of Her Royal Grace.
The skyscrapers—those that remained—quickly appeared out of the cloud cover and I got a solid, overhead glimpse of the city. It almost made me want to throw up. The damage was incalculable.
I scanned over my screens until I found the distant white speck that was Propana. Pressing the ‘zoom’ function, my view suddenly leapt closer. The enormous dragoness was leisurely cruising along a mile or two back, keeping pace but not making any particular effort to close the distance. The expression on her face was something like boredom, though she kept her eyes locked firmly on my position. A part of me couldn’t shake the feeling she could see me, through all those layers of armor and machinery.
My four pursuers were getting awfully close, though not quite enough.
“Firebrand, I’m going to tilt us a bit sideways. Could you fire a few quick shots toward our friends out there? No need to hit them, but make them think you’re damn well trying. Force them to speed up a bit.”
I heard the bottom gun clank and rotate on its gimbal. “I trust you have a plan?”
“That’s a bad thing to trust these days, but in this case, yes. We’re going to even the odds a bit, but I need them to get in tight!”
Edging the yoke on one side, I swallowed as the ship swiveled. The bottom guns barked, sending spurts of angry fire in the general direction of our foes. Short of flipping upside down, there wasn’t a good way to actually hit them. The displays that monitored Ambrock and Vexis were already registering tiredness, not to mention a half dozen pulled muscles; no sense crippling them for life unless I strictly had to.
The added gunshots worked like a charm.
All four of the lizards sped up, dodging nimbly until they were right on top of us. The one carrying the anti-materiel rifle was hastily trying to reload it, though doing that in mid-air with such a heavy weapon was proving difficult even for a dragon. I allowed myself a small smile, then slammed the controls into reverse, wincing as another indicator monitoring Vexis’s neck sounded a ‘sprain’ alarm.
The war scooter stalled in mid-air, though not quite enough to throw me against the dash. Simultaneously, all four dragons tried to brake, but the big rifle once more betrayed the lizard wielding it. She nearly slammed muzzle first into the rear hull of the flying tank, coming to an almost complete stop trying frantically to compensate.
Reaching up, I tapped the ‘lamb’ button.
----
There are many good reasons transformative magics aren’t often used in warfare.
They require immense power to use. The number of unicorns who can cast them is miniscule. The effects are all-too-often extremely temporary.
If, however, one happened to be a bored, militaristic inventor with nothing to do for decades at a time besides tinker and fiddle, one could eventually come up with a weaponized answer to a very specific problem: how do you disable a dragon in flight when you can’t just shoot them?
----
The ship shuddered in mid-air, before a throbbing pulse shook the air and the sound of a unicorn’s horn amplified fifty times over rolled through the interior. A flash of magic lit the surface and, for a second, the screens went blank. When they cleared, I looked for the dragoness who’d been hugging the anti-materiel rifle.
Instead, I found a damp, deeply disturbed white sheep, hugging an anti-materiel rifle. The ewe bleated once, carefully touched her throat, then tried to climb the gun, but gravity had already asserted itself; she plummeted toward the earth.
A tiny readout appeared on my main screen that read ‘Baleful Polymorphic Matrix Expires in 30 seconds.’ Unfortunately for the newly minted sheep, it was only twenty-eight seconds to the pavement. I shut my eyes an instant before she hit and flew on, into the half-light over the smoking ruins of Detrot.
“Gypsy?” I asked, gingerly touching the communicator. The other dragons had dropped back, though they seemed uncertain what to do. The leader’s muzzle was moving, as though he was talking to someone.
“I’m here. That is one nasty bit of enchantment. There’s bits of impacted dragon all over Tack street. Think you can pull that three more times?”
I shot a look at the power readouts. “Not a chance. Is Propana communicating with those dragons, somehow?”
“I’ll take a look. Scanning the channels...”
I waited, monitoring the dozen or so little meters and dials which told me the health of the war scooter. More than a few of them were ‘yellow’ or ‘red’, though none essential, unless I happened to count my engines. Vexis and her young brother were both running on fumes. Getting into a dogfight hadn’t helped.
Gypsy returned, finally. “I think I found it! Here, patching you in.”
Propana’s snarling voice broke into the cabin.
“-can only use such a weapon once! Cowards! If you don’t get back in there, being turned into a sheep will be the least of your worries!”
A male dragon replied over the same line, “Gold and jewels are only worth something if we live to collect them!”
“Then I shall double the pay of any who survive! You are Dragon King guards! How do you think he will like it if I return with tales of how five of you couldn’t deal with one little mare and her antique flying machine?”
There was an audible gulp. “Double pay, ma’am. You shall have your trophy.”
“Worry not, captain. I have a few little spells of my own. I shall assist you when you engage her.”
“Ma’am, who is this mare to you?”
“A delectable challenge. I want her alive and if she is, I shall include a gemstone the size of your head. Slaughter her companions if she has any.”
The radio clicked and Gypsy returned. “You catch all that?”
“I heard. Taxi, out.”
Setting the cruising height, I dropped our speed to something barely faster than a gallop and tentatively released the controls. Ambrock and Vexis seemed to lock in place, their wings slowing to barely a beat every few seconds as the scooter canted a bit to one side. When I was sure it wasn’t going to immediately drop out of the sky, I slid out of my seat. The sensation of the vehicle moving under me was unsettling, but I quickly swallowed my nerves and shouted, “Firebrand! We are going up top!”
Scrabbling up the ladder, the dragoness held one sword in her teeth and the other in one claw. Spitting out the blade, she asked, “I am suited to fight in the air, but unless I mistake my pony anatomy, you do not have wings.”
“I don’t need wings,” I replied, hefting my P.E.A.C.E. cannon off my back and checking that it was loaded. “They’ll be coming for me. I’ll offer them a target. Your job is to make sure I’m not fighting more than two at once.”
Firebrand gradually lowered the tip of one of her swords and gave me another of those appraising looks dragons like to give smaller species.
“You are like Crusader Hard Boiled, yes?” she asked. “Deranged and more dangerous than you look?”
“His partner might watch his back, but I’m the pony who makes sure he always gets where he needs to be,” I answered. “I’m the one who is waiting when he needs to make his getaway. I’m the one who clears the path. Do you know what that makes me?”
“I...fear I do not...” she murmured.
I rose up on my back legs and cocked my gun, grinning a little madly as a round clunked into the chamber.
“I’m the driver.”
----
I expected the wind to be a problem, but as I opened the top hatch there wasn’t so much as a whistle. I could see the thick, black clouds passing overhead and the rain instantly soaked my face, but it wasn’t cutting my pelt like I was worried it might. Shoving the hatch back, I cautiously stepped out onto the war scooter’s roof. A series of gemstones no bigger than kernels of corn and laid out in a grid-shaped pattern all across the surface lit up around my hoof and I had the oddest sensation of being sucked to the chilly metal surface.
The air was foul with smoke, but we were coasting low.
I glanced down to where Firebrand crouched under the hatch, a sword in her teeth.
“There’s some kind of wind-protection spell up here,” I called down, “Probably the same one that makes the war scooter light enough to haul. Guess the Crusaders liked to fight standing on the roof.”
“The stories say they enjoyed a bit of drama,” Firebrand replied, crawling up after me.
“They were special operations. ‘Make the enemy scared’ was their central mission. Nothing scarier than a good story,” I replied, pulling my P.E.A.C.E. cannon down off my shoulders.
The air was thick with rain, but whatever enchantment kept us in the air left the disconcerting feeling of being stock-still while still moving. Peering a bit over the edge, I could see Vexis and Ambrock, their sides working like bellows as they tried to keep us in the air. From inside it was sometimes hard to remember we were being pulled by living beings who could give out at almost any moment, but seeing them made my heart ache. Despite their size, something instinctual kept reminding me they were barely more than children. The thin shield around them seemed to have kept them from major harm, but it would do nothing for their muscles.
Turning back to the sky, I tracked my eyes across the horizon until I spotted Propana. She was coasting languidly over the skyscrapers, framed from behind by the glow of Uptown and the fires that seemed to be multiplying by the minute despite the storm. I thought for sure we were too far away from her to make out details, but as our eyes met she threw me a cheeky salute with one taloned claw.
Jerking my attention away from her, I scanned for the remaining dragons, picking them out above and a quarter mile back. Earth pony sight might not be terribly good, but I didn’t need to see them terribly well. Firebrand stepped onto the roof beside me and flared her wings in challenge.
Leaning back, I slowly readied a firing position. There was no way I was going to hit them over that distance; no amount of ‘needing’ it will make me a better shot any more than Hardy will one day be a sane driver. Still, some guns don’t need you to ‘hit’ the opponent so much as get ‘reasonably close’.
Tapping my trigger, I braced and there was a soft ‘cachunk’ as the sabot trailed off into the clouds. Five meters in front of the cohort of dragons, a burst of bright red smoke exploded outwards. They split in all directions, but with the way the wind was blowing there was no way they could miss it entirely.
After only a couple seconds, the sneezing began. Tiny bursts of fire lit the air as all of them were wracked with violent, crippling sneezes. One might not think ‘sneezing’ is an especially dangerous thing to do, but sneezing is mutually exclusive with flying and fighting.
“That...is evil, Miss Taxi,” Firebrand muttered.
“I heard a story about a zebra ambassador who once asked Princess Celestia why she’d discouraged weapons development before the Crusades,” I said by way of reply.
Racking a second shot into the chamber, I lifted my gun and let fly. The second round popped right on top of one of the dragons, blasting him in the face with a wretched green fog. His eyes almost bulged right out of his head as he slapped both foreclaws over his nose, only to immediately sneeze again, blasting them off his face with a sound like an angry vuvuzela. His companions sniffed at the air, then both scooted sideways, giving him a wide berth.
“The Princess said it wasn’t because ponies are bad at it, so much as every time she’d allowed somepony creative to make a weapon it came with a strange undercurrent of sadism,” I continued. “Maybe some holdover from when we were just prey animals and really wanted our predators to suffer.”
Licking my lips, I took aim again. This shot was a bit high, but that didn’t save the poor unlucky dragoness from her fate. The burst of powder hit her full in the face just as she inhaled to sneeze. Suddenly, she clutched her belly as an expression of horror spread across her scaley muzzle.
Beside me, Firebrand clucked like a mother hen as she watched the dragon guard flail at the air, trying desperately to stay on course while attempting to shed her lower armor. She almost made it before the first explosive burst of diarrhea nearly knocked her out of the sky. It was like watching some kind of foul pinwheel, struggling to keep herself from plummeting to the spires below, screaming and sneezing and blowing fire from both ends.
“We don’t just kill our enemies. We like to irritate them first,” I finished, clicking another shot into place.
Raising my weapon, I centered my shot on the captain’s face. He was still watching his companion as she rolled end over end, shrieking in agony, rage, and embarrassment. Even I couldn’t miss at that range with such a perfectly distracted target.
My cannon clunked and the shot went out, but without warning a strange, glimmering blue bubble of some kind appeared around him. The round bounced off and detonated in a glittery spray, but none of it penetrated the shield. Bit of a shame, really; laughing hex rounds weren’t cheap.
I glanced back to where Propana still coasted along and she had one claw in her little pouch and the other pointed toward the captain and his companions. All three now sported similar shields that floated along with them as they tried to recover from the dousing in unpleasant spells I’d just given them.
“I have seen this before,” Firebrand growled. “She is using pearls of a ‘Shen’ from her homeland. It is a sort of monstrous clam. She crushes the pearls when she needs a defense. They protect a creature from very nearly anything outside the perimeter which might attack them for a short time. It forces close combat.”
“Then I think it’s time we let them have some close combat,” I answered, shouldering my cannon and dropping back onto all fours. “You take the lieutenants and keep them distracted. I’ll handle the leader.”
Firebrand drew her swords and leapt off the war scooter with a shriek that made my ears ring. Her wings caught the air the instant she was outside the protective spells, sending her rocketing off into the sky toward her opponents. The captain saw her coming and quickly gestured at his companions who each drew short swords from their belts, tilting to face her with murder in their eyes.
Meanwhile, I raised a hoof and beckoned the captain in. His face was twisted in a look of grim intent as he swooped in close, cautiously watching the main gun turret just behind me lest it somehow spring to life. That was unlikely, considering the round his companion fired went straight through the barrel of two of the guns, but careful people tend to live longer.
He was only a little larger than Firebrand, bright green, and covered in brightly-shined scales that spoke of a healthier than average lifestyle. A scar cut across his right eye and another over his slightly tattered wing where one of the knuckles hadn’t quite healed properly. Thick, wiry muscles bound his neck and back and his dark grey armor fit him like a glove, strapped across his chest and midsection while leaving his legs, arms, and wings free to move.
He alighted on the surface of the war scooter with a heavy thump and the suction magics lit around his claws, holding him in place as the bubble molded itself around him.
“My...charge...seems to think you are worth something, little mare,” he rumbled, raising his claws and flexing them. “She would like you alive, but after that little display, I believe I am going to take a liberal definition of that word. You will be breathing, though I may have to cauterize a few stumps.”
‘Tell me about him. What do I need to know?’
‘You know everything you need to know. Now you need to shine.’
‘What?’
‘Shine.’
Shaking my head, I stared up at the green beast and rubbed my forehead. “Look, killing you wasn’t really in my plan for today and I don’t need another death on my conscience. My friend Firebrand...you might have recognized her?”
“The Emberite killer, yes,” he grumbled.
“I should just let you know, she’s the distraction. I’m the ‘big scary thing’ you needed to worry about. Not the tank. Not the draconic assassin. Me.”
The captain frowned a little and poked at the bubble around himself. “I see few things worth worrying about, here, and you have no horn nor wings. Earth ponies might die hard, but they do still die.”
Unlimbering my cannon, I let it drop on the surface of the ship. Thankfully, the same magics that protected us from the wind also took hold of it. The captain grinned and pulled his sword out of its scabbard, dropping the blade on the ship beside him.
I took a few steps forward until my muzzle touched the shield around him. There was a slight pressure, then I stepped through.
He was pretty imposing up close, but his family always thought he was a bit of a useless runt. He’d proved them wrong, of course. A dragon who controls his greed wisely can grow fast and strong, beating opponents many times his size with wit and flexibility.
I blinked down at myself.
‘Where did that come from?’
‘Shine.’
I looked up at the dragon and stepped closer. My muzzle felt like it was moving not entirely of my own volition, but still they were my words.
“You know, your parents would never have given you the love they gave Coal Tongue. A dragonlet needs to be strong. You were too weak. Undeserving. You needed to be toughened up.”
His slitted eyes very nearly popped right out of his head.
“W-what did you say, little mare?” he snarled.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” I cocked my head, as though listening to something, and let the words flow. “Coal Tongue is back in the homelands right now, in your cave, no less. In fact, he and your wife look to just now be starting their second round of the evening! You needed to treat her a little more kindly. Seems your brother learned a couple tricks from ponies about how to please a female.”
The captain’s sword twitched in my direction, but I held my ground.
“You know nothing, little mare,” he barked. “Parlor tricks!”
A gentle light began to spread out inside me.
“Goodness, Tinder is certainly going to town on him, isn’t she?” I continued. “She’s got him right to the hilt. Makes you wonder why your last two eggs came out funny colors, doesn’t it?”
I barely dodged the blaze of furious fire that exploded out of his muzzle, scorching the ground where I’d been standing. My muscles moved before I really had time to consider where they were going. I think, on further consideration, charging him might not have been top of my list.
I all but flew across the short distance and leapt up into the air, vaulting straight onto his chest. Two firm hooves to the breastplate sent him spinning in place. I rebounded onto the metallic surface just as he recovered enough to throw a vicious kick toward my flank. His skills were considerable, but his age and unhealed injuries were catching up with him. Rolling onto my back, I caught his claw in both front hooves and gave it a vicious twist. In an instant, his tibia was popped entirely out of place, not a permanent injury, but crippling in most species.
He let out a wheeze, then slammed his heel right down where my head had been only a half second before, forcing me to release him. Stumbling backwards, he looked up to where Firebrand was sparring with his subordinates just in time to watch the unfortunate drake I’d hit with the skunk round lose a wing to one of her blades and go spiraling out of the sky like a broken helicopter. The captain’s breathing was rough as he raised his foot, grabbed the dislocated bone and snapped it back into place. He put a tentative bit of weight on it and winced as I casually got to my hooves.
“I see,” he murmured, flicking a talon in my direction. “If I feint left, grab my sword and try to cut your head off—”
I shook my head. “I’d already have dropped under the blade and punched you in the throat where the armor doesn’t cover.”
“And if I tried to gut you with my tail spines?” he asked.
“A hoof-stomp on your injured leg, followed by a kick to the wing that abyssinian sword master sliced when you invaded his apartments a few years ago.”
He nodded, thoughtfully. “And an attempt to breathe fire on you from here?”
“I would have to stab you in the eye with the knife you keep tucked down the neck of your armor. It wouldn’t kill you right away. Dragon brains are buried pretty deep in the skull, but...you would never get home.”
He heaved a heavy breath and looked me up and down. “What now, little mare? I have lived through the rule of four kings among dragons, but if you kill Propana then my life is forfeit. I’ve no wish to die here, but if I return without her, my lord will kill me.”
“If you return with her, the world is forfeit,” I answered, trotting over and picking up my gun, checking it for damage, then shouldering it. “Your children love you, whether they’re your seed or not. Your wife still cares for you and Coal Tongue secretly regrets his actions. There’s also a young sergeant in your second guard who lost her lover recently and will be receptive. Carnath failing to take this city will be a huge blow to his standing and if you report his incompetence he might try to kill you, but if he’s smart he’ll retreat to lick his wounds.”
The captain’s yellow, slitted eyes narrowed at me, then he snatched up his sword and scabbard and resecured them. “If nothing else, this is a piece of pony magic my lord must know about. My king likes to plot another invasion of Equestria, despite our low numbers. This may be enough to make him think twice. It may also buy me some mercy.”
“I hope so,” I murmured, offering him my hoof. With only a short hesitation, he reached out and took it, giving my leg what was—for a dragon—a light shake. Turning to where Firebrand still wheeled through the sky, clashing and darting back and forth with the other dragoness - who was still letting out occasional distressed sneezes - he made a shrill whistle with two claw-tips stuck between his teeth. The two warriors broke away from one another, panting in mid-air as they circled warily. The captain touched the side of his helm; a tiny gem lit up, and he spoke into it.
“Scald Wind, go get Infernus and try to find what’s left of his wing. Don’t engage any more ponies. We’re pulling out.”
The female dragon tapped her helm and replied, though I couldn’t hear the reply over that distance.
“I don’t give two toots of a dead firesnake’s arse if that’s an Emberite or Dragonlord Ember herself! I’m not dying for that nutcase and her damned toy collection. We’re getting out of this city. Let the rest of Carnath’s little band have their fun. I don’t think any of them are making it back if the bloodshed I’ve seen in some quarters is any estimation.”
Nodding her assent, the female dragon sheathed her blade and raised her claws in a universal gesture of ‘I’m done’. Firebrand, meanwhile backed off and lowered her blades before turning in my direction. Spotting the captain and I side-by-side, she swooped down toward the war scooter and landed beside me.
“Are we not killing them?” she asked.
“Seems not,” the captain grunted. “I’ll gather up the rest of my warriors and get—”
He trailed off into silence. A thin, red line appeared just below his chin as his arms went slack at his sides. A burning geyser of blood suddenly burst across my face as his head tumbled from his shoulders and slid off the war scooter.
Immediately after, the remaining female guard split right down the middle, her body spilling all manner of viscera over the city before vanishing down amongst the skyscrapers.
Before I knew entirely what I was doing, I grabbed Firebrand and yanked her down flat.
I couldn’t save the tip of her wing or a significant chunk of her tail.
I caught sight of Propana, much closer than she’d been, coasting along behind us with one claw extended toward the scooter and the other inside her pouch again. As soon as she saw Firebrand fall, she shot me another salute with a sneering smile to go with it. Her wings began to beat a little faster.
Firebrand’s ruined wing sagged pathetically against her side like a broken kite as she slumped onto all fours. Grabbing her by one leg, I half-dragged, half carried her towards the still open hatch, praying Propana didn’t have another of whatever she’d just used to almost bisect my friend and her own wayward servants from a couple hoofball fields away.
Hauling her to the hatch, I heaved Firebrand over the lip. Her heart was pounding against my shoulder and she was breathing heavily, but just as I thought she might simply fall, she caught the rungs of the ladder and began gradually making her way down. Her tail was a lost cause; the magic that cut right through the captain had sliced a thick wedge out of the middle of it. I couldn’t say for sure about the wing. It looked a right mess, but possibly repairable.
No time to think on it. If she lived, she lived. If she died...it would be another reason to kill Propana. Like the captain, who’d stood his ground until wisdom dictated he retreat. The bitch murdered them, like she murdered so many others. I could see them, howling with need, from the place between worlds. So many needing justice.
The Bay of Unity.
I needed to get to the Bay of Unity.
I turned to face the burning sky and the oncoming dragon.
‘Shine.’