To be frank, seeing the giant airship that crashed outside the Hogwarts wards was… odd.
Professor Dumbledore said that they had shot at the shield but with it’s magic repelling properties, the this just led to several of their own powerful artillery shots hitting them instead, wrecking havoc on the ship. Naturally the Pegasi that attacked on the ship weren’t going down without a fight and flew at Hogwarts to continue whatever reason they had to attack in the first place.
Only to hit a literal firestorm of stunning charms from everyone present. Given that there were over 800 spellcasting capable individuals on the other side of a near impenetrable shield, it was not much of a surprise, the Ponies from Stable 111 had been taught how to do it and had been able to fashion rudimentary wands for all the Earth Ponies.
Additionally, the professors were laying down a withering firestorm of their own, while students and residents like us were firing like Semi-Automatic rifles, the shots from the teachers had more in common with Anti-Air Machineguns or Flak Cannons as hundreds of spells were racing up into the sky from each of them.
Particularly, Professors Dumbledore and Flitwick reminded everyone why the latter was the master of Charms in a school led by a legend, and the latter reminded everyone why she was a legend to begin with. Pregnant or not, Albus Dumbledore was a force of nature compared to the rest of us.
Within two hours of the Cloud Ship crashing we had all the pegasi knocked out, chained up to keep them from doing anything, had their bardings, or rather Powerarmor of all things, removed, and naturally they were relieved of their weaponry, mostly energy weapons and heavier or more advanced guns. That was cool, especially since there were like close to 500 Pegasi, all armed, that had come out and when we went in to check, found another couple hundred survivors who were injured or tending to them.
We had to stun them, keep the medical workers back, or do all kinds of other stuff just to clear the place. And yes, I was among those who went in, being an Alicorn basically made me one of the most resilient ponies in the school, being able to fly and throw up a powerful shield. I was assisted in this by Ruby and Argent, Myrtle had left the school like Hermione and Rainy, as she had wanted to find her relatives as she had two younger siblings.
Anyway, the incapacitated, wounded, and the few Pegasi who were non-coms, were all brought within the shield and put into confinements to be questioned later. They were given simple food, nothing too fancy but given their actions, who were they to argue?
“Man this stuff looks amazing.” I muttered, looking at a suit of the Pegasus Powerarmor that we had recovered, unlike the suits that the Steel Rangers used this stuff was sleek, not that bulky and if my Pip-Buck was to believed, had a built-in magical forcefield even better than the one we had on our own Bardings.
“I’d say so, this is high-quality pre-war technology.” Stated Danse as he appraised a laser Minigun. “Naturally, given that we have no Pegasi of our own, I can’t say those armors will be that interesting to our chapter. And Spoils of War are a thing.” Added Danse, then smirked at me as I grinned. What? I had been a boy before all this and I’m a kid! You try not to be floored at the idea of keeping a suit this cool looking!
“I just wonder why they attacked us.” I added, frowning as I couldn’t understand it. We didn’t bother going above the cloud cover after all and it should’ve been obvious that weren’t some Raider gang.
“No idea, though I suspect it may have to do with your bringing down the [Ornary Judgement] back in your rampage.” Stated Danse and I flinched at the reminder of my lapse in judgement under the influence of extra strong coffee. “Besides, I doubt that it was a coincidence that the ship was right above our heads already back then.” Stated Danse, sighing at the knowledge that, yes, the Enclave was ready strike there.
Naturally then an Alicorn Filly got somewhat drunk on Caffeine had apparently stymied their plans. “Did you guys find out anything about why they were there?” I asked, concerned with the idea that this may not be an isolated incident. And I couldn’t think of many places that were similarly well protected to Hogwarts. Scratch that, Hogwarts would survive a Balefire Bomb hitting it.
“Not a word from what I know, say what you want, this Enclave is quite good at playing the Propaganda Game. The ponies we captured from the one you took down insist on calling us Savages for refusing to allow them free reign to leave and protecting “Uncivilized Savages” from being “Put in their Place”. Needless to say I don’t see the ones who were shot down by your shield doing any better.” He stated, a small nicker at the idea of a Cloudship shooting itself down escaped him.
“Could I help? I’m a Alicorn so maybe they’d listen to me? I mean, I’m clearly not one of those artificial ones you mentioned before, they’re all adults right?” I asked, trying to think of some means to help out in all this and it did earn me a contemplative look.
“I suppose that could work. We’re going to go through the ship’s communication logs, the one you brought down back then had only orders to hold position above us until further orders were given.” Stated Danse and I nodded, they hadn’t fired on the hub or the town so… yeah.
“Anyway, I’m gonna go see if Professor Flitwick can help with this!” I declared and, before Danse could figure out what I was saying, I grabbed the armor and flew off.
I was gonna have Power Armor!
~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~
First Lieutenant Light Charge of the Cloudship Righteous Fury, let out a sigh as he sat in the interrogation room.
It had been 5 days since the ship he served on, a Raptor-class Cloud Ship, had crashed and they had been stunned and taken prisoner by the ones they had shot at. Somehow they had retaliated with equal force and, after a week, he wasn’t even sure they had taken any damage through their shield.
Oh yeah, the shield. The giant bubble of magic surrounding the entire premises of this place. Said place appeared to be a castle, a really old, masonry based castle. The kind that Earth Ponies would’ve built. This was surrounded by a large area of verdant flora which was encapsulated by the great shield that protected the whole area. A shield which also insolated them from the radiation.
They had opened holes in the protective layer, most notably over a stadium where no pony was playing at the time, and on four cardinal points where traders were coming and going. Pegasi foals were a common sight, what he thought may be the descendants of Dashites, but there were also several young adult Pegasi in the mix. And naturally, also the Alicorns.
He had seen these fillies, most especially the one with a white coat and red and blue mane. That one was quite happily walking around in a suit of Enclave Power Armor that had, quite frankly, been magically adjusted to her 8 years old looking size. She even had her horn stick out of a hole in the helmet of all things but there looked to be no damage to it!
Anyway, the Enclave soldiers were all prisoners of this place. They had attacked them, they had lost, and now they were held captive. Only… it wasn’t like the stories.
For starters, the Enclave Soldiers had free reign to roam around the area of the shield, admittedly they were unarmed and their armor was gone too, but still. They had no access to wherever they kept the spoils and they had put some sort of harness on them which they couldn’t remove, preventing the use of their wings.
He hated to admit it, but those were the most considerate savages he had ever heard of. The projections on the savagery of the grounders were very different. What shocked him the most was their actual trading with other Grounders, like civilized ponies. Sure, they used bottlecaps as a currency, but he could imagine a number of scenarios leading to that.
However, the biggest shock had been when he had been approached by the Alicorn Filly who had made one of the armors her own. “So, why did you guys attack our school?” Asked the filly, on her back was a haphazard energy rifle he had seen some others use, it had a winding mechanism on it too.
“School? What are you talking about? We attacked this fortress, not some school, I admit we had apparently the wrong information given you’re not marauders apparently, but you shot back with equal force.” He retorted, he may as well be using this to gather information.
“What for- Oh, right, you mean the castle right? That’s not a fortress, though it is where the wards and shield come from. Hogwarts Castle is, like over a thousand years old, and has been used as a school for at least a thousand years.” Explained the filly and then looked at him weirdly when he growled.
“Don’t lied to me, our records show that 200 years ago the pre-war settlement of Sanctuary Hills stood here. Your base has replaced it somehow.” Stated Light Charge, he remembered the briefing on the strange replacement. While it was a beautiful sight, a fortified position like this was a threat to the Enclave’s reclamation efforts.
“Well, I won’t lie about Hogwarts being new to this world, but that’s because of an accident at the tail-end of last school year.” Stated the filly, again with the school though he supposed he could listen to her claims. “You see, professor Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, is friends with an Alchemist named Nicholas Flamel, the only man known to have created a Philosopher’s stone. A true, fully functional Philosopher’s Stone capable of creating the elixir of life and turning lead into gold.” Explained the filly and wasn’t that an interesting story, though with her sitting down and monologuing, he could at least get some information on what one of their affiliated Alicorns believed.
“However, thing is, someone wanted to steal it to revive an evil wizard named Voldemort. He kind of obliterated his own body over 10 years ago when he tried using a Killing Curse on me after killing my parents, left me with a scar and him without a body.” Explained the filly and… okay he would be filing “Wizard” under the same category as these strange ponies for now.
“Now, he wasn’t dead. Don’t ask me how, nobody knows or at least they won’t tell a first year, going on second year, student at least, but he come back possessing Quirinus Quirrel, formerly the professor for Muggle Studies. Ah, Muggle is the wizarding term for people without magical blood or ancestry. Someone who does have that ancestry but no magic is a Squib. No I didn’t make those up.” Light Charge blinked, just now the filly had pre-empted his objections to those terms, as if she had explained this before.
“Anyway, the stone got transported and stored here at Hogwarts. I don’t know where exactly, I know what the route was since I had to get through there with my friends, but that’s it. They put a lot of puzzles and challenges in the way but I’m not 100% sure why they made them stuff a first year student could learn.” She explained, sounding resigned and annoyed. Security certainly didn’t sound that tight.
“I mean, Fluffy and that Mountain Troll were the only real danger that we couldn’t handle on our own. Devil’s Snare is something you learn about in Herbology early in your first year, flying keys are difficult to deal with if you’re not a good Seeker, that’s a position in the wizarding sport Quidditch where you have to catch a little, very fast moving ball named the Snitch, Wizarding Chess is a literal game, and the last one, following after the troll, is a riddle with potions.” Explained the filly and there was a pause as she began rubbing her head, clonking on her horn as if she wasn’t used to it.
“What is a Fluffy? I believe I heard about the term trolls before but I don’t think any creature from before the war was called Fluffy and was dangerous.” Asked Light Charge, by now he was quite curious, and she hadn’t even finished her little tale, as strange and unbelievable as most of it had been. There were a lot of unicorns here though so…
“Ah, Fluffy is the name of Ruby’s, ah, she’s another Alicorn filly like me but before we come here she was the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. And a Half-Giant 63 years old man at that, giant three-headed dog.” Light Charge took a moment to digest that claim. One, the filly just said that there were more than the three Alicorns he had seen and at least one of them was male, before what she claimed had transported this place here.
“And how did she turn into an Alicorn? And what sort of pony was she?” He asked, curious to hear the answer.
Said answer surprised him. “That’s the thing, she wasn’t a pony, none of us students or the professors were. And before you ask, you can differentiate us from the refugees because we wear either school uniform bardings or at least have put our house’s coat of arms on armor if we got some.” She pointed for emphasize on her flank where someone had painted a rearing lion with a big H over it on the armor.
“Wait, that’s not you painting a Cutie Mark on the armor?” He asked, now realizing he was seriously just outright curious about learning more about the strange creatures he was facing. “And what were you before becoming ponies then?” He asked, as an afterthought and the filly sighed.
“We were humans, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, only sapient species on Planet Earth, third planet from the star Sol. We have one natural satellite, commonly called The Moon or Luna by some, our star is also a white main sequence star a couple billion years old. Humans are a bipedal species with very little fur, mainly on our heads, with two genders, male and female, though Gender Perception can vary.” She explained and… yeah that was clearly an annoyed rubbing of her forehead, so no horn normally.
“Ugh, my Muggle schooling ended in Primary School, why am I teaching an adult human biology?” She muttered and, yeah, it sounded rather hilarious out of context. “Anyway, ah… Have you see the ponies with the very strange looking bodies? The tall, thin and bipedal ones?” She asked and he nodded, he had seen a few of those around, yes.
“Well, those are what Muggle-born, which as far as we can tell basically means they’re descended from Squibs somewhere in the far distant past, turn into in this world. They’re the closest to looking like humans, just… You know what? Come with me, we got a ton of paintings in the castle and none of the people in them turned into ponies.” Stated the filly standing up and Light Charge decided to humor her. He hadn’t been in the castle itself so far, so that would be interesting.
She led him up a path and, after a few minutes, they reached large double doors which were already open. A few of the post-war militia known as Steel Rangers stood guard, he had seen them leutering around the premises, allies of these ponies. “Alright, that’s Sir Barkedin, I don’t know more than that but that’s pretty normal for a human’s appearance.” Stated the filly then and he looked where she pointed to find…
“That’s what you looked like?” He asked, stumped at the odd creature depicted in the portrait. It was wearing armor though, and was glaring at… “Is that picture moving? Wait, are all of them moving?” He asked, startled to realize that because, well, what the hell?
“Yup, wizarding photographs and portraits get treated with a special potion to make them mobile though I’ve never seen any images other than Hogwarts Portraits moving between one another. They can also talk and are, I think, mostly Sapient. Though they can’t do anything to you.” Explained the filly and Light Charge sighed in relief, the idea of those things moving was kind of disconcerting.
“Just don’t make professor Dumbledore angry, she’s pregnant right now and may send the statues and suits of armor to kick your flank.” Added the filly and giggled as he spun to stare at the huge amount of, well, exactly what she had said.
“What?” He finally got out, noticing that the suits of armor were clearly made for these human creatures.
“They’re also enchanted, on the headmaster or deputy headmaster’s command they can come to life as a final line of defense of the castle. I swear the founders didn’t do ANYTHING in half-meassures, they even had the wards have a function to repel malignant magical energy and purge anything passing in of the stuff. That’s why radiation doesn’t get in.” Explained the filly, like that sort of thing was just normal.
“Let’s get back to the point, alright? What happened to supposedly land this giant piece of land here?” He asked, trying not to let the girl’s tangents get in the way of him getting answer out of her.
“Oh, right. I broke the stone.” That same moment, when she made this statement, his hoof slipped on the polished marble of the hall, and he faceplanted.
Hard. “What do you mean you broke the stone!? How do you break a Bucking Philosopher’s Stone?!” He asked genuinely in disbelieve that she could just admit that.
“Hey, I was a eleven years old kid being choked by a grown man, I just grabbed the first thing I could find that was really hard and smashed it into his skull. Not my fault the mirror gave me the stone for wanting to take it but not wanting to use it. Stupidly obvious test of character.” She explained and he stared at her in disbelieve at those words.
“Wait, why didn’t you have a gun with you? Aren’t you Wastelanders absolutely in love with guns?” He asked, trying to figure out this filly, and failing as she scoffed.
“We’re not originally from the Wasteland. I’m Brittish, not American. We have sane Gun regulations.” She stated, which surprised him. “I never even touched a gun, ever. If I had I would’ve probably been thrown out of the house for daring to touch Uncle Vernon’s things. Then we come here and I had to learn how to use a gun, but I didn’t know how awful it is until I just… I don’t know, it was like a trance, I saw ponies in trouble, being attacked by Raiders and just- the thing I remember after I was done was I was in the room with the Quincy survivors, and it only hit me what I had done when the adrenaline subsided. And I fainted.” Explained the filly, this was the first ranting he had heard from her and… she was ranting about her troubles adjusting?
“Why are you telling me this? We’re enemies.” He asked and the filly stopped, blinked and looked at him in confusion. “You’re one of those Wastelanders, you’re a disruption of our mission to restore order under the Enclave to Equestria. On the one hoof you take down our cloudship with some sort of Plasma batteries, on the other you do nothing but stun our forces when we try attacking. You take our weapons and armor, and you restrict our wings, but you let us wander around freely as if you had nothing to worry about.” Light Charge didn’t get it, this was nothing like he had heard and these ponies were even stranger.
However, the fillies gave him a wry smile. “Well, I guess I ramble. Hermione rambles about books, Rainy rambles about that Quidditch team she’s a fan of. I ramble about my weird life. Heh. But, tell me something mister. Why do you act like what you’re doing is righteous or something, when your ships are attacking innocent settlements?” That question threw him for a loop because, what the hell was she talking about?
“What do you mean? The Enclave is targeting Marauders and those who would oppose our restoration of order.” He responded, he was by now just confused, this filly was an enigma but in response, her horn glowed for a moment before a mechanical voice come from the armor.
||This message is Captain’s Ears only. Sender ID P9r7SS-d774G-uF89. Verification Code: II88r7. Innitiate Operation Cauterize. Goals are as follows: The objective of Operation: Cauterize is to kill or destroy forces that could hinder the Enclave's introduction to Equestria. These forces included: Former Enclave members (Dashites) and their associates. Renegades: Slavers and Raiders. Anyone who holds information that could jeopardize the mission. Anyone who opposes the Enclave.||
Light Charge choked on his own spit because, while he didn’t know the ID, he recognized it as an Enclave ID, the pattern of it as well as the P9r7SS line were common among IDs in the Enclave, but there was more.
||Addendum: Cloudship Righteous Fury is to reposition itself over North-Western Ponston state, destroy the structure there and all it’s inhabitants, seize any Stable 111 survivors for purposes of experimentation. After destroying the creatures masquerading as Ponies, secure whatever means of contact there is to the other world, seize it to be reverse engineered for conquest.||
“Where did you get that? How did you get such classified information?!” He asked, horrified both by the implications of what had been read out by the suit’s AI, but also that such had fallen into the hands of an enemy.
“I… think I’m wearing your captain’s armor now.” She stated and… yeah he didn’t know much but that was a possibility. “Also, the Steel Rangers were investigating the computer logs of the ship, they had found the message there too. And honestly? We did you a favor, I don’t know if you realize this but there isn’t anything to receive your cloudships or whatever on the other side if you tried going through, and from what we know ponies turn into colorful humans on Earth just like we humans turn into ponies here. And I don’t think you guys can take on Germany without magic.” Explained the girl and, now Light Charge was confused.
“Didn’t you say you’re from “Brittain”? What is this Germany place?” He asked, some concern forming in his mind as the filly smiled at him.
“Another country in our world. They incited the bloodiest war in the history of our world which also resulted in the deployment of two non-magical Balefire Bomb equivalents against another country.” She explained and Light Charge paled at the idea. “They also lost the war and only have a token force to defend themselves, with all of their equipment being outdated by around 50 years.” And now Light Charge felt like she had kicked him in the balls, telling him the Enclave would lose against that.
“What about that America place?” He asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“What about the US? They’re the only country on Earth who used nuclear bombs in a war. Remember how I mentioned non-magical Balefire Bomb analogues? That’s what we call Nuclear Bombs. And they’re firecrackers compared to the stuff the US has stored up all around their country, and they have thousands of those.” He could see the mirth on her face at his horror. Oh god she had a sadistic side too didn’t she?
“Did I mention that most countries have a fleet of sub-surface ocean vessels that can launch those nuclear missiles across continents?”
~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~
“And that, miss Evans, is why you do not tell any pony about the horrors of our world.” Finished Professor McGonnagal her lecture against me while Madam Pomfrey tended to the Pegasus I had scared to the point of feinting.
“But ma’am, I didn’t only told him the truth.” I argued back, still smiling a bit at the fact that, somehow, I had scared the living daylights out of someone who thought he was tough just because he had more advanced tech than everyone else around.
McGonnagal sighed, shaking her head as if she had seen this happen a lot. “Why, every time there is something going on, are you involved?” She asked and I shrugged in response.
“I guess I’m always at the wrong place at the right time?” I suggested and thanked my lucky stars that school hadn’t started yet.
Otherwise I’d probably have lost Gryffindor 200 points or something like that.
Fred and George would probably be proud of me if I did that.