//------------------------------//
// Chapter 31 
// Story: Just Like Magic of Old 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

When Flight’s mom, Cheap Gold, stepped into the room with a glass of whiskey in one Hands, the first words out of her mouth were in a derisive tone. “What is that purple pony doing in here?”
Twilight opened her mouth to speak, looking offended- but Flight held up a hoof to silence her, and stepped forward.  “Mom,” she began.
Predictably, her mom ignored her, and started ranting about strange ponies being let into her meeting room.
“Mom,” she repeated.
Again, Gold ignored her.  This time, she noticed that Twilight was an Alicorn, and started whining about pony half-breeds.
Flight grinned at that.  She had no idea.  “Mom,” she repeated again.
This went on for a few minutes, before Flight’s father, King High Cost, stepped into the room- and as he always did, ignored anypony he considered beneath his notice…  which meant Twilight.  He did, however, get Cheap Gold to stop whining about her, if only by passing between Gold and Twilight.
“Ahh, Flight,” he muttered.  “I heard you left a couple months ago.  I didn’t realize you were back.”
She nodded.  “Yep, I got back just in time to see my new sister.”  Then she leaned slightly to the side, to look at her mother.  “And Mom, did you know, the mare you’ve been insulting for the past five minutes is Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria?”
“Well why didn’t you say so?”
She gave her mom a level-lidded look, ignoring her father’s raised eyebrows.  “I tried, but your invective was continuous.”  She took a deep breath, let it out, and turned back to her father.  “...  Yes, I went to Equestria.”  She glanced at Twilight.  “Princess Twilight, meet King High Cost, of Equineothame.”  She gestured between the two.
“Ahh,” he muttered, before looking up at Twilight.  “Well, Welcome to Equineothame, Princess.  This…  isn’t exactly the venue I would have chosen to meet a member of foreign royalty, but I suppose it works.  And don’t mind my wife, she’s a bit…  vocal.”
“And by that, you mean she’s a diplomatic disaster waiting to happen,” Flight scowled.
He tilted his head, and nodded.
Cheap Gold scowled, and moved to one of the couches with her whiskey.
“Anyways,” Flight stated, deliberately changing the topic.  “I must have missed the announcement?”
He nodded.  “I’m not surprised,” he answered her.  “We never made any major announcement.”  He sighed.  “It’s…  we didn’t intend to have another foal, either.”  He shrugged.  “But it happened, so here we are.”
Flight gave him another level-lidded look.  “You mean my sister is also an oops child.”
He sighed.  “Yes.”
“Are you ever going to have a foal you intended to have?”
He shrugged.  “At this point, probably not.  Had we never had you, though, we would’ve.  Probably…”  He tapped his chin with one hoof.  “A year or two ago.”  Then he let out a snort.  “Though, the nation might then have collapsed around us without your support, wouldn’t it?”
She shrugged.  “Yeah, it might have.”
“Speaking of which,” he began, an edge of irritation entering his tone.  “You don’t happen to have told the Navy to go on a spending spree, do you?”
“Ah, no, I didn’t,” she stated.  “But I do know why.  And it’s a good thing- their spending spree has already boosted the economy by dozens of times.  Equineothame is once again an economic power- and for as long as we remain one, the nation- and, by extension, the Royal Vault- will keep getting richer.”  She shrugged her wings.  “Besides, we need the military strength, not just to end piracy- which they’ve gotten really good at- but to protect us against any invaders, now that we have a working Distortion Drive.”
“We do?” he asked.
She nodded.  “Yep.  I traveled to Equestria, and back, with one.  About nineteen and a half lightyears.”
Then he tilted his head.  “And why do you have wings…?”
“Oh, that?”  She glanced back at her wings.  “I got an upgrade.”
“An…  upgrade.”
“Yep!  With wings and Equestrian magic, I can fly.”
“...  Okay.”
Then the doctor stepped in, carrying a bundle of blankets.  He, also, relaxed noticeably when he spotted Flight, though neither High Cost nor Cheap Gold were looking.  He headed for Cheap Gold.  “Congratulations,” he began, drawing the attention of everypony else in the room.
Gold put her whiskey down on the table next to her.  “About time.”
Doctor Horse winced.  “Congratulations on your new daughter,” he continued, handing her the bundle of blankets.
“Oooh, I’ve always wanted a dark daughter,” Gold commented, accepting the blankets.
“...  She’s a thestral.”
There was a second of silence, before Gold rose the baby over her head, and threw her down on the floor.  “I don’t want a thestral!” she declared.
Then she, like everypony else in the room, actually looked at the baby…  and stared.
The little bundle of blankets had stopped cold just inches away from the floor, surrounded in a golden aura.  It then floated through the air, and landed in High Admiral Timber Wolf’s hastily outstretched forelegs, before the aura vanished.
Flight released her levitation, then stepped forwards.  She hopped into the air, and rose herself to her mother’s height, to see her eye-to-eye.  Then she took a deep breath.
The whiskey glass on the table exploded.





High Admiral Timber Wolf gasped as, less than a second before the Princess started yelling, their entire group- which included both King High Cost and the doctor, the latter of which had backed quickly away when it became evident Flight was angry- was covered in a purple dome.  As a result, inside the dome, it wasn’t much louder than a conversational tone.
“Hurk,” Twilight muttered, horn shining bright, matching the barrier.  “Sh-She’s powerful.”  She stopped to take a breath.  “This is…  This is the most I can do.”
Timber Wolf nodded, gently rocking the baby the Princess had apparently given her with the levitation she’d never shown them.  “Good timing, thank you.”
“Uhh,” the King muttered.  “Is…?”  he raised a hoof to poke at the barrier.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Admiral Mantle Core warned him.  “Even if Twilight’s barrier is permeable, the last time Princess Flight yelled like that, she yelled through forty kilometers of vacuum- and anypony caught within normal shouting range was knocked silly.”
Vice Admiral Night Mare tilted her head, looking up at the ceiling.  “I wonder how impossibly far she’s yelling this time?”





“...your own daughter, just because she’s a thestral!”
“Uh, Space Lord?”
Space Lord Hard Stomp, of the Earthen Space Force, flinched at the sudden interruption to the stunned silence that had penetrated the Pit, their main surface command room, ever since the strange noise made its way in.  “Uh, yes, um, Commodore?”
Commodore Sharp Ears bowed her head.  “I’ve…  figured out what it is, I think.  Princess Short Flight of Equineothame seems to be yelling at her mother in a hospital on Equineothame’s surface.”
“Impossible,” Hard Stomp answered.  “We’re a light-hour away!”
She flinched, and shrugged her wings.  “I’ve got reads on forty orbiting satellites, and it all triangulates to be coming from the general hospital nearest the Equineothame Castle.  Near as I can tell, the yell is also traveling at about a hundred million cee.”  She looked at her panel for a second.  “And yes, I also know we’re on the side of Earth that’s facing away from Equineothame.”





Princess Luna suddenly froze at the dinner table.  “Somepony just tried to kill their own foal,” she stated icily.
Princess Celestia nodded stiffly, only her thousands of years of experience keeping her burning fury in check.  “I know.”  She looked up, in the direction the Royal Canterlot Voice magic was coming from, too weak to be detected by anything other than an alicorn.
Princess Cadence appeared out of thin air, wearing her full, brand-new armor, and brandishing the accompanying sword, startling all present, Princesses and Guards alike.  “Somepony just tried to kill their own foal out of hate,” she declared.  “And I can’t find them.”
Princess Celestia looked up again.  “It’s a long way away.”
Cadence looked, snarled, and vanished in a second bright flash of light.
“Wait a minute,” Prince Shining Armor, who had been visiting Canterlot with his wife and headed down to breakfast while she slept in, stated.  “When did Cady learn to teleport?”