//------------------------------// // Seventh Day, Afternoon—Written Testimony // Story: Cutie Mark Crusaders Fantasian City-State Historians, YAY!!!!!! // by Dragonborne Fox //------------------------------// The trio had gathered in Lance's office once more, although this time, he had his cohorts with him, as well as Lazarus and Sarah, and scarcely anyone else. He regarded them with a level look, crimson eyes sparkling with confusion. "Wait… you want us to write down shorthoof versions of how we saw the events of the Catastrophe play out, and the Trials of Attrition, but keep ourselves partially anonymous so that your classmates don't lose their marbles?" he asked. Scootaloo nodded. "Yeah; Cheerilee's gonna dock points if we don't have footnotes handy," she answered. "And… well, something written by you guys is better than nothing at all." Lance nodded, folding his hooves across his desk. "I see," he said, turning to look at Matt and Natalie, who regarded him with raised brows. "Well… if that's the only thing you three need, I guess we can bite." He turned to his subordinates. "You heard the children," he said firmly. "Just keep it… as kid-friendly as you can make that mess, okay?" Matt sighed reluctantly, and picked up a piece of paper alongside a fountain pen and ink, all from the ether, to begin writing. Natalie took her cue, picked up a sheet and fountain pen of her own, and started scribbling. Anna didn't do likewise, instead content to declare a thumb war with her sister and see whose claws had more strength between the two of them. Lance pulled out a sheet and pen of his own from the desk, as well as some ink, clasped the end of said pen in his mouth, and began writing. "You write with your mouth?" Scootaloo asked, tilting her head. Lance pulled up from the paper to nod and clasp the pen in his fetlock. "Don't you have… y'know… hooves?" "Well… my writing's bad," Lance answered with a frown. "It's just more legible if I use my face for some reason. I've tried wings and hooves before, and even I couldn't read what I wrote whenever I did so." He shrugged. "Between all the tutoring lessons of language, writing, and reading I've gotten, I still feel like I haven't caught up. And before that, I barely knew how to use the runes for the geases, so I just went for the real basic stuff on that front and got to watch it blow up in my face." … apparently, the lack of Fantasian schools was worse than the trio thought, if the flippin' General had to struggle with the mere concept of writing. Maybe the military should rectify that soon. "Are you still… learning?" Sweetie Belle hedged. Lance shook his head. "No, the tutors just taught me the basics of the modern writing system and let me go once I got the gist of it. Better to write chicken scratch than nothing at all," he answered. With that, he put the pen back into his mouth and resumed where he left off. "Mom and dad had the decency to teach us how to read and write, although… Greenwood used ancient alicorn, so that's what we use most of the time," Anna said as she pulled her claw away from Sarah's own, setting it on the floor. "I did have to be taught how to use the more modern way of writing during my rehabilitation period." Scootaloo turned to Matt. "I've noticed that your modern writing doesn't look all that different from what Equestria uses. Is it a dialect?" she asked. Matt put the end of the fountain pen to his lips, then nodded. "I guess you could say that. Why, is there gonna be any translation trouble if we just turn these in to you as they are?" "There could be," Scootaloo replied, wings drooping slightly. Matt nodded, and smiled at the kids. "I'll be sure to send these to Twilight Sparkle, so she can iron that out then," he said. "If anyone can sort out translation troubles, it'd be her." "At this rate, she's practically our go-to for that sort of thing," Natalie noted as an aside, her eyes firmly glued to her paper as she wrote. "She found a book in the Crystal Empire that lets her translate ancient alicorn into something modern; before that, we were having to rely on Anna for that kind of task, and she's still inexperienced with it." Then she turned pointedly to the sisters and said, "You two might as well help; you technically were there when Greenwood was attacked the first time." Anna groaned, but lit her horn and grabbed a paper, a fountain pen, and some ink to start jotting down what she had seen regardless. Sarah moved to lean over her sister's shoulder to watch the writing in progress. "Wow… you've gotten really good at writing," Sarah noted as soon as Anna completed the first full sentence of her testimony. "Had time to practice, between all the papers I have to help sort," Anna replied with a sigh. "Besides, we do have to stop by from time to time just to try and dent the mountain in the Office of Doom." "... you're the type of ponies to go out and do things, rather than sit inside of offices and let the soldiers take care of it?" Sweetie guessed, garnering seven nods as an immediate answer. "Few ponies and other creatures in most towns could say the same around here, and those are usually the mercenary types," Matt said with a shrug. "Put it like this: ever since the Catastrophe happened, there's been a noticeable uptick in cutie marks, and because Fantasia isn't safe for children, we've also seen a rise in hardened mercs with itchy trigger hocks." "We know one wingless gryphon who prefers to be on the ground, and he rides a magitek chariot everywhere he goes, and that thing has guns. We call him the lone rider," Anna said with a grin. "He got his ride suplexed by Fenrir, twice in one day, I heard. The second time was to flip it back onto its wheels." "He's not part of the military?" Apple Bloom asked. Anna shook her head. "He does act as our intel from time to time, though," she answered. "And then there's this rogue band of wingless gryphons who broke off from the main gryphon settlements before the Trials of Attrition happened. Those guys are engineers, and found their own airship with our help to use as a mobile base of operations. They've made their own planes as well, and if they show up, they just park outside of the mountain because their base is huge." Natalie added, "We… steer clear of them most of the time, but there have been instances where they've harassed Red Barrel and her group. They've also tried to rob Golden Chalice multiple times whenever she went on adventures on foot, and failed repeatedly… they're basically still in their 'sticky claws' period, though we let them have some of our excess charging crystals to keep themselves afloat without them stealing them from us." "Like pirates?" Scootaloo asked. "Yep. Trust us, we never thought pirates could fly in the sky either," Anna said with some measure of amusement. "Although… sometimes they're tame enough, we do get the occasional tidbits of information from them too… I heard the captain adopted a hippogryph foal of his own, and she's taken a real shine to him." "Do they steal from you guys often?" Apple Bloom asked. Matt shook his head. "Well, no. They know better than to poke sleeping dragons," he answered tartly. "If anything, we have a truce of sorts between us, but it doesn't stop the more salacious members of the pirate crew from hitting on Red Barrel." He smiled ruefully. "Fortunately, our truce does have a clause in it that lets her… deal with the perverts, as it were." "They usually steal from assholes even worse than them—and to be worse than a sky pirate, you have to be pretty damn low on the criminal ladder," Natalie said. "One time, we got to watch as the cultists we were trying to find got obliterated by their cannons and aircraft. After that, they split the spoils with us." "And what did the cultists have?" Sweetie pressed. "Generally, dangerous magical tomes, spare parts for airships, and things like that. We took the tomes and had them put in a vault," Natalie answered, smiling at the thought. "And no, we don't use those tomes; we have our own custom grimoires for that, and none of them have any forbidden spells." She made it to the end of her written testimony, summoned an ink stamp cushion from the ether, and considered it for a moment before turning to the children. "Hoofprint, or no?" "Hoofprint, please," the Crusaders chorused in unison. "Are you sure? Because we use a special ink that will mark the area inside the horseshoe with our cutie marks once stamped," Natalie said, the remark causing the children to contemplate this for a moment before nodding. She relented, put her hoof in the cushion, dabbed it in ink a few times, and put her hoofprint on the parchment. She flipped the paper around so the children would see the ink spreading to the inside of the shoe, forming a perfect copy of the shooting star trailing feathers that made her mark. It was sat next to an authentic, magic-written signature and once fully dried, she folded it neatly and set it on the desk. Matt grinned, and took the ink cushion that Natalie had summoned as he got to the bottom of the parchment. He stamped his hoof a few times, put it on the paper, and turned it to the trio to show them that it was forming an exact replica of his cutie mark too, which was a simple pentagram that was upright with the silhouette of a winged sword standing in the middle. His signature was somewhat sloppy, but also authentic. Once the ink dried, he folded it up and placed it next to Natalie's written testimony. Anna finished her written testimony, then signed it and gave it to her sister. "Just put your rank and last name on the parchment, and then we can both stamp it," she said. Sarah nodded, took the paper, and signed accordingly, making sure to give hers a bit of space to not overlap it with her sibling's signature. Once that was done, Anna turned to the Crusaders. "Wood, or hoof?" she asked. "Hoof," the trio answered. Anna nodded, willed her wood to part from her hooves, grabbed the ink cushion and mimicked the procedure of her cohorts. Once stamped with her hoofprint and cutie mark, she gave the cushion to her sister. "Use your talon," Anna instructed. Sarah obliged, did the stamping, and was offered a napkin summoned from the ether to wipe the excess off her claw. She showed the trio the stamps afterwards, and in the case of the talon-stamp, the cutie mark appeared next to it as opposed to in the crooks between the digits. "That reminds me, we gotta update my flags at some point…" Anna turned to Lance as Sarah folded up their shared testimony and went to deposit it on the desk. Lazarus, who until now was quiet, got weird looks from Matt and Natalie. He relented, was given a paper, and ink, and a pen, and he took it in his magic and began writing. Lance was ahead of him, stamping his hoof onto his testimony, showing it to the Crusaders, folding it up as soon as the ink dried and putting it in the pile. His cutie mark, a missile adorned with a manji, only confused the hell out of them in the brief interval that they looked at it. "What does your cutie mark mean?" Apple Bloom asked. "Mine?" Lance asked, garnering a nod from the fillies. "Well… it came about when I managed to fire a missile out of a blaster, once. I can replicate it, but it requires me to be on the ground," he answered with a shrug. "But the symbol embossed on the missile… well, I've heard rumors of past ponies using it for a peace symbol, so I generally just link it to peace." He heard NoLegs meow as he stamped a paper using his tail, and deposited his testimony onto the pile shortly afterwards. Lance gestured to Lazarus as he stamped his testimony with a hoofprint of his own. "Some ponies, however, suffer from Cutie Mark Blackout Syndrome. I… came close to suffering the condition, and so did Anna, but we both were reciscutated in time," he said. "I have it… and I'm glad I wasn't reciscutated until the next day," Lazarus said as he plopped his testimony on the pile. "I'd rather not remember how I got mine." Lance opened his mouth to say something else, when he heard a low hum come from the desk, and another, distant hum that sounded as though it were miles away, yet rapidly drawing close. He sighed and put the pen into a desk drawer before reaching around to rummage for the source of the offending noise. He pulled open another drawer and fished out a radio, which he plopped on the desk. "What now?" he grumbled into the device. "Sir, not to sound annoying, but the guard posts have reported the sky pirates are coming in to dock," Blue Crow answered on the other end. "And from what those soldiers report, they sound pissed." Lance sighed. "Alright, who the hell poked them this time?" he groaned. "It's not just the sky pirates; the guard posts have also reported the lone rider trekking across the mountain ranges to get to us," Blue Crow reported. "He looked pretty miffed, too." "... what brought him out of the woodwork?" the Lieutenants asked in unison, turning to the radio. "That's what I'm trying to figure out," Blue Crow said with a sigh. "I'll see if I can mediate again, if they bother to show up before Redpine's attack is due by its estimated time of arrival, over and out." With that, the radio fell silent, at least for the time being. Lance groaned. "Peachy. Just freakin' peachy. So now both the lone rider and sky pirates are coming to us to lodge some damn complaints. While Redpine's mobile assault cloud is headed our way," he hissed, wings ruffling at the thought. The hum in the distance grew louder, and louder as he regarded his subordinates. "... it sounds less like a complaint, and more like they found troubling news," Anna hedged carefully. "Because, let's face it: it couldn't be otherwise. The last time they reported something to you on the same day, you had to deal with Akron." "And the time after, they caught sightings of an elusive teenager with natural camouflage blending into the trees of Lankyroot Jungle, whom they could not approach because the magitek they used scared her into hiding," Lance said dryly. "And then we found you days after the report with your legs askew, so to speak, and a mutated flower trying to eat you." He ruffled his feathers again. "It must be something substantial, considering their track record." Anna conceded, and turned to regard the window. "You think they know anything about Redpine?" she asked. "Probably not, unless Redpine decided they wanted to harass them, too," Matt answered with a shrug. "Which… I wouldn't put it past them to do, to be honest." As he said that, the room shook with the loud hum—no, the loud roar of a particularly large airship's engine and several propellers.  Everyone turned to the window, and the Crusaders gasped as an airborne, cannon-studded fortress of a ship hovered down into the plains, the only spot it could really fit in, with wingless gryphons in bandanas and striped cloths with cutlasses keeping watch as she descended gently. They trotted around the desk to peer out the window, and found a very weird sight: a collection of ponies were assembled on the deck of the beast, each and every one present looking around worriedly. Anna trotted to the window as well, and groaned. "Damn it all… Lance, the sky pirates seem to have the entire townships of Whitefall and Goldenbrick assembled on their vessel," she hissed, shaking her head. Lance jumped from his seat, snapped his wings open, swiveled around in his chair and got up to take a look. As he peered at the unusual procession, mobile shadows raced from the fortress and up towards the window with intent, bearing a star-shaped blue jewel and a flame-shaped red jewel with golden accents. Lance ruffled his feathers once more, his wings almost rattling with the motion. He remained silent for a moment, then turned to Matt and Natalie. "You two, prepare the auditorium. It seems your folks have deigned fit to visit," he ordered curtly. He used his wings to shepherd the children away from the window. "You might want to give them breathing space," he advised, which they promptly heeded as the shadows drew closer to the window. Anna trotted around the desk as well, solely to let the mobile shadows have a bit of walking room when they touched down. It wasn't long before the shadows swallowed the jewels, bypassed the window by seeping into whatever few cracks they could get through between frame and pane, and landed on the floor to solidify into a collection of three ponies and a wingless gryphon, two unicorns and one earth pony. The earth pony looked the most normal, a black-and-white pinto with a grey mane and ice blue eyes, about as big as Big Mac, but maybe more muscular in build. He boasted leather armor, and a scabbard holding a sword. The unicorns… they were not normal, and were wearing rather warm clothes concealing everything but their faces, manes, and tails. The lavender mare of them had a blond mane melting into shadows, as tall as Shining Armor and with a curved scarlet horn to match, shadows wisping from blue eyes with blackened sclera. The stallion, red-furred with a beige mane melting into shadows, had blackened sclera and a scarlet curved horn as well, and all three wore firm frowns on their faces. The wingless gryphon had a pale brown lion's body and claws, greyed feathers, and a beard adorning his beak with a scar running over one of his eyes, themselves adorned with bushy brows. He wore a thick, almost bulky purple coat and a pirate's hat and cutlass, his beak twisted into a frown. "... Mom? Dad? Uncle Andrew? What the hell happened?" Matt asked, eyes widening as he beheld his folks. The unicorn mare—no, Umbrum, the Crusaders realized—turned to Matt with her frown deepening. "Whitefall and Goldenbrick were attacked," she said gravely. "Pegasi and alicorns… all dead-eyed and carrying blasters came to try and murder everypony in the two towns. Andrew was in Goldenbrick, away on trading business, and he was able to get their people and belongings out of harm's way. I stayed in Whitefall to do the same." Matt paled. "Did… did the pegasi and alicorns have red eyes?" he asked. His mother nodded. "They did. Tequila here… he agreed to let both communities temporarily lodge in his fortress, and had his pirates take care of the flocks," she answered.  Tequila nodded, reached into a coat pocket, produced a cigar and lighter, and proceeded to light the cigar to puff in some smoke. "Aye, 'tis as the Umbrum lass said," he said gravely, shaking his head. "Had to calm the lot o' landlubbers down, an' tell them me an' me crew would take them somewhere far safer. Better that they managed to nab the sacred jewels; don't want Godcat decidin' to smite us down from the skies." He shook his head, smoke curling from his nostrils as he exhaled. "Sons o' bitches tryin' to use those puny blasters thought they could scuttle me an' me crew, but instead, we made the whole lot o' 'em walk the plank with their wings tied. One e'en tried to grab me child… an' that, I couldn't stand." Lance frowned at the troubling news. "And the state of the towns is…?" he pressed. Tequila shook his head. "The townships themselves, the landlubbers'll have to rebuild from scratch, but e'erypony be fine an' dandy, if a bit rustled. Just as well; they was prone anyway to aerial assault, but at least they got the treasures out so those sons o' bitches can't get their mitts on 'em," he answered, taking another hit off the cigar. "Whole damn lot o' bastards couldn't fight their way outta a cave with instructions carved into their hooves." He turned to look squarely at Lance. "An' I saw that Greenwood got wiped off the map, so I assumed ye an' yer crew had something to do with it." Matt's mother seemed to wilt. "Is everypony in Greenwood alright?" she asked. "... the ones around my age, and younger, are alright, as well as a single elder," Anna answered, shaking her head. "The other elders and the village leaders… they're six hooves under." "... and were they attacked by pegasi and alicorns?" Andrew asked, his frown deepening when Anna shook her head again. "The Void came for Greenwood," Anna said simply. Tequila slowly nodded. "Unfortunate," he muttered. "But the more pressin' matter is: where'er the flock o' bastards came from, they seem to be makin' moves. Big moves, about as big as Big Magnum out there." He thumbed to the aerial fortress outside. "I would assume ye an' yer crew know where they're comin' from?" Lance nodded firmly. "I do know where the flocks are coming from. They have an attack headed our way too, and earlier this week, we had to deal with a magical abomination they sent to try and cripple our magitek," he answered. Tequila's face hardened considerably. "... that ain't good, Brassy. We had a magical freak on our ship too, an' we had to dispatch it to keep ourselves afloat. Ye know what the flocks want?" he asked, taking another hit off his cigar. "I don't know what they want, but I can say I'll find that out if the flock coming here arrives by our estimates… which is today's sunset," Lance answered, before turning to the children. "Hopefully, we can send these three back home before then." Tequila turned to the Crusaders, and regarded them with a critical eye. "... I can tell by yer looks that ye ain't from around here," he said. "Where ye come from?" "We came from Mythos," Apple Bloom said. Tequila kept regarding them, appraising their cutie marks. "Mythos, eh? Not heard much about the sister world… an' yet, yer marks make ye look like yer from here," he noted. "We got them recently," Sweetie proffered. Tequila slowly nodded, almost as though he weren't exactly buying the explanation. "Well, at least yer marks'll take ye far, I can tell that much," he said. He turned to Lance again. "Didn't think ye were the type to foalsit, but then again… neither was I, until I brought Mescal aboard." "And speaking of, is she alright?" Lance asked. Tequila nodded, smiling faintly. "Aye. She clawed the hell outta the bastard that tried nabbin' her. He got cleaned up an' outta the ship right after," he affirmed. "Tryin' to earn her cutie mark in engineerin', an' she's almost as good as the crew hands." His smile fell a moment later. "But the bastards… they can teleport. Or at least, the ones they sent after the townships." "They learned how to teleport…?" Lance muttered in genuine dismay, frowning at that. "That… does not sound good at all. Is that how they got to Goldenbrick and Whitefall?" Matt's mother nodded. "One moment, the air was quiet; the next, we were nearly blinded by flashes of light overhead," she confirmed. "Said something about taking all the fillies of Whitefall to use as…" She shuddered. "I don't want to think about it anymore." "Were there casualties?" Lance asked, daring not to breathe a sigh of relief as the Umbrum mare shook her head. "No. I was able to get everypony and their belongings out in time," the mare replied, shoulders sagging. "I don't want to know what would've happened if I hadn't been as quick as I was." "Same here," Andrew said, moving to sit down on the floor. "The flock attacking Goldenbrick had light spells… bad ones, trying to dispel my shadows to pick off members of the Goldenbrick community. I don't know what I would have done, if I hadn't found that cave filled with angry wyrms on the nearby mountain." Matt's brow furrowed. "Oh, right, you two are still vulnerable to strong light spells…" he muttered. He turned to the Crusaders. "It looks like we'll have to send you back to the guest rooms for a bit…" When they made a pout, he added, "Don't worry, we'll protect you if the attacking force shows up sooner than expected—we'll just have to figure out what to do about Redpine in the meantime." Andrew sighed. "Want me to take them?" he asked. Matt nodded. "Just… ask the soldiers where to go, and they should point you in the right direction. If they ask, tell them you're family," he answered. He gestured to the piles of papers on the desk. "And take those, too; kids need 'em." Andrew nodded, solidified into shadows, and moved to the children to wrap them in darkness to take them out of the room, making sure to take the papers with him as well. The trio hoped that the matter would be sorted out before they returned home.