//------------------------------// // Heading Out // Story: Legends Never Die: The Beginning of Harmony // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// “Well, that’s everyone,” Kailani reported, and Hugo sighed with relief. “Does this mean we can head back to our friends now?” the griffon asked as he gently steered the zeppelin away from the glowing city of Zephyr Heights. It was early in the day, the sunrise casting the entire landscape below in a dazzling golden light, and the hippogriff and griffon had just finished dropping off the last of the ponies that had been abducted by Sombra. “I keep feeling like something awful’s happening.” “You and me both,” Kailani said ruefully. “I hate leaving them like this - I mean, we only just meet them.” Hugo steered the floating basket into a channel of wind heading north to speed their arrival. He adjusted the wheel a bit, tied it down, and stood back, wiping the sweat off his forehead and joining Kailani on the deck. “I can’t believe there was all this out here and we didn’t realize it,” Kailani whispered, looking over the railing at the landscape passing below them. “It’s like having the whole world open up in front of you. Don’t you just want to… explore it all?” She leaned her head against the railing and sighed with contentment. The wind ruffled her coat and mane, and she closed her eyes, soaking in the blissful moment. “I don’t know,” Hugo admitted. “I mean… It is amazing, but it seems like everywhere I go…. You know, I’ll never really belong.” He flapped his wings woefully. “You weren’t made to belong,” Kailani told him, gently placing her claw on his arm, “you were made to be you.” Hugo smiled, and he joined his friend at the railing, the wind blowing in their faces as they played “I Spy” with the slowly passing landscape below. Hugo was amazing - he was used to spotting intimate details, so he always found what Kailani pointed out and made his objects so hard to spot that the hippogriff always gave up. The day turned into night, the dark sky above sprinkled with silver stars, the crescent moon glowing in the sky as the Crystal Mountains neared. The northern lights became visible, filling the sky with rainbow lights that shimmered brighter than anything the two creatures had ever seen. Hugo frowned at the ground. “I Spy… something blue,” the griffon finally decided. Kailani groaned. “Is it the sky?” she asked teasingly, then scanned the ground. “Hm. Is it that blue jay?” “Nope.” “That flower?” “Guess again!” “Is it a pegasus?” “No-” Hugo paused. “Where?” “What?” “Where’s the pegasus?” Kailani pointed to the horizon. “Right there!” She grinned at Hugo. “I spotted something you didn’t! I win!” But the griffon was very uninterested in competition anymore. “There’s two of them,” he muttered. “And they’re flying right towards us.” He scrambled back to the wheel and untied it, preparing to dodge the newcomers, but Kailani held up a claw. “No, wait. I… I think I recognize them,” she said, squinting. The light from the moon and the northern lights reflected off of something silver that both the pegasi were wearing, and she finally made out the crest of Zephyr Heights on both of their chest plates. “They’re guards from Zephyr Heights!” Hugo yelped. “Are we in trouble?” “I don’t think so,” Kailani replied. “Wait… I do know them! They’re two of the ponies we brought home from the Crystal Empire! Something must be happening!” Hugo gently steered the zeppelin out of the wind and lowered the sails so that it floated aimlessly, moving at about a tenth of a mile per hour. He joined Kailani on the deck as Thunder and Zoom landed. The green pegasus flopped onto the deck, breathing hard and apparently exhausted. His comrade merely rolled her eyes and kept her rigid composure. “What’s going on?” Kailani asked, fearing the worst. “We have a message for the queen,” Zoom said tersly. “All of Zephyr Heights has been convinced that Sunny Starscout and her friends seek to destroy all other creatures and rule ponykind. We don’t know what might happen to the queen, or anypony else, but we can assume it won’t be anything good.” She nudged Thunder, and he woefully got to his hooves, pulling out his cell phone from under his wing and tapping away at it. “Woah,” Hugo whispered, seeing the pegasus’ face bathed with light as he stared intently at the tiny screen. “There,” Thunder said finally, showing the screen to Kailani and Hugo. On the screen was a sunny yellow pegasus behind a podium, his red eyes flashing with anger as he waved an angry hoof at a massive picture of Sunny Starscout, in full alicorn form, behind him. The clip wasn’t very long, but Kailani could already guess what the bulk of the message was - and it wasn’t anything good. “That’s not good,” she said fretfully, wringing her claws together. “How does it work?” Hugo questioned, cautiously poking at the cell phone. He pulled out his reading glasses from under his wing and put them on, curiously peering at the device. “Is it some kind of-” “Uh, Hugo? Not exactly the kind of problem we’re trying to fix,” Kailani interrupted, and he huffed. “Fine.” He looked Thunder in the eye. “But please tell me how it works?” The pegasus shrugged. “I’m not really sure.” He looked at his phone as if seeing it in a whole new light. “I think it’s…” “We should get back to our friends,” Kailani asserted, gently nudging Hugo and giving him a pointed look. He nodded and scrambled to the wheel, raising the sails and gently steering the zeppelin back into the air current. The hippogriff turned back to the two guards and said, “You should get going, too.” Zoom nodded. “If anything else happens… we’ll be in touch.” “Find a unicorn you can trust,” Kailani suggested, remembering something about how unicorns could teleport messages. The two guards gave each other a look before taking off into the sky, disappearing into the clouds drifting lazily above the zeppelin. Kailani watched until they were gone, the thought of what was waiting for them back in Zephyr Heights worrying her. “Do you think everything’s going to be okay?” she asked her friend. Hugo frowned as he spun the wheel. “What do you mean? Everything’s worked out so far, right?” “Yes, but…” She sighed. “It’s different when it feels like the whole world is against you. We already have most of the other tribes on our bad side, and now the ponies will obviously be joining forces against us, too. If we’re going to really do this… then how are we supposed to save the world when the world hates us?” The griffon tied down the wheel and let the zeppelin drift. He walked over to her, the two standing at the railing and watching the cloud-streaked sky pass above them. “There will always be ponies who don’t get along with us or agree with us - but that doesn’t mean everyone does. It may be a little harder to find allies, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. They’ll be there - just like we’ll always be there for each other.” “I suppose,” Kailani admitted. She sighed and looked up at the stars. “I just hope we’ll be enough. To change the world, that is. I hope we can do it.” They arrived in the Crystal Empire in the morning, touching down gently in a large square in the Empire’s streets that housed a statue of a wingless dragon holding the Crystal Heart. Imara was there first, whooping and hollering that they were back, and then the others, and Kailani was so thrilled to see that her friends were okay. She leaped out of the basket before it touched down and spread her wings to slow her descent. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Hugo watching with jealousy in his eyes, and he was so distracted he nearly crashed the floating ship into the giant crystal statue. “Everything okay out there?” Sunny asked as soon as they were out of the boat and safely on the ground. Kailani and Hugo exchanged a look. “Well…” “More or less,” Hugo eventually decided. Sunny sighed. “Why am I not surprised.” She rubbed her forehead. “Well, tell me how bad it is. And don’t try to sugarcoat it, I can handle it.” And so they told her. And she looked like she could, in fact, handle it, which was very surprising. Kailani would have been freaking out by now, especially if her own kind had betrayed her when she had just brought back their most valuable trait. I suppose all of us have betrayed our tribes, she thought, looking around at the group of creatures that had gathered around the zeppelin. But it’s all for the greater good, right? We’re doing this to save the world, so it’s okay… right? I hope every creature back home is alright. “We should go defeat Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow right now!” Little Braveheart suggested, sounding way too enthusiastic to be heading onto the field of battle to make Kailani comfortable. “We know where their headquarters is, right? So what if we just wait until they’re all in there, and then blast it to bits!” Sunny winced. Ash said, “Or… we could not do that.” “We don’t even know if they would be in there,” Lukas added, shifting his hooves and looking worried. “We don’t know enough about them at all!” “I’m with Lukas on this one,” Flurry said. “Things have changed since my aunt was around - we need to know how different they are. And we still don’t know how we’re going to defeat them. With the Elements of Harmony in their possession, and magic apparently a bit weaker right now than it was back then…” She shook her head. “Woah, woah, wait.” Zipp held up her hooves, still looking very unhappy that she wasn’t in the air. “Who said that magic is weaker now? We can all still do stuff, right?” Flurry landed on the ground and folded her wings, getting the look on her face that Kailani had decided meant that a lecture was coming. “Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow were able to nearly overpower us, weak as they were. Magic isn’t the same as it used to be, and nopny’s had it for a while. Most of you are, no offense, pretty weak on a magical standard. If we want to defeat them, then we need stronger magic than normal magic - and the most powerful magic of all is the-” “The magic of friendship,” Sunny finished, looking like she was thinking had. “Which is why it’s so weak right now - everypony’s divided, so it isn’t as strong as it could be.” “But we can still defeat them,” Imara said, her voice pleading. “Right?” “We’ll find a way,” Sunny promised. “It might take some improvising, but we’ll make it work. If we could gain access to the Elements of Harmony, we could just use those…” “Sounds like a plan we should make up on the way,” Little Braveheart announced, gently pushing them towards the zeppelin. “We can go to their hideout and stake it out, waiting until the perfect moment to steal the Elements and vaporize them with magic rainbows!” “Maybe we should plan things out a little bit more,” Sunny began as the buffalo leaped onto the ship. “No time! The longer we sit around and wait here, the more time every other creature gets to stew in anger and grow more powerful and prepare to launch an epic attack on every other creature and everyone is engaged in an awful war that we could have stopped if we just started moving!” She ran to the wheel and called down, “Hugo, how does this thing work?” “Um…” The griffon sidled towards the ship. “Perhaps I should…” “Little Braveheart’s right,” Flurry decided as he ran up to stop her from breaking his precious vessel. “The more time we spend here, the stronger they get! We have to act now.” She spread her wings and flew above them, her voice commanding as she said, “We’re heading out. Now.”