Andrew watched as the Crusaders worked on their report, unable to truly grasp what on Godcat's dismal Fantasia they were doing, and yet electing to not comment about it. Instead, he paced in the guest room, a radio that had been given to him by a soldier clutched firmly in his shadows. On the other end, banter from Lance and his group filled in the silence with worrying chatter.
"This is bad. Really, really bad. If Redpine's forces can teleport with the alicorns of their retinue, I don't want to imagine what'll happen if we don't move to stop it," Lance groused, the sound of ruffling wings punctuating his words with audible, tooth-grindingly high amounts of concern.
"Aye. Flock o' bastards might not fight well, but against unprepared townships, they be devastatin'," Tequila agreed. The Crusaders could almost hear his slow nod. "Was only through sheer luck that the ponies of Whitefall an' Goldenbrick e'en got out o' that mess alive. But Redpine's in a volcano, so me an' me crew can't help much there."
"Yes, and truth be told, unless we break out the ION Cannon, we won't be able to penetrate those defenses either," Lance hissed, again accompanied by the sound of his feathers going askew. "Furthermore, those bastards have prisoners inside the volcano that would make that operation impractical. I'm guessing they haven't strangled themselves or said prisoners in the heat, thanks to the damned Illicit Instrumentation."
"... breedin' stock," Tequila hissed, the contempt audible in his words. "I may be a pirate, Brassy, but e'en I don't stoop that low." He was heard striking the lighter again, probably for another cigar. "An' I know ye; ye wouldn't sleep at night if ye had to kill ponies as collateral, especially those who can't e'en protect themselves from anythin'."
"Yeah, and I did lose some sleep over the Greenwood incident… until Windwood here told me what the elders did to her," Lance agreed, sighing.
"... they had their way with her, didn't they?" Tequila guessed, followed by a few tense seconds of silence.
"... yes," Anna confirmed.
"... better that the Void came to Greenwood, then," Tequila hissed. "No tellin' what Godcat'll be doin' to those bastards now."
The Crusaders shuddered, even as they put the written testimonies into their report, alongside some photographs of the stack. They made sure that whatever photos they put in only showed soldiers working, and nothing they would consider particularly hush-hush. Once that was done, they went over their last few notes, which they also made sure didn't spill anything counting towards 'classified.'
28. The cargo bays are where the Aerie holds any surplus items, except for metals, which are re-routed to the factory. Surplus items include magitek crystals, both charged and unable to charge, spare ammunition, and the occasional foodstuffs, which are stored in special cocoons designed to keep them long-lasting for when the foodstuffs cannot fit into existing pantries and refrigerators. The charged crystals are volatile, so the soldiers have to be careful to not set off any spells in their vicinity, or else they will have horrible accidents. The crystals are mined from various caverns, with extreme care—enough to warrant armed soldiers to protect them from various monsters, should the need arise.
29. Occasionally, the military of the Aerie comes upon odd things, and if there's nowhere else to put them, will lodge those odd things in the cargo bay until further notice. Such odd things include a live wooly mammoth, a sentient mimic, and a wooden-magitek hybrid called the Mighty Oak, which apparently served as a guardian to Greenwood before recent events forced his relocation. Anything deemed too dangerous, such as forbidden scrolls and tomes, are stored elsewhere for the safety of the hive-nest.
30. The cargo bays require similar outfits as the factory—safety vests and hardhats, chiefly. As there is less noise in them than in the factories, telepathy and noise mufflers aren't as needed, unless in the event that the Aerie has found something incredibly loud enough to make the mufflers necessary. In addition, the lifts used to access the cargo bays can hold an entire airship, as well as that airship's shipments for further sorting. Some shipments are big enough to use magitek cranes, similar to Equestria's ongoing construction sites in places like Manehattan and Vanhoover. The lifts themselves are connected to a few of the Aerie's hangars, but not all of them.31. As for the cuisine of the Aerie, a lot of dishes are improvised, due to the nature of the flora and fauna of Fantasia, which seem to have evolved on a course different from Mythos. For instance, regarding meat products, they consume agile, territorial black birds, house-sized tortoises, pony-sized nonsapient crabs, and pony-sized jellyfish alongside the more standard fish and house-sized, nontoxic squids. As a result of the Aerie's unique culture, there are no restaurants it is in ownership of, instead opting for mess halls and break rooms simply to feed everyone. However, this might change soon, if conditions permit.
32. As a result of their particular flora and fauna, Fantasians do not eat many fruits and vegetables, on the grounds that a myriad of plants and animals are out on a mission to murder their faces. They have the standard culprits for both fruits and vegetables, but anything beyond said standard culprits are off-limits unless one were to take the highly irregular task of consulting Lieutenant-General Windwood about such matters, due to her experiences with said deadly flora and fauna. As such, she has made a list of inedible flora that cannot be consumed unless the individual who wants to consume them is incredibly suicidal, or seeking a drug binge without the drugs.
33. Interestingly enough, the General and his Lieutenants are not adverse to eating meat as many ponies on Mythos are. The General suffers from Diomedis Defectus, and therefore must supplement his diet with meat or else he will fall ill. Lieutenant-General Windwood must have meat in her diet as a result of her mixed heritage, though not as bad as the General. Lieutenant-Generals Starcovert and Bladerune do not suffer from the condition, but found themselves with no choice but to hunt for their own food days after the Royale Catastrophe had occurred. They have called it 'acquired taste.'
34. The Graveyard of the Forgotten has a special magical signature in its area that constructs graves of those from the memories of those living at the Aerie—though it only builds graves for those otherwise forgotten by Fantasian society. It is a process confirmed to take days to complete, and results in impossibly smooth graves not otherwise found in nature or crafted by hoof and claw. Innocents are marked with glowing moss halos and wings, and the guilty are marked with dead moss reminiscent of blood. Tragically, many of the innocent also have fear etched permanently on their graves' statues, perhaps reflecting how they spent their last moments on Fantasia.
35. Every year, on one night in autumn, the graves seem to be possessed by the deceased. It is unknown if this is them visiting, or the magical signature replicating such—but if the innocents have candles to guide them back to the afterlife, the innate magic snuffs the flames out automatically at dawn. The moss also overtakes any gifts left on the graves, and makes them vanish, perhaps taking them to the afterlife. This event is called the Lonesome March, and it is undertaken by the General and his Lieutenants, who… unfortunately have personally known some of the ponies marked with graves in the Graveyard.
36. It turns out, the Aerie doesn't have allies so much as sources of information, both of whom use magitek to get about on the world's surface. One of them is a wingless gryphon simply called the lone rider, who operates a gun-laden chariot that may be built for all-purpose terrain travel. The other source, they helped acquire an airship for, which they use to move in the skies with planes of their own surrounding a mobile fortress called the Big Magnum. The operators of the airship and secondary planes are sky pirates, entirely made of wingless gryphons who broke off from the main gryphon settlements before the Trials of Attrition occurred, therefore also managing to get out of being geased through sheer luck.
37. The ponies of Fantasia have a weird naming convention due to the unique state of the state of the planet before the Royale Catastrophe, effectively forcing the ponies to choose unconventional names. However, because of an uptick in cutie marks post-Catastrophe, many ponies have taken to adding last names to themselves to reflect their talents and cutie marks—Lieutenant-Generals Bladerune and Starcovert are among this number, while others like Lieutenant-General Windwood have been bestowed with full legal names due to the already-long standing conventions that have existed before the Royale Catastrophe even occurred. Others, like the General himself, choose their own full legal names, because the adults they grew up with didn't bother to give them one. It is confirmed that mares in labor do have glimpses of their foals' full lives, but because of a lack of cutie marks overall, do not name them after their potential talents.
38. The age of consent at the Aerie is twenty-one years of age, based solely on how many molts a changeling undergoes before they reach full adulthood. Reportedly, they settled on that number because nobody could agree on it during the Aerie's formative years, though there are other factors they have considered, from child brides and child soldiers to other unpleasant things, like how many adults beyond the Aerie do not care about anything but themselves. As a result, the Aerie condemns the practice of child brides, and basically murders whoever they find to be committing that particular crime against equinity.
In addition, they were now able to square away the footnotes of their report, just about cinching the entire thing. The fact they had authentic signatures, and hoofprints, wrapped the whole thing up in a neat and pretty bow, despite the ongoing unpleasantness of the radio chatter.
Written testimony on the Trials of Attrition, signed and stamped by General Boltwing
Written testimony on the Royale Catastrophe and Trials of Attrition, signed and stamped by Lieutenant-General Bladerune
Written testimony on the Royale Catastrophe and Trials of Attrition, signed and stamped by Lieutenant-General Starcovert
Written testimony on the Sacking of Greenwood and Trials of Attrition, co-signed and stamped by Lieutenant-General Windwood and Private Lyregale
Written testimony on the Destruction of the Kitten Kingdom and Trials of Attrition, signed and stamped by Colonel NoLegs
Written testimony on the Royale Catastrophe, signed and stamped by Private Highwind
List of inedible flora, written by Lieutenant-General Windwood
The trio shared worried grins as they tucked the goods into their saddlebags, trying to drown out the radio chatter. "So," Sweetie began, "wanna go find Twilight?"
Scootaloo nodded. "If anyone can make sure we have the green light, it's her," she agreed.
Andrew turned to them. "But… where is Twilight?" he asked.
Apple Bloom turned to him, smiling. "She'll be in the guest rooms, like us. We gotta find which one she's in," she answered. With that, the three took the rest of the photographs, stuffed them into their saddlebags alongside pencils and notepads, and turned to trot out of the room to escape the radio chatter. They glanced up and down the hall, and not a door was out of place, not even so much as creaked open.
At least, at first. A door a few trots down to their left opened, and out stumbled the mare they were looking for, grunting in frustration and with a radio clasped in her magical grip. "Oh Faust-damnit all!" Twilight cursed, stomping a hoof as Spike trundled up at her side with a snort leaving his snout. "Whitefall and Goldenbrick got attacked, and now… urg!" She shifted to sit on her haunches to make mane-pulling motions with her front hooves. "What next, will the ancient alicorns decide to make another unstoppable army with geases and broken ponies?!"
"At the rate Fantasia's going, I'm not even surprised anymore. At least all the sane ponies are gathered in one place now, even if they still have to deal with the whackjobs," Spike said curtly, with all the sass he could muster. "Also, I want to meet the sky pirates; they sound decent."
Twilight turned to him, somewhat annoyed. "And who dared ask the dreaded phrase 'what could possibly go wrong' as we approached Greenwood?" she hissed, one of her eyes twitching.
"Well, excuse me, Duchess, but we're on a foreign planet populated almost exclusively by nutcases," Spike snapped back, still holding onto his sass like a liferaft. "If I had known that uttering the dreaded phrase would yield Greenwood being burned, I wouldn't have said anything!"
Twilight opened her mouth to clap back, but then spotted the Crusaders as they approached to personally halt that discussion in its tracks. "Hello…" she said in a clipped, irritated tone, before noticing the very fat report that the trio had in their saddlebags. She brightened considerably, eager to take her mind off of more tragic and current events. "I see you're finished?"
"We got the hoofprint of approval from the General himself," the three chorused.
"But we need you to look it over again, make sure it's good-good, since the sky pirates have taken Lance's attention," Sweetie added, lighting her horn to lift the report out of the saddlebags. She hoofed the goods over, which Twilight took in her magic.
"... did the sky pirates try anything?" Twilight asked.
Sweetie shook her head. "The captain just asked us where we were from, and kept his attention on Lance otherwise," she answered. "His crew hands are probably helping the ponies of Whitefall and Goldenbrick into the Aerie."
Twilight slowly nodded, and moved to start looking over the report once more, this time in its entirety. She smiled approvingly as she let her eyes trail down the first sheet, without taking a red-inked quill out to start making corrections. She was no teacher after all; better to let the ones with actual teaching degrees sort that out. That being said, she did shudder a bit as she moved on to the second chapter of the report in a matter of moments, eyes glinting in wonder, as though she were pondering how much of the Trials of Attrition the Crusaders had embellished over how much they had gotten correct.
Spike took the radio Twilight clutched, and moved back into the room he walked out of with it. He called over his shoulder as he made to close the door, "I'll let you know if Lance says anything fishy." Twilight nodded, but pretended to not really hear him as she moved to the third chapter of the report, the one detailing the Aerie as it was currently.
"Well… all the information lines up so far," Twilight said dryly, nodding in approval. She flipped some more pages, read through them, and moved on to the economy section. "... huh… all this treasure lying around, and while not hoarding it, aren't able to share it with the rest of Fantasia…" she noted, frowning at that tidbit. "Makes sense, given all Fantasia has to offer otherwise…"
"Which is a bunch of control freak plotheads strung up on power trips normally used by school bullies?" Scootaloo proffered, causing Twilight to seize up and turn to her with a gaping mouth. "What? It's what Rainbow would have said."
"Y-yes, but… should you not be using that word?" Twilight gabbled, frowning. "What if your aunts hear you speaking such language?"
Scootaloo shrugged. "It's what they would've said about Fantasia, had they found out how bad it was," she countered. "Besides, they taught me what that word means, and wouldn't mind if I used it appropriately." She flared her wings in defiance. "And I'm pretty sure I used it appropriately."
Twilight smiled ruefully, and lifted a hoof to pat Scootaloo's mane. "Well, at least you're right about the usage of the word," she said. "Although, I'm pretty sure your parents would object to it."
"They're not around; they heard nothing," Scootaloo retorted with a growing grin.
Twilight sighed, and returned to reading the report. She got to the fifth chapter easily enough, and snickered at the highlights of a Fantasian military culture. "Takes the act of conscripting children as a heinous crime, save for where there is no alternative for said children in question…" Her smile fell a moment later, and her snickering stopped. "Then again… that's probably why Anna's in the military so young…" she mused, shuddering as that uncomfortable thought ran its gamut through her head.
Then Twilight got to the portion regarding the Aerie's age of consent, and if she had wings, her feathers might have been a bit cankled reading it. As she had no feathers to cankle, she did the next best thing: let her ears fall flat against her head. "... oh… oh…" was all Twilight said about that matter, as she opted to speedread that particular section of text in her haste to get to the next bit of her Fantasian culture learning experience.
Fortunately for her, the next part of that learning experience emphasized unity and some sense of harmony, something she was intimately familiar with due to her understanding of the concepts. Of course, it was more unity than harmony, but in the end the concepts were practically interchangeable, if a bit different with the things they leaned towards.
Afterwards, came the weird naming conventions of the Aerie's ponies, few that there were prior to the Greenwood and Sunnytown fiascos, and the fact that it mentioned the mares undergoing labor having glimpses of their foals' future lives. Twilight turned to the Crusaders with a frown. "... did Anna…"
Apple Bloom wilted with a sour nod. "She did. Saw nothing but darkness and cold," she confirmed bitterly. "More I think about it, more I think the twins she popped out were just… too good for Fantasia."
Twilight's frown took on a pitying cast. "... that's… unfortunate…" was all she could muster on the topic. "At least the report doesn't mention anything about her situation…"
"Well, she had to testify about the Sacking of Greenwood, seeing as she was kinda there when the Trials of Attrition were going on," Sweetie said unhappily. "But we looked; her testimony didn't include any of the bunk Greenwood did to her."
"Oh, yeah… Pinkie went to chew the remaining villagers out over it…" Twilight grumbled, shuddering. "They made her pull Gummy from her mane, just to have him clamp his mouth around the snout of the village idiot. Before beaning him… in his beans… with her party cannon…"
That made the trio wince. Point-blank party cannon to the beans didn't sound particularly fun. "What did the village idiot do now?" Scootaloo asked, wings drooping with the question.
"He… tried reaching Lance's office. To propose to Anna. With numerous soldiers telling him to stop before he got himself hurt by heartbreak and disappointment," Twilight said dryly. "I heard he wants to challenge the others for her hoof in marriage… not that she'd let that fly anyway."
"Is it bad if both ponies aren't legal here?" Apple Bloom asked sincerely.
Twilight nodded as she flipped to the next chapter of the report, the one detailing its magitek. "In this case, yes, on the grounds that Anna isn't too keen on getting hitched to begin with," she replied. "I also heard arranged marriages, and trying to use marriages to secure alliances, are strictly illegal here."
"But don't the nobles of Canterlot practice those things?" Sweetie Belle asked.
Twilight nodded. "Yeah, they still do… which is going to rustle their nonexistent feathers something fierce, when they learn the Aerie has put a stop to the practice in their territory," she said, frowning as she continued reading. "Let's put it like this: I heard along the grapevine, from Blueblood, that some members of the nobility are seeking to marry some of their sons off to Natalie, because they think she's pureblood or some garbage like that, and use that marriage as leverage to spread their racist bunk here. Which makes it a good thing we're not in Canterlot right now—she'd probably set some tails on fire, like I heard she did that one time to a blacksmith that kept pestering her about it."
"... is the blacksmith alive?" Scootaloo asked.
Twilight nodded again. "I heard he stopped his shenanigans soon after that," she confirmed unhappily. "Natalie… doesn't handle marriage proposals well, either. I'm pretty sure if a convicted rapist, a tried and true racist, or a nobility supremacist tried asking for her hoof, she'd shoot him to the moon. And then blow the moon up using the ION Cannon just to ensure he's gone." She shrugged. "Sarah might opt for bean removal, bare-clawed. I heard she has done that before when the chips were down and there were no other options."
The Crusaders shuddered at that mental imagery. "So… marriage here has to be by willing, of-age creatures," they surmised, garnering another nod from Twilight.
"You might want to include that in the report, more specifically the culture section, but you do have spare papers, yes?" Twilight asked as she flipped to the seventh chapter.
"We have plenty of spares," Apple Bloom replied, grinning. "We can include a few extra bits."
"Excellent," Twilight said, smiling genuinely once more as she sped up her reading to conclude the matter quicker. In record time she got to the footnotes section, read the testimonies, and grinned as she returned the report to the trio. "I think that covers everything. Other than what little I said you might need to add, it looks great!"
"Thank you, Twilight!" the Crusaders chorused in unison, garnering a giggle out of her as she moved to pat their heads. As soon as her hoof returned to the floor, the door the trio had left from popped open again, and Andrew strode out, radio still clutched in his shadows and with a look of grave concern etched on his face. The four turned to him and frowned, noticing he had shed his warm clothes in favor of a simple black traveling cloak.
"Um… Lance wants those three at the entrance of the hangars," Andrew said, pointing to the fillies. "As well as a white fluffy cat. Like… right now."
Twilight nodded. "I'll go find Opalescence; keep an eye on these three until I get back," she said, lighting her horn again. In a burst of light she vanished, though the burst wasn't enough to make Andrew wince. The trio turned to the Umbrum stallion and trotted to him, mainly to see if they could get any answers from him before they headed back home.
"Do you have a cutie mark?" Apple Bloom asked. Andrew nodded, and turned his body before lifting his cloak to show it off, a simple silver shield bearing a golden pentagram etched in its surface. "Oh, so you're good at defending ponies?" she guessed.
Andrew nodded. "My sister Eve has a ying-yang ball, the black half brimming with light, and the white half bursting with shadows," he answered.
"But I thought Umbrum were weak to light," Sweetie said. "Does that mean Eve knows light spells?"
"She has a few weak light spells, but generally uses her magic based on the concept of inversion: basically, she catches a spell thrown at her, converts it to shadows or whatever she needs, and then sends it back to the original sender to watch it blow up in their face," Andrew answered. "If it's an ice spell, she'll turn it into fire, earth to wind, and so on, but her spellcasting leaves a lot to be desired despite its versatility."
"Ooooooh," the trio chorused, their heads bobbing slightly.
"Yeah, not many ponies or Umbrum use the concept of inversion. She did manage to teach it to Natalie, though," Andrew added with a shrug of his shoulders. "Matt… never caught on, though him being half earth pony might have something to do with that."
"But isn't inversion advanced?" Sweetie asked.
"Yeah, and before she and her friends and adoptive brother were foalnapped, Natalie struggled with the concept. Hell, with spellcasting in general. Then again, advanced magic is hard to explain to a budding teenager…" Andrew sighed and shook his head. "But she understood the concept at least, so maybe she can apply it now that she's an adult."
"Which probably meant that the spell surge summoning hellfire was probably Natalie's first major spellcasting accomplishment," the Crusaders didn't hear Andrew say. In itself, that thought was particularly tragic, yet strangely relieving at the same time, even if burning ponies alive left something of a scar on Natalie's psyche. A big scar, now that they thought about it. Maybe they could smuggle therapists into Fantasia to get the military the help they needed. Although, they might need some help with that tall order, and had to shelve the idea for another time.
"Are Umbrum weak to love?" Sweetie asked. "Because I heard over in Equestria, King Sombra was vanquished by love. And blown to pieces."
Andrew sighed. "Just the wicked ones are prone to it. The good ones only have a strong light weakness," he answered. "And even if you had enough love to strangle a whole changeling hive, crystal ponies here… they don't have the means to channel that love to kill any wicked Umbrum. In fact, we can't tell who is a crystal pony to save our hides, besides Natalie and Lazarus."
Scootaloo frowned. That meant that wicked Umbrum were planning something for Fantasia, potentially. "I heard something about crystal ponies here being able to shut off their sparkle. Would that be a problem?" she asked.
Andrew nodded. "Most crystal ponies, assuming they are indeed crystal, can't activate their luster to save their hides," he confirmed. "Godcat took that ability away from them, after punishing the crystal alicorn leading them for her cowardice. Or something like that." He shrugged. "I… never really got around to confirming anything, despite how old I am."
"... and how old are you?" Apple Bloom hedged.
"Me and my sister Eve are about five hundred years old, but we only came out into the general populace thirty-odd years ago. We… disagreed with the other Umbrum," Andrew answered with a sigh. A flash of light cut him off before he could speak further, and he looked behind the trio and gestured that way with his shadows. "Looks like you found what you were looking for," he said to the figure behind them.
The trio turned around and smiled upon seeing Twilight having returned, amusingly enough with Opalescence on her head. Twilight turned to the three and smiled back. "Are you ready?" she asked, garnering nods from the children. "Okay." She lit her horn, grasped them in her magic, and teleported them to the steel ring of the Aerie, where a collection of royal guards watched the horizon, with the sun starting to set.
With them were Rainbow Dash, Flash Sentry, Blue Crow and his group and their magitek, and the Lieutenant-Generals, eyes poised forward for a bit before everyone turned to the children. Distantly, they could see the Big Magnum disembarking, with the ponies that once dotted her starboard no longer present, perhaps having been squirreled into the Aerie for protection. Soon, the Big Magnum and the sky pirates crested beyond the mountains of the guard posts, and opposite of them, a chariot-like magitek was wheeling away in the rocky terrain.
A portal opened up as soon as the sky pirates and chariot were out of sight, revealing Ponyville waiting beyond it. Discord poked his head out, as Twilight deposited Opal on Sweetie's back. "Well, children, it is time to head home; don't want to keep the class waiting tomorrow, do we~?" Discord chirped.
Matt smiled at the kids, despite wearing dark armor and blood red cloth underneath the half-finished knightly suit, with an intimidating fanged, horned mask on his head. "You got everything squared away?" he asked.
"Sure do!" Apple Bloom said as Twilight teleported off of the steel ring for a moment, before returning with the Crusaders' shiny new magitek gear, still in their boxes.
Matt nodded as Discord wrapped his tail around the boxes. "A'ight. See you around," he said warmly.
"See you around!" the Crusaders chorused, and walked through the portal with Discord hauling in their presents. In seconds, they had returned to Ponyville, with the portal shut behind them. Standing in the middle of the road of the market square was Big Mac, hitched to a wagon and watching with a smile as Apple Bloom ran up to him to hug his leg. Her brother nuzzled her, and chuckled at the cutie mark adorning her body.
"Discord told me y'all completed yer homework, give or take a few things," Big Mac said, smiling as he pulled away. He hugged his sister, then disentangled to plop their boxes of goodies into the wagon, bading the trio to hop aboard. They obliged, and off they were down the road once everypony was situated. "We got dinner at the Acres; figured all three of y'all should spend the night to finish anything else y'all might've missed with that report 'fore school tomorrow," he said as the wagon squeaked along for the ride.
The Crusaders began drooling at the thought of dinner. "And what about my aunts?" Scootaloo asked.
"They're at the Acres too," Big Mac answered, turning his head back just enough to flash the three a warm grin. "Rarity came by through a portal earlier to talk to them; she's got Lyra watching the Boutique in place of that foalsitter."
"That's awesome!" Sweetie chirped. "Lyra's way better than that foalsitter! She can teach me how to master my new harp!"
Big Mac's smile widened. "That's jest what I like to hear," he agreed, picking up his pace. He turned down a street and continued the trek to the Acres; soon enough, the three would have a nice warm dinner to eat, and a nice warm set of sleeping bags to sleep in.
But before they could get to sleep, they had to square away a few things first. They figured they could make it worthwhile.