//------------------------------// // The Crusader Airship // Story: Cutie Mark Sentai Crusader! // by RaisingShad0ws //------------------------------// Chapter 5 -The Crusader Airship- The whole rest of the week, Wonderwing spent at home with Flower Petal. The Cutie Mark Crusaders did stop by everyday in an attempt to get Wonderwing to join them on their crusades, but his answer was either, “It might be too dangerous,” or, “I have other plans.” It wasn’t that Wonderwing didn’t want the Crusaders help in finding out what he was really good at, it was the way they went about asking him that caused him to turn them down. Like on Tuesday, they showed up with a small catapult and accidentally launched Scootaloo into the side of his mother’s home. She was okay, and there wasn’t any damage to the house but Wonderwing absolutely refused to come outside due to the fear about him being their next set of living ammo. It wasn’t until Saturday of that week that Wonderwing had finally gathered up the nerve to join the Crusaders on their little escapades. Like clockwork, at nine in the morning the group of foals showed up to his front door and knocked on it. Wonderwing’s mother was the first to answer, and gave a skeptic look to the foals as they put on their biggest smiles. “You don’t give up that easy do you?” Flower Petal asked, watching the Crusaders shake their heads. “Not when there’s a pony in need of our assistance Miss Petal.” Sweetie Belle said proudly. “All right.” Flower Petal smiled. “I’ll go get him.” She said before turning back to go inside the house. A few minutes later, Wonderwing appeared on the other side of the entrance way, looking nervously at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Hey there Wonderwing, you ready to get your hooves dirty in our Crusades?” Scootaloo asked. “It’s not dangerous is it?” Wonderwing asked, watching the foals all shake their heads. “Nah, it taint gonna hurt’cha.” Applebloom said reassuringly. “We’re jus’ building somethin’ today, and tryin’ to get ahr Cutie Marks afterwards.” “You’re going to build something?” Wonderwing asked. “Yeah, it’s going to be really cool too!” Sweetie Belle replied. “I mean, when it’s finished.” The sound of something being built began to pique Wonderwing’s interests a little. “What’re you making?” Wonderwing asked, opening the front door even more to see a wagon filled with mechanical bits and bobs that looked like they could use somepony to fix them. “Well, we’re gonna make an Airship so we can be,” Dinky began as the other foals took a deep breath, “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS AIRSHIP PILOTS YAY!” The sound of their battle cry caused Wonderwing to rub his ears a little. After a moment he stared at the wagon and blinked. From the bits of useless materials that were in there he could see a black rain tarp with holes in it, a bunch of broken air conditioner fans, and even a small radio resting in the pile. “These guys are crazy. This junk will never make a flyable airship... But it sounds like a lot of fun though...” Wonderwing thought, staring down at the crusaders for a moment. “So are you in or out mate?” Pipsqueak asked. Wonderwing looked up at his mother, who was thinking the exact same things that he was before looking down on the six foals. “Mommy, can I go with the crusaders?” Wonderwing asked, looking up to his mother. Flower Petal stopped for a second and scanned the wagon full of junk. There wasn’t anything too terribly dangerous with what they were doing per say, but it looked like the crusaders were blowing a lot of hot air in her opinion. After a few minutes of deliberation she looked down at the foals. “Okay you can go but somepony has to be supervising you, and you can’t use anything too dangerous. Plus you have to do what the adults say okay sweetheart?” She asked. “Okay Mommy.” Wonderwing replied before trotting out with the other foals. “Oh and crusaders, bring him home before dinner okay?” Flower Petal asked, watching the other six foals nod in her direction. “You can count on us!” Scootaloo said, saluting Flower Petal with one of her wings. The unicorn smiled, watching as the foals all ran to the wagon before dragging it off with some difficulty. Flower Petal just simply shook her head, praying to Celestia that nothing bad would happen to her son. “This here’s where Ah live!” Applebloom reported, continuing to push the overfilled wagon from behind. It took Wonderwing and the Crusaders at least an hour to get to Ponyville’s own Sweet Apple Acres and while they were setting a good pace in the city, the farm’s dirt roads didn’t make things easier on the foals at all. “Wow...” Wonderwing said, looking at his surroundings. “I’ve never seen so many apples in one place before.” “You’ve never seen an apple farm before?” Scootaloo asked. Both she and Wonderwing were both on scooters, their wings humming and an incredible rate as they continued down the dirt path. “No, I wasn’t really allowed to do to much back when I lived with my Father.” Wonderwing replied. “Why do you call him that?” Dinky asked, stumbling a little before picking herself back up and continuing to push again. “Why do I call who that?” Wonderwing asked. “Why do you call your daddy Father?” Dinky answered. “I mean, aren’t they the same thing?” “He doesn’t like it when I call him that.” Wonderwing replied. “I mean, I came close to not even being here for calling him that before I got here.” “Well isn’t that a load of... Why would your daddy punish you for sayin’ something like that?” Pipsqueak asked. “Well he told me that he’s not my buddy, nor my friend. I don’t want to make him mad so I call him father and everything stays relatively normal.” Wonderwing replied. “He doesn’t even call me by my real name.” “What’s yer daddy call ya’?” Applebloom asked. “Task Force.” Wonderwing replied. “My father doesn’t think that my real name is appropriate, so he makes me use that name whenever I’m with him.” “That’s awful!” Sweetie Belle said. “Yer dad’s nuthin’ more than a grade A bully if Ah ever heard it.” Applebloom replied before looking around. “Th’ barn’s this way guys.” She said, helping to guide the cart over to the left. The other foals began to follow her lead and headed towards one of the few barns on the Apple Farm’s lands. It took them all another half of an hour for them all to reach the barn, and by then they were all tired. After taking a few minutes to catch their breath, Applebloom smiled, trotting over to the closed barn door. With a little bit of help from the other Crusaders, she opened it which revealed the weirdest looking thing that Wonderwing had ever laid eyes on. The thing that sat in the middle of the barn resembled a small ship, but not the kind of ship that one would see soaring in the air. It looked more like it was ready to sail the high seas than it was for soaring in the air. He could see two long and thin groups of boards extend from either side of the ship’s main body which resembled wings than anything else, and could see that it appeared to have been built before it was truly and properly designed. “This is your guys airship?” Wonderwing asked. “Yeah, ain’t she a beaut’?” Pipsqueak asked. “Well... That isn’t what I’d exactly call it...” Wonderwing thought. “Yeah... It looks, cool?” He said, trying not to hurt the other crusader’s feelings. “Of course it looks cool!” Scootaloo cheered, smiling as she dismounted from her scooter and walked over to the contraption in the building. “We all wanted it to look a different way, but Sweetie Belle came up with the idea that we should combine all of our ideas together!” She said, watching Wonderwing nod as he dismounted from his own scooter. “Everypony was fighting over how they wanted it to look, so I just told them to stop fighting and combine their ideas together.” Sweetie Belle replied. “We’re just missing all the stuff that will get it off of the ground though, and the things to actually make it work.” “You mean you built this thing without putting anything that could make it fly on it?” Wonderwing asked, not believing his ears. “Well, we couldn’t find anything that would make it fly when we were working on it, so we waited until some stuff came along for us to use.” Dinky replied. “And nopony’s going to want it anyways, because most of it’s broken, so we’re actually helping out by recycling.” She said. “Yeah, is there a problem with that Wonderwing?” Scootaloo asked. “No, I don’t have a problem with that.” Wonderwing replied. “So what are we going to do first?” “Well, we need to actually get the balloon part of our Airship made so it can actually act like an airship.” Pipsqueak replied. “Okay then, let’s get started.” Wonderwing said, watching the other foals drag the rain tarp from their pile of stuff. The going was slow, only because when Wonderwing saw the design for the balloon part of the airship, it was in the shape of a certain pegasus pony with a prismatic mane. Much to Scootaloo’s dismay, he said that the balloon part of the Airship wouldn’t work only because of the weird shape the balloon itself was designed as. After settling an argument between the two pegasi, Sweetie Belle had assigned Wonderwing and Scootaloo to different sections of the Airship just to keep the peace. By the time the sun was starting to set, Wonderwing had seen and assumed that the Crusaders were making very little to almost no progress from where he sat inside the unfinished cockpit of the basket for the airship. He wasn’t making much progress either, having only figured out where the crusaders were going to install their radio, but as he could hear the foals cheer outside of the cockpit, he looked out of one of the windows and couldn’t believe what he saw. It had seemed that Dinky and Pipsqueak, who were paired off as a team during their part of the project, had gotten one of the fans that the crusaders were going to use as an engine working again. The fan was fastened back onto the motor after, according to them, an epic fight for control, and as a test they had somehow made it faster. Wonderwing blinked in surprise, trotting outside the airship’s body and walking over to the fan and blinked, looking at the size of the fan and making a mental note for never to doubt the crusaders ever. “So Wonderwing, how’re you coming with the radios? Pipsqueak asked. “Not good, I mean I have no Idea where anything’s going yet and you’ve all ready built this thing without planning everything else out.” Wonderwing replied. “Did you really have to make them this big?” Wonderwing asked. “Of course we did. We want it to fly don’t we?” Dinky asked. “Yeah, good point.” Wonderwing replied. “Well anyways, I’ve gotta go home you guys. Mommy’s probably getting worried.” He said, turning to go. “Come on Crusaders, let’s get Wonderwing home!” Scootaloo said, watching as they all cheered. “First let’s get this cleaned up.” Sweetie Belle reminded them. “Remember what Applebloom’s sister said last week?” “All right then, come on you guys let’s get this place cleaned up.” Scootaloo said, receiving nods from everypony else. Cleaning up the barn from their hard work was just as hard as dragging all of the stuff for the airship in the first place. By the time the crusaders and Wonderwing had gotten done, it was almost dark and they needed to get back fast. “Mommy’s gonna be so mad at me...” Wonderwing said, trembling at the thought of his own mother looking at him with disapproval. “You’re going to be fine Wonderwing.” Scootaloo said reassuringly. “Your mom isn’t going to be mad. We’ll just tell her we were cleaning up our mess and she’ll understand.” “Yeah, she’ll understand.” Sweetie Belle replied. “Yer mom’s going ta jus’ say that she don’ want it ta happen agin’.” Applebloom replied. “All mommies only want to be with their foals. And know that they’re okay.” Dinky said. Wonderwing nodded in relief, hoping that Scootaloo was right. As the Crusaders and Wonderwing approached the house, Wonderwing’s mother had just opened the door. She smiled, looking down on the set of seven foals before watching Wonderwing trot up to the front porch. “And just in time too.” Wonderwing’s mother replied, smiling at the little foal. “You didn’t get hurt out there while you were helping the crusaders now, did you?” She asked. “No Mommy, I didn’t.” Wonderwing replied. He then turned to the crusaders. “Thanks for the great day you guys.” He said half-heartedly. “Don’t worry about it.” Scootaloo replied. “Hey, you keep helping us like this, you may be the next crusader!” Sweetie Belle replied. Wonderwing smiled. “That sounds like fun!” He said, his mood going up a little. “We’ll see ya’ll later then Wonderwing!” Applebloom replied, waving her hoof as the group of six foals sped off into the night. “Bye you guys!” Wonderwing replied before turning towards his mother. “So, what’s for dinner?” The unicorn mare only chuckled as she ushered the little foal inside. “First let’s get you cleaned up. Then we’ll worry about that. Okay?” She asked, watching Wonderwing nod before trotting into the house and closing the door behind him.