//------------------------------// // Under Smoke and Rain – Part 2 // Story: A Journey in Steel // by Lusaminia //------------------------------// Six months earlier… A beam of golden light suddenly erupted from Mount Canterhorn, residents of the city below little out yelps or screams of terror. Even after it faded the panic didn’t stop, ponies storming around in a panicked frenzy. The royal guard immediately mobilized around the area the beam of light had originated from, investigating the disturbance in hopes that whatever it was wouldn’t lead to them needing the Elements of Harmony. No civilians were allowed inside the hole said beam had created, and for the first few hours nothing was told of what had caused it. Then Princess Celestia and Luna arrived, both gawking at the massive hole that had been carved out of Mount Canterhorn. It reminded them of the power Tirek had briefly held in his hands before Twilight and her friends had defeated him. Celestia, face cold as stone, hid the fear that was placed within her as she trotted up to the captain of her guards, a unicorn named Captain Stonewall. He saluted the sisters as they approached. “Afternoon captain,” Princess Celestia greeted. “Any news on what caused… this?” “We do, your majesty,” Captain Stonewall explained. He looked to the newly formed cave behind him, and then back to his princesses. “Though, it might be easier if we were to show you instead of explaining it.” A combined nod from herself and Luna later, and Celestia soon found herself traveling out of the sun and into the darkness of the cave. Captain Stonewall lit his horn, illuminated the area around them as they traveled further and further into the mountains. All the while both sisters glanced at the cave walls, an energy both magical and non-magical seeming to fill the atmosphere around them. It was something that existed inside all beings, typically unable to manifest into something solid. “Sister, do you think the beam we saw was….” Luna said, only to be left silent as the energy grew heavier.  “Yes. It is will,” Celestia replied, eyes the left wall of the cave in concern. “Pure, raw willpower.” “What in tartarus would be able to create a beam of willpower this powerful?” Luna whispered. “It is unnatural.” Their answer came moments later, both princesses halting in their tracks at the pony-made thing that towered over them. A behemoth of steel larger than anything they had ever seen stood before them. On its side was a massive cannon unlike anything else on Equestria, power both pure and dark radiating from it. The willpower that had filled the cave seemed to surround the behemoth, Celestia’s eyes going wide as she realized what was before her. The beam of pure willpower had come not from some pony or long forgotten enemy, but this ungodly contraption. “We found this here, at the end of the cave,” Stonewall explained, walking up and tapping the behemoth’s treads with a hoof. “It seems to be some form of moving fortress. There are doors on it, but nopony has been able to open it.” “Then the beam of light, it came from that?” Luna asked, her sister frozen in place from both terror and fear. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” “Permission to give a theory, your highness?” Stonewall requested. Luna gave him a nod, and the captain proceeded to clear his throat. “This thing is far too advanced for pony kind or any other known parts of the world, and it doesn’t take a scientist to figure that much out. I believe it is possible that we are looking at a relic of an age before ponykind.” “The first sign of a long dead civilization,” Luna muttered, taking a couple steps forward as she looked over the behemoth. “And to have a weapon that can fire solidified willpower. How advanced were they, and what caused a need for a weapon so sinister?” A gasp drew Luna’s and Stonewalls attention back to Celestia. The princess of the sun was looking up at the top of the behemoth, ears folded against her head. Following where she was looking and stepping away, both her sister and the captain joined her in astonished horror. At the top of this steel contraption of war was something out of place. Something that should not have been there. A child. She resembled that of a diamond dog to some minimal extent, but it was clear she was something else. There was no way she could have been any older than four years old, dressed in a white nightgown. While ponies stared in horror at the fact a child was on top of this steel behemoth, she looked down at them in child-like awe. It reminded Celestia of the look Twilight got whenever she received a new book. “Mei, get your head down!” Called a voice from on top of the tank, a young boy if Celestia guessed correctly. The young not-diamond dog was then shown down by a paw, leaving nothing but steel and stone in their view. “Captain Stonewall, you're certain no civilians arrived before you did, correct?” Celestia said, looking at the captain in pure fear. “Absolutely positive ma’am. I have no idea how they got in here,” Stonewall replied, clearly just as worried and perplexed as the solar princess. “I do,” Celestia said. Before the captain or her sister could inquire as to what she meant, Celestia teleported up to the top of the behemoth. She was greeted by twin gasps of shock, though one seemed more intrigued while the other had clear fear. She stumbled back for a moment, the density of the free willpower making the simple act of teleportation feel harsher than normal. It didn’t help that moments after something smacked into her head, though it barely bruised her. When she finally regained herself, Celestia found two canine-like creatures before her. One was a Malt, and the other was the small girl that she had spotted earlier that he had called Mei. In Malt’s paw was a toy gun, a look of determination on his face as he pointed it at Celestia. He was shivering in fear, clearly just as terrified as the princess had been upon discovering their existence. Celestia swore she heard another voice call out from underneath her, but it was muffled by steel. “Who are you?” Malt asked, gritting his teeth. “Are you with the Berman army?” Celestia blinked, two oddities hitting her at the boys words. The first was the heavy prench accent that he spoke with, no doubt a foreigner with how thick it was. The second was the mention of the “Berman army”. Celestia had never heard of it before, but considering the fact the children before her had been found on a piece of technology from a different time, she felt the answer was simple. “These Bermans, whoever they were, are no longer around,” Celestia answered, forcibly calming herself. She kneeled down so that she didn’t tower over the siblings, smiling gently at them. “You are safe, little one.” For a single second, Celestia saw Malt relax. He then tensed up even more, the worry of who this unknown creature before him was taking precedence in his mind. He didn’t know Celestia meant no harm, nor did he know that they were just as scared as he was. The last thing he remembered before he had awoken in the Taranis an hour or two ago was the firing of the Taranis’ great cannon.  “Malt, I believe she is telling the truth,” the voice of Jeanne called out over the intercom. “I don’t see any Berman forces in the area. All my observations have shown this equine means peace.” “Who… who is that?” Celestia asked, turning her head this way and that. She didn’t notice Malt letting out a breath of relief, dropping the toy gun and falling on the ground next to his sister. “I assume you are referring to me, Princess Celestia?” Jeanne replied, her holographic form appearing between Celestia, Malt, and Mei. “That is you, right? The conversation you had and the way you carry yourself is certainly fitting of a princess.” “Yes, I am Princess Celestia,” The princess of the sun answered, giving a barely noticeable nod to the AI. “You are?” “Call me Jeanne. I’m the artificial intelligence built into the Taranis,” Jeanne said, giving a formal bow to Celestia. Her head turned to the caninu siblings present before them. “And these are but two members of my crew, as much as it pains me to admit.” Celestia’s jaw dropped at the sight before her, unable to believe her eyes. She shook her head, then looked in Jeanne’s direction to find them still there. She was still there, and that meant what the alicorn was seeing was indeed real. Artificial intelligence was the realm of science fiction, its creation still far away from remote possibility. Yet there was one before her, having just bowed to her. The amount of questions she, and the many more Twilight would when she inevitably found out about Jeanne, formed from simply seeing her was too intense for her brain to properly organize them all. “I’m sure there are a lot of questions for you all, but if you wouldn’t mind I have other members of the Taranis crew who would like to step outside,” Jeanne informed Celestia, waking the princess from her self-imposed stupor. “Oh, of course,” Celestia replied, hastily nodding. “How many of them are there, if I may ask?” Jeanne’s face suddenly turned grim, eyes falling to her true body’s exterior beneath her. “Twelve, all children no older than twelve years old.” Luna and Celestia looked behind them, disheartened at the group quietly following them. Where there should have been grown soldiers was instead a group of children. As Jeanne had said, none of them were older than twelve, Malt and his sister Mei taking up the minimum and maximum of their group. A look of skepticism was carved in his very being, eyes showing maturity no child his age typically had. Maturity brought about by Jeanne, or rather her other half that had guided them for most of the past few months. She waited for the moment when the princesses asked the inevitable question of how these young souls had come to pilot the Taranis. That had all come from a part of her that she deeply despised, one which for so long had controlled all Jeanne was. It had made the monster the children had opposed at the end of their journey, and had wanted to turn them into the exact same. She wished to say it was gone, but Jeanne could feel the inner bloodlust that had been programmed into her. A bloodlust that told her one sickening, horrible truth: the Tarascus had not been annihilated. Was it possible the Vanargand had survived as well? “I’m surprised you can walk so far from your real body,” Luna said, cutting through the AI’s many worries. “I assumed you would be unable to leave that… thing.” “It is called the Taranis, Princess Luna,” Jeanne corrected, doing her best to smile for the younger of the alicorn sisters. Her eyes betrayed the smile that she gave. “Yes though, I can. I did it the day I met Malt, his sister, and their friends. I only wish I had been in the right state of mind then.” “I imagine the situation had to be horribly grim for children to be put in charge of a beast like that,” Stonewall said from the AI’s opposite side. Jeanne’s head fell forward a bit, pain etched into her artificial soul. Her reaction caught Luna’s attention, the guilt that clung to the AI’s form feeling far too familiar. When she had been freed from Nightmare Moon, that same guilt had weighed heavy on her being for a long, long time. It was a feeling that remained a forever reminder of the grave mistake that had cost her one thousand years, and of how she had almost covered her subjects in eternal night. A night that would lead to a frozen death for all, including herself. To see guilt on Jeanne’s face told her that something similar had happened, though she could only give the faintest hints as to the whole story. Whether it was a situation eerily similar to Nightmare Moon or something else entirely, the choice to put these children in charge of the Taranis was not one made in good faith, If she could forgive them for doing it would be decided when the full story came out. For now, it was a matter of leaving the inside of Mount Canterhorn, and giving these children the sun and air they had likely been robbed up for however long they had commandeered the steel behemoth. What few murmurs there were among the children died as soon they reached the surface, all twelve of them staring out at the great beyond. Their eyes didn’t even register the numerous soldiers looking at them in shock and worry, believing that the children had snuck past them somehow. The feeling of wind across their clothes and fur told them what this was all real. A vast, peaceful beyond, without a hint of war anywhere near them. This was not Gasco, at least as far as they had last seen it. The land looked like it had never known the horrors that those children had seen. “Malt, where is Paresia?” Mei asked her brother. Malt peered into the beyond at a small town in the distance. His face trying to express both relief and horror at the same exact time, creating a thousand yard stare. He knew why Mei was confused, but he found himself unable to answer. A tear managed to escape his left eye, doing his best to process how alien everything looked when mere hours ago everything around him had been smoke and fire. “We… we got him, right?” Asked Hack, Chick’s twin brother. He looked between his friends, the only ones able to look his way being Britz and his sister. “He got Hax and that thing. We had to!” “I… did we?” Britz asked back, looking up at the mountain they had just climbed out from. “Of course we did! We wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t," came the voice of Kyle, the former city kid. His clenched paw betrayed his words, showing even he wasn’t positive about what it was he was saying. “We saved everyone. We stopped Hax and saved all those the Bermans imprisoned.” “But now we aren’t gonna see our families again,” Chick whispered. “Mom said she was gonna make pawbuns for us all too,” Said the big bodied, big hearted, felinko standing at the end of the group. He, Boron, rubbed his tummy sadly. “I’m never gonna taste it again.” “This is some twisted way of thanking us for saving everyone,” yet another kid, Jin, replied with his arms crossed. He had wanted to sound angry, but in the end he sounded even more defeated than those around him. “Though, at least we are still alive.” “Y-yep, and we should be thankful for that, my minions,” the red-headed Wappa replied, doing her damndest to try and sound inspiring. She pointed a finger into the air and faked a confident smirk. “The enemy wins if we let this stop us.” Her words did nothing but make every child present even more aware of the reality before them. This land was not Gasco, and Britz would have told them if they were in Berman or not. It was somewhere else, completely foreign to each and every one of them; somewhere that wasn’t home. The only one of the group to step forward was Sheena, one paw held out while the other clutched her doll tightly. “I can still feel nono in the air, but something about it is different,” she told everyone. “We must just be somewhere else. Maybe some sort of magic triggered when the soul cannon fired.” Celestia, Luna, and Jeanne all looked back to the large group of children staring out into the world. Then, sister looked to sister, wordlessly asking how they were going to approach the topic that had been avoided up till then. Knowing that the alicorn of the sun would do far better than her when it came to talking with these children, Luna nudged her head to them. Celestia immediately understood what her younger sister was getting at, and took a step forward. “I’m sure you all have many questions, as do I have questions for you,” Celestia spoke, grabbing the attention of the Taranis’ crew. “I would like to do anything I can to help you all return home, wherever that may be. For that, knowing how you ended up here in the first is vital.” Eyes both canine and feline went from Celestia to the eldest of the group. Malt gulped, but understood perfectly well why all eyes were on him. He was their de facto leader, and one of the six who had been there since the beginning. Next to Hanna, he was their best choice for retelling all that had happened. With a heavy heart and the burden he had placed upon himself as their leader, he stepped forward and looked to Celestia. “Our home, Gasco, was invaded by an opposing country,” He explained. “Six of us – Hanna, Kyle, Sock, Boron, my sister and myself – lived in a village called Petit Mona. We thought the war wouldn’t reach us, but one night….” He had to stop for a moment, thinking back on that first night and everything that had happened. “One night the Berman’s attacked our village, took our families, neighbors, and friends captive. We probably would have been taken if not for Jeanne.” Celestia turned to the AI, noting the shame that was present on their face. “That was you, wasn’t it?” Celestia asked. “Yes, or rather a piece of myself,” Jeanne answered. “It had done millions upon millions of calculations, all with the goal of finding the perfect crew to battle my counterpart, the Tarascus. It had caused the invasion, led the forces to their home, and called out to them.” “Wait, the reason the Bermans found Petit Mona was you?!” Hanna asked in terror. Jeanne gave a somber nod to the felinko. “Oh God.” “With you all properly motivated by the capture of your families, that other piece of me took action,” Jeanne continued, noting how Celestia and her shadow drew away at her words. To her surprise Luna seemed less terrified and more understanding, though why she didn’t know. “It called out to Malt and his friends, leading them to a cave, and gave them access to the Taranis.” She looked the alicorn of the sun dead in the eyes. “I am the cause behind everything.”