//------------------------------// // Skedaddle: Part 3 // Story: Dawn Adopted // by Idyll //------------------------------// Cozy dug a wing into her satchel and after seconds of searching pulled out an old relic—one that if Princess Twilight knew she possessed, Canterlot would have never suspended their mare-hunt. Luster didn’t know what it was, but it looked similar to something she’d seen in that book she just read. There were illustrations of a blue unicorn wearing it, who in the other pages wore a purple, star-spangled cape, when donned with the relic would have a pure black cloak. Also something about a giant glass dome. It was made of a dark metal, with a visible heft based on the way Cozy handled it. On its top depicted the profile view of a unicorn’s head facing leftwards between two wings, each with a red medial streak, all sprouting from only the top side of an upside-down triangle. At the center of that triangle, along with the entire piece, was a similarly-red diamond-shaped jewel. Luster looked up at Cozy, who was staring at her reflection through the relic. “I really shouldn’t be doing this...” Cozy said. She smiled. “Well, here it goes.” Cozy held the relic to the base of her neck, and it grew a thick necklace that kept it in place. Her body became a beacon of light, and Luster felt the magic muffler around her horn tingle. It ended in a shock wave that shook the few remaining framed prints of motivational posters on her wall—one of them fell and shattered. When the brightness subsided, Luster's mouth was agape at what she saw. Cozy now had a horn, and her wings were now a gradient of her normal coat color and a slightly more saturated hue on their edges; they also grew a few inches. The new Alicorn immediately tested her abilities, not on an object, but directly on herself. A soft sparkling pop emanated from the tip of her horn, and magic traveled down towards her tail in a wave, ruffling the hairs of her coat through its path. Cozy’s appearance changed! Her coat became a colder shade of pink, and her mane was ruffled then straightened into wavy spirals, purple in color with turquoise streaks, and a fringe that folded under itself towards one side. “Ooo, Flurry’s going to love this!” Cozy said, with a mischievous grin covered by her hoof. “Wait wait wait—what?! How did you—huh?” Luster confusion interfered with her ability to form coherent sentences. “I nabbed this little thing a while ago, and unlike most other ponies my mind is perfectly clear and ready for ascension! The only problem is that this particular method causes quite a lot of noise...” “What do you mean ‘noise’?” “Well basically, the magic is still in the amulet! It only flows into me! That causes a bit of a disturbance, one that can be detected, especially with the whole ‘ascension’ thing” Cozy explained. “Sooo, we should probably finish this before Fluttershy runs out of tea!” Cozy’s horn glowed crimson red, even with her disguise. She cast beyond her a transparent portal with wavy blue outlines. It swiped forwards and engulfed them both. “Woah…” Lusted breathed. They appeared in a dark room with gray stone walls, between an executive desk, with an array of cabinets behind it, and a door. To their side was a window, barricaded by security bars, and in front of them was—a stallion! He dropped his quill, splattering ink on whatever he was writing, and stuttered out: “P-P-Princess Flu—” Cozy zapped him on the head, and he fell like a corpse at an angle, hitting his temple against the side of his desk before hitting the ground. Luster winced at the sound, but she recognized this pony! He was the warden who managed the entire factory she was forced to work in! The workers here rarely ever saw him, except when he ordered every creature to gather and yell at them about quotas and complaints he’s been getting from his customers. Luster snapped out of her thoughts once she heard Cozy ask her: “How do you like your captors, Lustie? Unconsciously, amnesiac, dead, petrified? This is your revenge! You should enjoy it!” The stallion was held by the mane in her magic’s aura, and was dragged to showcase inches in front of Luster’s face. “I think that’s good enough.” Luster replied, taking a few steps back. “Well golly, aren’t you Ms. Forgiving!” Cozy remarked. She let her victim drop to the floor as she turned towards the cabinet drawers. Skimming through the tags of the many folders, she levitated the few that piqued her interest, and flipped through each one. With only occasional dwellings, it only took a minute before she filtered out around twenty of the documents that went straight into her satchel. “What are those?” Luster asked. “Oh, they’re just boring papers, Lustie! Nothing a young filly like you should be worrying about!” Cozy answered, landing beside Luster. “Why don’t we go look for your friends?” As she magicked open the door, two guards (Abyssinian species) noticed them from the ends of the hallway. They reached for their weapons around their waists as they ran towards the two, less knowledgeable than the stallion on who the ostensible Princess was. Cozy yawned; Luster made sure to stick close. The strikes of their batons were halted midair, recoiled, and resulted in a shockwave that hurled both attackers to opposite ends of the walls. A red bubble—the same tint as Cozy’s aura—had appeared between the two groups, and promptly vanished. Even the upper floors of the factory, restricted only to management, were in dire need of renovations. The walls were littered with cracks, some of them deep enough to see through the other side. The Ceiling tiles were yellow, green and black with mold! But the worst offender of all were the narrow fluorescent lights: way too bright and way too blue! Perhaps that was intentional, to make it harder for creatures to sleep. The corridor split into two ways, both of them almost identical in their layout of doors, except one ended with a window—barred—and the ended with another door. Luster deducted the latter must’ve led to a stairwell downwards. “I think we should head—” Cozy blasted a hole through the floor, perfectly circular with smooth edges. “Nevermind” Luster sighed as she levitated downwards. There was one guard in the room, who looked like a chicken. Sitting near the door, he made no attempt to fight back, and instead made the sensible decision to run away from the red-eyed Alicorn. Unfortunately, Cozy was having fun, and what point was there wasting an opportunity to practice a homing shot? She was pretending to be Princess Flurry after all! A red orb of encased knock-out spell decimated the wooden door in its path and curled towards the general direction where the guard had fled. The sound of a heavy thud confirmed her shot. Cozy self-congratulatory smirk was met by a worried side-eye glare from Luster. “What? He’s evil!” Cozy defended herself. “Besides, you should be more interested in those!” She pointed to a collection of keys hung on the wall by nails. Above most of them were name tags, and with the light shining through Cozy’s horn it didn’t take long before— “This is the one!” Luster squealed. She was so excited that Cozy had to lift her still with magic. The key floated into the lock over the base of her horn, and after a single twist—click! The ring pinged on the floor and spun—the announcement of Luster’s magical emancipation! Luster could feel it rapidly flowing back into her horn, accompanied by a slight tingle. She turned towards the half-destroyed door, and grinned as the knob was encompassed by an amber light. It turned; it was pulled; it opened! “My magic’s back!” Luster hopped on the ground with a grin and giddy. “Great job, Lustie!” Cozy patted the filly’s head, and walked through the door together to validate her achievement. “Well, seems like only one thing’s left!” Her horn lit up, she wrapped a wing around Luster’s head, and teleported off. They reappeared, in some dark depressing barrack quarters, along with a pile of keys—intentionally brought—that spread across the floor. The ceilings had the same bright florescent lights as before. Between every two tightly packed triple bunk beds was a wall fan; all of them had their plastic blades exposed, half of them seemed to be broken, and none of them faced downwards. It seemed whoever was on top had full control of its settings, along with access to the narrow barred off hole of a window that would’ve required a filly like Luster to stand on her hind legs over a pillow to see through. “Lustie?” Cozy called. She was right about the filly having a weak stomach. Luster was surrounded by similarly aged creatures—from a diversity of species—with her head inside of a bin and—thankfully—the slavers didn’t cheap out on liners. “I’m sorry Lustie, but the sun’s already setting! I’ll try to stop somewhere for dinner.” Indifferent to the sound of stomachs gurgling at the word, Cozy aimed her horn towards the wall with bars. Two youngsters were arguing over who got to have fan-facing privileges tonight, and there was no audible warning from Cozy before she fired her shot. It caused an explosion—less neat than the hole she made before—which produced a large exit for escape, along with lots of dust. There was coughing, but no injuries. Such recklessness will look bad for Flurry. Behind the walls—an inch away from the blast radius—were the bounty hunters from before, in bandages provided by free Kludgetown healthcare. The creatures around Cozy seemed to recognize them. “You two!” Cozy yelled, magically gripping onto their bodies with such tenacity that she mimicked the grasping motions by curling the tip of her wing. “You idiots are going to make sure all the young creatures in this facility are safely evacuated out of here! I don’t care where, and I don’t care how! If I don’t hear about a massive in-surge of escapees in the papers, as Princess Flurry Heart of the Crystal Empire, I will have both of your conscious, petrified remains thrown to Sea of Clouds—where this rathole dumps all their trash! Tell that to everyone who gets in your way! Got it!” It was a laborious effort to nod, but they did, and they dropped to the floor. They inhaled deeply as their chests were finally free to breathe, but as Cozy turned back one of them spoke: “C-Cozy Glow! She’s around here—you’re m-majesty! She—” Both their windpipes narrowed, and Cozy cast a silence spell around Luster so she wouldn’t hear what she was about to say. “I’m Princess Flurry Heart! I’m not stupid like some griffon, or mule, or,” her eyes searched the room, “—whatever it is you two-legged freaks call yourselves! There’s a reason Princess Twilight owns a pet dragon, and why she had to open an entire school just to teach your savage kinds the most basic lessons of friendship! I mean—it’s not called ‘Equestria’ for no reason! If we ever do meet again don’t you ever dare mention the fact that Cozy Glow was here, or any of this, unless you want a slow execution! But feel free to ask me why I have a massive crush on her! And if a certain draconequus comes along, ask him how he deals with the fact that Fluttershy will—” Cozy tilted her head past the purple-faced bounty hunters to look at the sky. The moon had been risen. “Get out of here! All of you! Now!” she shouted. “Happy, Lustie?” Cozy asked, dropping all her spells but her disguise. Next to Luster was a griffon; her feathers were colored gray-to-navy, except for her crest and tip of her tail which was closer to a greenish-black. Her irises and beak were yellow, and had one of her gray hooves over Luster’s back as they talked. “Aww, is this why you wanted to come back, Lustie?” Cozy interrupted the two. “Her name’s not Lustie, it’s Luster—” the griffon corrected. “I’m sure you two are wonderful friends and all, but we really have to go! Ponies only, I'm afraid!” Cozy said. The griffon's eyes turned to the other ponies in line for the exit. “Say bye now!” Luster turned back to face her friend. “I guess this is it, Georgia.” “I’m sure we’ll meet each other again…” Georgia replied. The two hugged each other, hoping it wouldn’t be the last, but with the embrace as if it was. “There is no time for special hoof shakes! Go find the key to your wing shackles and try to catch a wagon or airship or—whatever! We have a scheduled flight! And Lustie if you yell in my ears, I will drop you!” Luster gulped, Cozy separated the two with her wings, grabbed onto the filly, and teleported out of there. They reappeared in the air. Cozy was back in peach feathers, without a horn, and tucked the amulet back into her bag with her hooves. The two were very high up—around five thousand hooves above the sandy desert ground. Ideal cruising altitudes were much higher in order to take advantage of the winds, but oxygen and pressure were concerns regarding the filly passenger. It takes months of special training for pegasi to endure flight in extreme heights, and three basic rules were: avoid cloudless environments, always be accompanied by other pegasi, and never carry a passenger. If any of those conditions weren't met it was recommended to stay low, and for once Cozy decided to followed the guidelines. Cozy flew in powerful and smooth strokes at a rate of around one to three flaps a second before she glided, and repeated. It wasn’t too turbulent, but for as first-timer the shakiness definitely frightened Luster a bit, but she knew she had to keep quiet so Cozy could focus. I mean she was only bluffing about dropping me though… right? Better not ask her—don’t want to give her any ideas for some prank! Luster was strapped to Cozy’s back by a belt, and was outfitted with an aviator’s hat. Secured under her bow and through her sky-blue curls was a barf bag to the side and a safety booklet that Cozy drew during all that time Luster was pretending to be garbage under her late cloak. Luster was the main character of the instructional illustrations and the potential emergencies included: how to the signal for the bathroom, how to talk to a sky cop, how to lie to a God of Chaos, what to do if you encounter Princess Flurry Heart’s Royal Guard—which took up a third of the lower page with additional emergencies, such as how to reflect spells by her Elite Crystal Sorcerers, or how to survive the ensuing storm ‘her’ pegasi would likely create. It included the reminder that the Crystal Empire has a very small air force, but the few skilled fliers that trained in the persistent storms of the north could spell trouble. Below all of that was a warning in big red letters: ‘Do not talk to Princess Luna in your dreams!’ It had already gotten dark; constellations illuminated the skies, and there wasn’t a single cloud to block them. Luster had never seen the stars so clearly, and it was mesmerizing! The world had so many spectacles left to witness—and only half the things she’d only heard of were from Equestria. The temperature started to drop, which compounded with the breeze given how fast they were traveling. Luster wasn’t used to cold environments, but Cozy’s tribe was suited for it. Her coat was soft and radiated heat. There was near complete silence, which had never once happened in that lawless town. The air no longer reeked of garbage, instead it was by whatever fruity conditioner Cozy used for her curls. The filly felt safe, and—well—cozy, and it was a struggle not to feel a bit sleepy. Kludgetown could be seen from behind; an ever shrinking dot of light. A new chapter of Luster’s life had started, and it felt like a weight had been lifted off her back—but now what? Would they even let her in? She heard stories from her warden in her old factory that creatures that flee to Equestria aren’t welcomed, but could that be her? Was it even true? And if she did get in, would she have to get a job? It wouldn’t be that bad compared to her old one—she thinks. “You okay back there, Lustie?” Cozy asked. “Look, I’ll be honest, the wind isn’t exactly on our side, and I don’t think you can handle me flying much faster. So, I don’t think we'll be able to stop for dinner.” “Oh... It’s fine.” “It really isn’t… But don’t worry! I’ve learned to be prepared for these sorts of situations, so I bought a sandwich from that colt’s stand! No meat in it! Just tell me if you want it and I’ll get it from my bag! I have a cloud walking potion. If we can’t find a cloud, we’ll stop on the ground. Sounds good?” “Yeah...” Luster yawned. “I’ll probably stop by Somnambula in a few hours. Think you can make it till—” Cozy paused her question. Luster’s grip around her neck loosened, and she rested her cheek and temple on the mare’s back. Cozy could feel her soft breaths against her coat, slowing as she dozed further off into sleep. “Night night, Lustie.”