- - -
(19)
Battles of Earth and Sky
- - -
“Hm hm hm -ian girls… they’re kinda magical…”
Washing the shower gel off his face and out of his diamond blue and aquamarine mane, Thunderlane squinted his eyes against the spray of warm water and the trickles of soapy lather. It was inexplicable how the tune for that stupid little song had gotten into his head, but now it seemed impossible to dislodge, even though he could barely remember the words for it. It had to be Cloudchaser’s fault.
Or maybe Flitter’s.
Or maybe Blossomforth.
“-something on hooves, bikinis on top-”
He was just up to the part he sort-of knew the words for when the wall of his cloud-shower bulged, groaned, and shattered into a wave of freezing cold water droplets. A less than stallion-ly screech escaped his lips as he dove for cover, black hooves flying up to cover his head and his precious, beautiful, spikey Mohawk of a mane. He caught sight of something fast and big and gray moving in front of him, and then over him.
And it had just crashed through his wall…
“Derpy?”
“HWww-OOO!” The gray blur screamed, spinning something blue through the air with it. There was a flutter of wings, the sound of displacing air, and then the crash of more shattering cloudcrete. The gray form’s war cry rose in volume as a hoof reared back, cocked, and shot forward and into the blue body half embedded into his shower wall. The blow sent a cone of frothy colt spray outward, drenching all three ponies in icy rainwater. Not finished yet, the gray hoof pulled free, reared back, and repeated the process. Again it struck, and then a third time, until stress lines and cracks completely rent open the shower and cloud, wildly and indiscriminately dispensing high pressure water in every direction, both painfully hot and numbingly cold.
Then the blue pony – Rainbow Dash!? - tucked in a pair of legs and kicked, sending the gray Derpy-like pegasus – no, it was too big to be her – back to into and against the other wall with a deafening crash. Thunderlane had to roll out of the way as the gray mare, and it was definitely a soaking wet pegasus mare, crashed back-first into the cloudcrete. Bits of broken cloud, shattered out of the larger body of his cloud home, reverted to base vapor as it fell to the floor around him.
“WA HA AHA HA!” The gray mare emerged from the blasted wall with a wild laugh, none the worse for wear. Blue rushed in to strike Gray, but the other pony spun and clamped her teeth down on the smaller mare’s arctic white mane. Wings flapped as she spun in a tight spiral, raining destruction down as her victim sheared the walls apart around her, face-first. Finally, with a mighty heave, the gray pegasus flipped the blue one over and into the ground with a crunch.
For a moment, a twitching and unconscious pony in a torn blue bodysuit could be seen, planted several inches into the bathroom floor. A second later and the floor itself gave way, sucking up the stunned pegasus and leaving behind a gaping hole and a waterfall of cascading water eagerly making use of the new drain.
Thunderlane slowly lowered his hooves to the wet, smashed floor and for the first time got a good look at the gray mare he had mistakenly assumed to be Derpy. Her mane was all wrong: it was a jagged lime green that, even soaked, stuck out in seemingly random directions. Vicious golden eyes glared down at him like a hungry griffin’s. He couldn’t repress an ‘eep’ as one of her gray hooves seized him by the shoulder and picked him off the floor as easily as he would pick up his little brother, Rumble.
Holding him up, she sniffed, and ran a hoof through his hair.
“You know, I really like your mane, handsome!” she said with a grin. “Very sexy!”
Thunderlane opened his mouth to mutter a ‘what?’ when she pulled him in and unceremoniously locked lips. His first thought, naturally was:
“The commercials were right! The Mane Gel actually works?!”
Followed by:
“Oh, sweet Princesses, please don’t let her walk in right now-”
The strange pegasus had all but forced him up against the smashed and spurting wall of his ruined bathroom when a familiar voice shouted up from below:
“Thunderlane? Why is there an unconscious Wonderbolt in the living room and a hole in the ceiling? Are you okay up there?”
The gray mare broke the kiss, leaving his tongue waggling in the air. “Jealous marefriend, huh?” she asked, and he groaned.
“Maybe a little,” he admitted. “I’ve been trying to get her to open up to a thr-”
“Sorry, handsome, I’d love to help with that, buu-ut-!” She paused, glancing over her shoulder. He had been about to ask what the sorry was for, well, besides smashing up his bathroom and tongue-wresting him out of the blue, when his world turned upside down. Spinning end over end, Thunderlane barely had time to cry out before smacking into something that felt suspiciously like a fast moving pony. It was a sensation he had been accustomed to since he first heard the name ‘Rainbow Dash’ an odd number of years ago.
“Civilian! Look out!” “W-aAaahhHH!” “What the ff-”
One high speed impact later, and Thunderlane and the Wonderbolt he had smashed into tumbled down and away in a ball of wings and limbs. Emerging from the hole in his cloud house, Ritterkreuz shook out her mane and took off with a spray of droplets and blasted cloudcrete. Close behind her, an orange streak twisted and closed in, followed by two others in blue and yellow, all trailing the characteristic black electrical smoke of Equestria’s premier stunt flyer team.
“Overcast!” Spitfire yelled, leading the V formation. “Tighten up and stay in overwatch! Fleetfoot! Intercept! Eagle Eye! Break right and try and suppress her!”
“Yes, ma’am!” “On it, Captain!” “You got it, boss!”
Across the blue sky of Ponyville, the chase was back on.
Perched on top of one of the cloud houses, a trio of pegasi in steel cuirasses and elaborate burgonet helmets watched. As Spitfire swirled around, avoiding a midair explosion, one of the trio raised a clenched hoof, turned in slightly at the wrist. It was the universal signal for ‘wait.’ The other two relaxed their wings; content for the moment to let the Wonderbolts wear each other down.
- - -
“The wedding?” Shining Armor asked, head high as he cantered at a leisurely pace. “Truth be told, Lady Rarity, I have been leaving the details of it to my family. They are the ones who revel in gaudy affairs of state.”
Despite his size, Twilight’s older brother moved with the sort of practiced ease and agility that came only from training both in the castle and out in the fields. A pony could have set a watch to the rhythm of his hooves from the cobblestone of the Ponyville streets to the gravel of the paths outside town. Well dressed and properly presented, the young knight and guard captain seemed almost superimposed over the bucolic terrain around him: present, but removed, or even a world apart. By virtue of not even paying mind to the uncharacteristic surroundings, he gave the impression of true refined detachment.
A palace, a dusty road, or a battlefield, he likely moved through all with equal ease.
“Affairs of state?” Rarity asked, a hint of disappointment in her voice. She had hoped for some inside information on the upcoming royal nuptials. “This is a wedding we are talking about, is it not?”
“Of course it is,” Shining objected, breaking from his eyes-front march to track down his sister, if only for a moment. Blue gray eyes fixed Rarity with a calm, confident stare. “Please do not mistake my disinterest in the pomp and ceremony for any lack of desire. Or – or any hesitation to marry the mare of my dreams! I would marry Cadance in a barn, if she wished it!”
“That would save a few bits,” Rarity joked, unable to properly rib him, but dipping her cinnamon red feather fascinator in good humor.
A smile cracked on his stoic soldier’s façade. “Yes, well, we may yet have a modest reception,” he said, resuming his steady pace towards Blueblood Manor. “The affair was being paid for by my extended family, the very same family we are now in something of a dispute with. We certainly will not be able to pay for a thousand-pony feast and open bar on a Royal Guard’s salary.”
“Princess Cadance can’t pitch in?”
“Her biological family have all been excluded from the event. I doubt they will pay for a wedding they have been forbidden to attend. Her Royal Highness may have to trot in to pick up the slack.”
“I had heard some of that from Blueblood,” Rarity told him, noticing the momentary flinch on Shining Armor’s face. “It was so sad, that Princess Cadance is so estranged.”
“Her relatives are not entirely responsible for things,” Shining Armor admitted, but a moment later offered a more honest and frank response. “Cadance and I used to speak often about a reproachment… about mending fences with her family in Bitaly, and even her adopted family here in Canterlot.”
“And?” Rarity pressed, particularly interested in finding some way to bridge the years-old divide between the adopted sister and the Blueblood brother.
“She no longer wishes to speak of it. The Terre Rare will be her family,” he said that later part in monotone, shaking his head a moment later to dispel the cobwebs. “She just needs… time.”
Shining Armor didn’t change his pace, but the slight lowering of his eyes indicated he had no particular desire to further explore that avenue of conversation. He continued ahead and, flanked by his two guards, the trio of muscular stallions towered over Rarity’s left and right. She had been forced into a similar pace with shorter legs to keep up, but choose this time to fall behind slightly.
Even leaving side his outward appearance, Shining Armor was not what Rarity had expected from the brother of Twilight Sparkle. He was very polite and professional, but without any social awkwardness or flappablity. He answered what he felt comfortable answering, and he had a boldness in dealing with others – and expecting others to adhere to his rules and his mores – so far, he had been extremely cordial, amiable even, but not necessarily friendly. She could only imagine that he would be terribly intimidating if he dropped the guise of the ‘gentle sir knight’ and turned into a stern Royal Guard Captain.
He broke the silence a few minutes later as they approached the main gate of the Blueblood estate outside town. “My sister actually comes here often?”
A guard on watch moved to intercept the trio, royal guards or not, but stopped when he saw her. He then bowed his head and let them pass. It would be several minutes before they reached the manor itself, but already it was visible above manicured treetops and up a slight, manufactured incline.
“Twilight loves to use the library, and Blueblood often hosts parties for all of my friends,” Rarity explained, adding, “By which I mean my Ponyville friends, not just the social climbers I’m sure you’re imagining right now.”
Warming up some, he smirked but politely hid it a moment later by glancing away. “I must admit, I was imagining just that… and how Twilight hated such things back home, or even in Canterlot.” A fond memory tickled him, just then. “She usually fell asleep at social functions…”
“Or she just read a book the whole time?” Rarity guessed.
“Exactly!” Shining Armor chuckled, but in a soft, low voice. “Oh, Twily. To think she visits places like this, now? And Blueblood, of all ponies.”
“Now, Sir Shining Armor, I know you two have some history together,” Rarity said, cantering ahead with a burst of speed and using it to spin around for a moment. “But I am confident you’ll see that he has turned over a new leaf.”
- - -
“Do you see her?” Spitfire asked, flame-orange eyes scanning the outcroppings of the cloud homes below. Ritterkreuz had been playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with her Wonderbolt pursuers all through the residential flight-zone.
“Not yet,” Eagle Eye replied, wings flapping as she hovered in place. In uniform, she looked much like any other Wonderbolt. Unlike almost all of her fellow ‘Bolts, however, Eagle Eye had a fairly close cropped mane of short hair, blue with white highlights. Her wings and the coat beneath her uniform were dirty silver. Most prominent, however, were her goggles.
Eagle Eye was the only Wonderbolt with decidedly non-standard goggles.
A lens clicked down, coloring one of the large round blinkers a vivid red. Spitfire waited to see what the Wonderbolts’ premier spotter and long distance marksmare saw. There was no better in all of Equestria, though her unique training had created a pony who preferred to spend entire days taking pictures or stalking animals alone rather than with her team. Eagle Eye tilted her head slightly then faced forward.
“Don’t move, Captain,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Do not even flinch.”
Spitfire tensed, her wings flapping and building up charge.
“She’s behind us. Seven o’clock, thirty degrees negative… on the underside of the cloud. I can see the heat in her body. She’s tensed. She’s moving. Now!”
Together, the two mares spun around, wings angling. Spitfire, the faster of the two by a good margin, pulled ahead. She could see the house Eagle Eye had picked out: a small two story cloud-home with Doric pillars and a motif of angled clouds on either side dripping rainbow. A pegasus civilian – a Ponyville citizen – was out on the top balcony, looking around in curiosity at all the commotion.
‘Where… where is…?’ Spitfire saw a flash of movement as Ritterkreuz emerged from cover. “THERE! Everypony converge!”
Spitfire heard a curse as her target juked away and off to the left, just barely catching part of her crackling contrail. A pair of gray feathers skipped and snapped through the air as the Wonderbolts’ new captain came around for another pass. Flapping to right herself, Ritterkreuz sneered, glancing down at the feathers ripped free from her left wing, a gap where there hadn’t been one before.
The orange streak blasted around, the pair of gray feathers catching fire as they fell out of the sky. Ritter’s right wing vibrated and as she blasted herself backwards, pinpricks of light and heat contracted, shuddered, and released into an expanding flurry of thunderous explosions. Spiraling through the conflagration, protected within a sheath of titian flame, Spitfire emerged in time to see Ritterkreuz beset by Eagle Eye and Overcast.
Both were circling, keeping their distance from the former Wonderbolt. Caught between them, Ritter had to move: a rapid, erratic gray zagging line cutting across the blue sky. Orbiting just as fast, Eagle Eye lined up and projected a vector, twirling end over end, the force of the maneuver ripping loose three feathers. Like the Royal Guard, they were as sharp as a razor, and guided by the best eyes in Equestria.
Ritter’s wings wrapped protectively around herself as she tumbled, the three silver feathers sinking in and drawing blood as they cut through thick pegasus hide. For most any other pony, a cut to the wings would make it all but impossible to fly. Every movement with an injured wing was blinding agony.
The madmare snapped out one wing as she went into free fall, hurling the bladed feathers back up at her tormentors. Eagle Eye paused and craned her neck, avoiding one of the feathers hitting her face by inches. Her body snapped to the side, flat, and the other missed as well. Then her head snapped around, as she saw where the other feather had been flicked.
“Overcast!” she cried.
“Aye!” Overcast also stopped, bringing his hooves out in front of him. Fluffy particles, collected around his wings in flight, combined and expanded in front of him. There was nopony faster or more skilled at cloud manipulation than Overcast. Just like barrier spells among unicorns, it required a great deal of technical skill and finesse. Overcast was fortunate to be blessed with both, and power besides.
The silver feather thunk-ed into a solidified cloud the size and shape of an archaic pegasus shield. It was followed a split second later by an explosion, and then another, and then another – driving him back and across the sky along a lengthening trail of crackling embers.
Finally, pushed nearly into another cloud house, Overcast stopped himself. Emerging from the largest blast yet was a cloud-shield with the face of a glowering pegasus in a plumed helm, tusk like teeth jutting out of a grimacing mouth. Against this shield were the blasted remains of three smaller ones. Eagle Eye’s silver feather had been driven through one and then the next.
Crushed between explosions and the final cloud-shield, it crumpled like tinfoil.
“Keh!” Ritterkreuz hissed, raising a wing to block a speeding Spitfire. A roaring wave of fire and redirected magical exhaust momentarily concealed her from view. Gray wings ripped through the flames, trying to tangle into Spitfire’s own. It was one of the former Wonderbolt’s favorite moves: to get in close and create a free fall condition.
Spitfire didn’t play along.
Yelling loud enough to be heard by her comrades, hundreds of pony-lengths away, she lowered her head, pushed forward, and then angled her wings – suddenly turning her momentum upwards and into a spin. The crown of her head collided with Ritterkreuz’s nose, knocking the big pegasus back.
“Keep at it, bolts!” she yelled, trusting in her comrades to swoop in at their enemies’ back. “Drive her out of the area! We’re winning!”
- - -
‘Please don’t let him be doing anything untoward. Please don’t let him be doing anything perverted. Oh, Princesses, please don’t let him be doing anything weird.’
“You seem nervous, my Lady,” Shining Armor observed, his own expression well-guarded.
“Nervous? Why would I be nervous?” Rarity asked, “It isn’t as if we are dropping in unannounced, after all!” She quickly covered her anxiety with what she had planned to be a polite titter, except it quickly became one of her forced, embarrassingly loud laughs, bereft of courtly propriety. She quickly covered her mouth with a hoof.
“No. Though I suspect I would have had to wait, had you not been in attendance,” Shining Armor thanked her with a polite nod of his head. They were almost to the third floor studio and study. Armor’s two fellow guardponies had been asked, politely, to remain below in one of the sitting rooms. A servant had then escorted the knight and Lady to the hall leading to where the manor’s lord and ‘guest’ were currently ‘in study.’
It was in that moment that Rarity had developed a sudden, nervous tic. The phrasing had been so innocuous; it had immediately struck her as the servant saying what he had been told to say should a certain somepony appear. Living with Blueblood for months had taught her to be wary of his inevitable tricks, but with Twilight here, and her brother…
‘Please let him just be on his best behavior for once-’
“Oh, yes!” Twilight’s unmistakable voice, partly muted behind a heavy door, could still be heard by the two unicorns. “That is sooo good!”
A stallion’s voice chuckled, amused. “You like it, don’t you?”
“I never knew you could do this! Wait till I tell Spike!”
“I am a pony of many talents, Twilight Sparkle. Now then, how would you like some whipped cream drizzled all-ll over your-”
Rarity felt her hoof meet her forehead.
She turned to her left to try and explain – only to find Shining Armor’s space vacant. Any sort of modicum or measured pace had been thrown away as he charged forward, nostrils flaring and eyes wide, in full-bore assume-the-worst, overprotective-brother-mode. Even if she had been able to get a word in edgewise, it was doubtful that he would be willing to listen.
And there he went, blasting the hardwood doors off their hinges.
“Twily!” he roared probably alerting half the villa to the outburst. “Don’t do it! Don’t let this vainglorious miscreant corrupt… you…?”
Rarity entered at a much more sedate pace, hardly surprised by the sight within the room. Her dear friend, Twilight Sparkle, lay on a couch with a book and a plate of bread pudding, the end of a spoon still sticking out of her mouth between her lips. It was worth noting that the magic around said spoon was a faint gold and clearly not Twilight’s own. Reclining nearby, Blueblood was both sharing the brunch treat with Twilight and watching the door, expecting Rarity’s own outraged entrance. Presently, his face was etched in a mixture of confusion over the unexpected guest and grief over the broken doors to his study.
“I knew I should have done this in another room,” he muttered, loud enough to be heard.
“You should not have done it at all!” Rarity snapped, pointing a hoof at him.
“Shining!” Twilight greeted her brother with a happy wave. “Hi!”
“Wh- what on Equestria?” the stunned Guard Captain murmured.
- -
“An… Apple Betty? When did you, of all ponies, learn to cook? Why would you even learn such a thing?”
“I had all the time in the world, at the time,” Blueblood explained, fussing over the patchwork fix that had set the beautiful carved doors back in place. He had similarly fixed and buttoned up his white wide turndown collar shirt and tied up his blue cravat into a proper, though loose, knot. Rarity considered the likelihood that he suddenly felt underdressed around another stately stallion in doublet and balmoral bonnet. It was equally likely he was simply getting ready for another affair that morning; she could see he had already picked out a morning coat and dress horse-shoes.
“Just try a bite! You’d like it!” Twilight said, floating a spoonful of the crumbly pudding up to her brother’s face. The sinful sweets were even lathered in whipped cream. Shining Armor only relented at his sister’s persistence, taking a small bite with obvious distaste – more for the maker of the food than the treat itself.
Rarity took a demure spoonful for herself as well, her ire towards her so-called Prince receding at the flavor and exquisite consistency of the Apple Betty. It was a mystery even to her where and when Blueblood had learned to cook an admittedly narrow range of things, all apple-themed for some reason. When asked, he had simply said that he had learned it from a ‘pâtissière living in a small town’ but for anypony who knew him it was an obvious prevarication, or at best, a half-truth.
In the end, she had accepted it as another of his odd quirks. One of the less annoying ones, really!
“By the Princess, it’s actually edible,” Shining Armor remarked, stunned.
“Edible? Come now; it’s delicious.” Blueblood finally took his place again, filling the reading chair in the luxurious study. He grinned at Rarity specifically, as if to rub in that she had taken his plate from him and claimed it for herself. She smiled right back, guessing that he had made it for her anyway. Just as she had expected, he had set the whole thing up to get a rise out of her.
“There is actually a more serious matter I had thought to discuss – just between the three of us – but I do suppose it can wait for a time.” The Prince nodded politely to his unexpected guest, his admission giving Rarity a moment of confusion. “By the way, nice to see you again, Sir Shining Armor.”
“Lord Blueblood,” the Guard Captain replied, nodding almost imperceptibly.
“What did you mean: the three of us?” Rarity asked, directing the question at both Blueblood and her friend and fellow Element of Harmony. “For that matter, Twilight, and not that you aren’t always welcome, darling, but what brought you here?”
“A good question,” Shining Armor agreed, watching his little sister. “This is the last place I would have thought to look for you, Twily.”
“I just – needed to get something off my back,” she explained, poking her apple pudding with a silver spoon. “It had to do with our family…” She sucked in a breath and looked up at her seated brother next to her. “Why are you here, Shining? Oh, and you aren’t in your armor either!”
The guard unicorn shook his head. “I came on my own, not to represent the Royal Guard. Family is actually why I dropped by, too.”
Blueblood shifted uncomfortably in his chair, frowning. Neither Twilight nor Shining Armor seemed to notice or care, but Rarity did notice, and immediately wondered what was wrong. It had to be the mention of ‘family.’ She had not heard anything unusual about Twilight’s family, unless a pony counted her extended family. Were they up to something again?
“I wanted to tell you that I will be going to Prance in Father’s stead,” he said with indomitable cool. Curiously, the innocuous statement caused an immediate reaction in both Twilight and Blueblood. The latter lifted a hoof to his chin in serious, intense thought. He was otherwise dead silent. Twilight, on the other hoof, gasped and started shaking her head, almost dropping her plate in the sudden panic.
“You can’t!” she objected, setting the dish down on a nearby table with a clatter. “Didn’t Father send you a letter…?”
“Saying not to go?” Shining Armor asked, shrugging. “He actually told me in person.”
“Then why are you going?” Twilight asked, sitting upright now to be closer to him.
“It is the honorable thing to do,” he replied, as if that was the end of it. Normally, it probably would have been, but even he could see the confusion in his sister’s eyes. With a sigh, he made himself clear, “We swore an oath to the main line of the family, moreover, we swore an oath to Lord Cruciger. I am a knight of Equestria. I will honor my vows, always.”
“But – but – but!” Twilight stammered, shoulders slumping as she tried to find some way to get through to him. “You can’t!” she fell back on.
“I must,” Shining Armor said.
“You’ll have to excuse me, but,” Rarity choose that moment to speak up, addressing the two siblings. “May I ask just what this is about?”
“Respectfully, Lady Rarity, it is not something of concern to non-family members,” Shining Armor told her, displaying a hint of iron in his tone of voice.
“My great uncle died recently,” Twilight began to explain, “and-”
“Twilight!” Shining Armor snapped, clearly not one for airing the family laundry out for others to see or hear.
Twilight ignored him. “He passed on control of the family in Canterlot to my father, but Lord Cruciger is calling for a convention in Prance to elect a new head of the family.”
Rarity could begin to see the problem, right away. “And you all have to attend?”
“We were called to convene at Marestricht, the ancestral home of all ponies descended from Lady Arsenic,” Shining Armor said, realizing that there was no glossing the facts over by simply calling it family business. “Sadly, Lord Wrathenow left no written or verbal testament passing authority on to our father. Lord Cruciger is entirely within his rights to call for convocation to determine the succession. His request should be honored.”
“But-”
“Honor is honor,” he announced, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And one’s word is his bond.” Frankly, Rarity found the logic to be rather circular. “A pony should not abrogate his values because they are inconvenient. I will meet Lord Cruciger and explain the situation. I am confident he will-”
“Will, what?” Blueblood wondered in a speculative tone, one hoof propping his head up by the cheek. “You know he will not instate you as head of the Canterlot branch of the family. Not with you marrying Cadance and heading off on your own. What do you think Lord Cruciger will do?”
“He is an honorable pony, and fealty runs both ways,” Shining Armor replied, glaring at the Prince. “As you would know, your Grace, if you had ever taken your ducal duties seriously.”
Not rebuffing the reproach, Blueblood closed his eyes and let his old acquaintance say his piece.
“Just as we swore to Lord Cruciger, so he swore to us,” Shining Armor continued, and Rarity remembered:
"We, Blueblood the fifty second, have taken upon ourselves the Duchy of Canterlot, your neighbor and patron. We embrace you, Ponyville, and affirm our commitment to warm relations, open roads, and everlasting protection."
That had been Blueblood’s promise, to Ponyville, when she had been just a foal – maybe younger even than Sweetie Belle was now. On that day, the well-to-do families of Ponyville had also pledged themselves to him and to the Duchy of Canterlot, reaffirming their vows following the death of Blueblood’s father. Fealty was a two way street. It was the core of what it really meant to be noble: it was the mortar of the social contract between every strata of society, all the way up to the Princesses themselves.
“By my example, Lord Cruciger will see that our family is not in rebellion. We are merely… confused… as to how to proceed, and in mourning over the passing of Lord Wrathenow. Our Great Uncle had run our branch of the family for three generations after all. Lord Cruciger will understand the delay. I need only get his permission to convene here at Hocksbach Hall. We shall have one of his children stand in for him: Antimony or Alpha Brass. Most likely the latter. This way, both sides can save face.”
Twilight’s expression fell as he mind raced to try and convince her brother to change his mind. Rarity couldn’t be sure exactly what was going on, but she could tell just from her friend’s frightened eyes that she was absolutely certain that her brother would not come back from Prance if he left.
“And if Lord Cruciger is not as forgiving?” Blueblood wondered, and now a bit of mocking reproach entered his tone of voice. “And if he wishes to make an example of your father, will your honor compel you to stand by and watch?”
Shining Armor bristled, a dark look shading his eyes behind blue streaks of mane.
“Or maybe…?” the Prince continued, unperturbed by the growing anger of his guest. “You think you can go to Marestricht and impress Lord Cruciger enough that he won’t challenge your father. Maybe you think you’d do better. Maybe you think, even if the worst happens and you lose, you won’t die. After all, the family won’t want to lose you, not with you marrying a Princess, even if she is adopted.”
“I fail to see how this is even your affair, Your Grace,” Shining’s response was as cold as a windigo’s breath. He resisted the urge to say more, no doubt along the lines of, ‘don’t you have something frivolous and debauched to lose yourself in?’
“Shining,” Twilight spoke up, standing between the two stallions even as she tried to get through to her brother. “You can’t go to Prance. You just can’t! You’ll be turning yourself into a hostage. And – and I… I’ve decided to…”
He held up a hoof, cutting her off. “I told you before, Twily, honor is honor, and vows are vows. I would not be worthy of Her Highness and the Royal Guard if I acted otherwise. I would not be worthy of my sweet wife, if I was otherwise.”
“Yes,” Blueblood drawled, a spoon full of apple pudding in his mouth. “Heaven forbid you dishonor your precious Dulcinea. We can have the wedding and the funeral on the same day. Isn’t Cadance a lucky pony? She can save on catering!”
“Wait!” Twilight asked, “Who?”
“Enough!” The ‘Dulcinea’ remark seemed to have finally pushed Shining Armor too far. “You will not insult my wife-to-be in front of me! You will not insult my honor or my convictions again!”
“G-guys, come on,” Twilight tried to protest.
“Yes,” Rarity joined in, urging calm. “Why don’t we…?”
“You couldn’t even beat me, Shining,” Blueblood said, spitting out the spoon in his mouth in an almost unprecedented display of rudeness for the normally fussy Prince. “If you go to Cruciger, you’ll only embarrass yourself. And I’ll call my adopted sister whatever I want!”
All but sputtering in rage, Shining Armor floated off his military cap, his Balmoral bonnet, and tossed it to the floor. It would have been a foalish display of pique if not for the fact that it was effectively the same thing as a thrown gauntlet, all in response to a spat-out spoon. Blueblood rose out of his seat, unbound his cravat, and similarly threw it to the ground.
“Duke and Prince you may be,” Shining declared, “but gentlepony you are not! I challenge you, sir!”
“As you wish!” Blueblood agreed. “We will settle this outside. Right now! In the field!”
“Agreed, sir!”
Without even acknowledging the two stunned mares, the Prince and Guard Captain stomped out of the room to prepare. For the second time in as many hours, Rarity felt the urge to put hoof to face. Would it have been so hard to just have a pleasant conversation?
“W-what just happened?” Twilight asked, blinking, recovering from what she had seen and trying to reconcile it with what she knew of her brother and her friends.
“It seems we have a fight on our hooves,” Rarity told her, floating a silver spoon off the floor with obvious distaste. “Those two foals. I swear, can this day possibly get any more difficult?”
- - -
Pinkie Pie felt the shock, the impact that was Applejack’s blow. It reverberated through the ground and into her hooves. It sent tingles all up her legs, down her spine, and into her mane and tail. Applejack had been her friend since she had moved to Ponyville as a little filly. Aside from Big Macintosh himself, there was no pony stronger than Applejack in Pinkie’s mind. How many hundreds of trees did she apple-buck every year? How hard did she work, day in and day out, to a degree Pinkie could barely comprehend?
They were both earth ponies, but they were as different as unicorns and pegasi. Applejack worked her hardest, every day, on that farm. Pinkie remembered her family’s rock farm all too well, and she had no desire to return to it (not on your life, sister). It wasn’t so much that hard work was an unwelcome or alien thing – she just couldn’t focus on doing the same thing for too long. It was much better to fit in a hundred little things a day than make one big effort.
Applejack’s hard work, her work ethic, was something strange and admirable.
‘Like Blinky and Inky. Once she sets her mind to something…’
Pinkie felt another shudder in her hooves, rising into a tingle in her mane.
‘She won’t stop. She won’t give up. Ever.’
“Wo-ho-oh! Earth ponies are so strong! I’ve always found it impressive!”
Next to Pinkie, her new blue-maned friend watched Applejack and her latest contest with a wide grin. The pale unicorn mare who had introduced herself as Euporie licked her lower lip, giving her smile a predatory gleam.
“Like an ant carrying a huge dead beetle,” she described it with a laugh. “Raw strength and tenacity given form. I love it!”
Past the party pony and her newest friend, Applejack’s back legs strained, hooves digging into the dirt and grass of the yard behind Sugarcube Corner. The commotion inside had transformed into a crowd outside as hungry ponies found some free entertainment to go with their brunch or late breakfast. As with all of Ponyville’s buildings, ample green spaces had been set aside between the town proper and the scenic, organized sets of trees beyond. It was here, in full view of Sugarcube Corner’s customers that Applejack strained against her similarly implacable earth pony opponent.
“That won’t work,” Shigure could be heard without his needing to raise his voice. “I told you before; this is a foal’s errand. I can not be moved against my will.”
“We’ll see about that!” Applejack yelled, her shoulder jammed into the side of the stallion’s chest, one foreleg wrapped over his shoulder for leverage. Her entire body heaved as she tried to push forward, either knocking the Neighponese stallion down or at least shift him out of the way.
“Four of you,” the stallion replied, slowly and deliberately lifting a hoof off the ground to rest it against her side. “Would still be four too few.”
With just his foreleg, he dislodged her and knocked her back with a grunt. Applejack, repulsed for only the third time, landed easily on all fours. A murmur swept through the watching crowd of ponies. Almost everypony was aware of how strong Applejack was. She always came back with trophies from the Equestria-wide rodeo and she always placed in the Running of the Leaves, even when ponies from Canterlot and Manehattan came to compete.
“Of course,” Euporie mused, innocently. “Sometimes, even a strong ant bites off more than it can carry.”
“Applejack will find a way to win!” Pinkie told her; though a melancholy voice in the back of her mind couldn’t help but remark (Will she?)
“There is one way she can win,” Euporie said, her smile unwavering, her poppy orange eyes watching intently. “And I so want to see it.”
- -
Applejack felt every labored breath fill her lungs with air. It was just like before. This was just like before. Back when that Yumi pony had done her ‘pass of arms’ outside Ponyville, Applejack had challenged her biggest and baddest-looking henchpony. He didn’t have his fancy foreign armor or that crazy helmet-mask with the antlers, but this was just like then, and back then, all her kicks had amounted to exactly squat.
She still didn’t know how he did it.
It didn’t matter, anyway. It was just another trick, but this time, she had some tricks of her own. She hadn’t really expected just trying to bull the stallion over to work but there had always been the possibility that some sort of magic of his, in his armor maybe, had been what made him so tough. No such luck. He was just standing there, in his birthday coat, taking everything she threw his way.
Craning her neck, Applejack reached her mouth into one of her saddlebags, finding and uncoiling her trusty lasso. It felt good between her teeth: a comfortable weight, balanced and reliable. In one breath, she could pick a parasprite out of the air with it or clip the head of a flower. In the next breath, she could hog-tie an angry bull. The Apple family didn’t use normal rope for their lassos either – a pony could drag a house out of its foundations before the cable snapped.
Old Antlers seemed unconcerned, following her with his eyes.
Taking her time, unhurried despite all the onlookers, Applejack wound the lasso up and started it spinning over her head. The familiar rapid whump-whump sound only pumped up her blood, helping the apple farmer to forget all the business problems waiting back at the farm. The intransience and short-sightedness of Flim and Flam was all but banished from her mind. This pony – Shigure, Antlers, whatever one wanted to call him – he had her pappy’s hat. It was past high time to get it back.
“Hah!” Applejack tossed the lasso, full force, the loop circling over Shigure’s body before snapping closed around his legs. Pulling with all her might, Applejack nearly whiplashed herself as the rope came taut. She had him.
As well as she could, anyway.
Shigure’s legs were still set in the same position, not even trying to brace himself. It was as if she had tried to lasso the legs of a concrete block. It was a little frustrating, but… not unexpected. Rope clenched between her teeth, Applejack began to run.
- -
“Hey! Applejack!” Pinkie called out as her friend streaked by. She pursed her lips and waited a moment, and then Applejack ran by again. “What are you-” she waited a third time. “-doing?”
Euporie laughed, though whether it was at Pinkie’s question or Applejack’s dizzy running, the party pony wasn’t sure.
“Not a bad idea! Rather than going head-on, she’s building up centripetal force and applying circular stresses,” the unicorn explained, but her face fell a bit as Pinkie’s discombobulated expression.
“You’ll see,” she concluded, rather than try to explain it further. “It is clever… but it still won’t work.”
- -
“This… can’t be right…” Applejack hissed between her teeth, barely able to hold onto the lasso with all the tension it was under. It was vibrating like a plucked string, but still Shigure’s legs hadn’t been forced together.
It didn’t make any darn sense!
What, did he have leg-long posts sticking out of his horseshoes holding him in place? How in Equestria was he able to just stand there? His hooves should have lost traction long before her narrowing circuits around him became this short.
Without a word, the old stallion craned his neck lower and bit down on part of the lasso. Then, inching his forelegs in, he let the coils of rope go limp. Stepping out of the lasso, one hoof at a time, Applejack tried to pull, but it became a matter of her grip against his. Both earth ponies had clamped down, and neither were about to move. When the last of Shigure’s legs came free, he unceremoniously let go, causing Applejack to stumble backwards.
“That was your fourth try, Miss Applejack,” he warned.
“Ah can count, ya know!” she growled back, lasso still between her teeth. Catching her breath for a moment, she also weighed her options: normal force wasn’t working, and her strongest lasso trick hadn’t done it either. No pony should have still been standing with that much force pushing their legs together, but apparently old Antlers was the exception.
“Ah guess ah don’t have any other choice,” Applejack said, spitting out her end of the lasso. It fell to the ground with a thump as tangerine orange hooves walked over and around it, pacing. Circling her opponent at a relaxed pace, she saw Shigure also spit out his section of the lasso.
Eyes narrowing, Applejack searched him over in detail, taking in his posture, the length of his legs, the thickness of his chest, the weathered old muscle of his neck, the slow steady rhythm of his breathing. In her mind’s eye, his legs became the foundation of a trunk, corded and ancient with roots running deep, deep into the ground. This was no apple tree. This would be like bucking an ironwood tree… no… like an old olive tree.
There was no other tree known to earth-ponykind more difficult to harvest than the olive tree. She had never seen one herself, but Granny Smith had seen one once, as a little filly, when her family had wandered through Bitaly. Ancient, gnarled and scored by the hoofmarks of hundreds of ponies, they were said to yield their fruit to none but the most worthy. They were one of the few plants said to be harvested by pegasi. That admission was more damning than any description Applejack could conjure up from her imagination.
That was what her mind’s eye made Shigure into.
But – but even the oldest, hardest, nastiest olive tree could be made to yield.
“There!” Applejack charged, feeling the moment as much as she imagined she saw a spot on her opponent. Just before her body screamed to turn around, she saw old Antlers’ eyes grow wide. He saw it, too. Somehow, he saw it in her. Still, he did not move.
Applejack turned around, tucked in her legs, and bucked – harder than she had ever bucked before!
Her hooves connected, guided by instinct and skill; she didn’t need to see them to know she had hit exactly where she had intended. Her body shook from the impact, the shock of it blasting up her legs and into the bones of her pelvis. Still, she held her posture, fearless, waiting for that reciprocal sensation of the tree behind her shaking, trembling, yielding.
Yield.
Yield.
Yield!
“If there had been… two more of you, then maybe,” she heard, and then a hoof pressed into her midsection and she went airborne. Had it been a regular kick on her part, Applejack doubted she would have been able to land on her hooves as she did. As it was, the muscles of her back legs felt tense, but not tired. It wasn’t just muscle power that gave an apple-buck its power.
Throwing back her mane, Applejack saw that her opponent still – still – had not been staggered. Shigure stood just where he had before, no different than before except for the one hoof he had raised to flip her end over end like a pony would flip a coin. There were stress line fractures beneath his hooves, grass ripped out of place, but no actual harm done. He had not been moved.
“The Fuji Clan’s secret harvesting art. I know this feeling well; my every hair is on end.” Shigure lowered his hoof back down. “How have you developed it so quickly?”
“Ah don’t know what yer talkin’ about,” Applejack replied, wiping a strand of straw blonde mane out of her eyes. “Ah’ve been apple buckin’ all my life. This ain’t too different.”
“Is it?” Shigure wondered and tilted his head slightly to the side. “That was five.”
“Ah know!”
- - -
“I can't believe this,” Scootaloo grumbled, trotting around the grassy field in a big circle. Humiliatingly, with the stupid, lame-o training wheels on her wings. Turning her ire towards her absent teacher, she roared, “I'll get you for this you crazy, um... b-word!”
Not receiving any response, Scootaloo resumed her pacing, feeling a little bit better after the good shout. The least that darn fugitive could've done is at least stick around and watch or something. Wasn’t that what teachers did? Miss Cheerilee certainly never left her class alone for very long. There was no way she’d just give an assignment and then bail on everypony.
Not that that crazy Ritterkreuz being there, laughing her guts out, had done much for the little filly's self-esteem while she had been around. Maybe it was best she endure this alone. Whatever this dumb training actually was, which she wasn’t even sure of! It was just by the grace of Princesses Celestia and Luna that nopony else was-
“Hey! Look who it is!”
Scootaloo paused, eyes growing wide as saucers as she caught sight of her idol flying by. Rainbow Dash! What was Rainbow Dash doing here? This was supposed to be an isolated field that nopony flew over! Ritterkreuz had said so! What were the odds of...?
The odds of...
“You crazy, stinky, no good...!” Scootaloo hissed under her breath. So it was a set up then!
“Oh man! Oh man! This is too rich! Are those training wheels?” Dash asked, circling around the grounded filly and muffling herself to keep from laughing out loud. Between snarks and the hooves squishing her cheeks together, she managed to ask, “What are you doing with wheels?”
“I - uh - I - I mean- I - ha. haha. Hahaha!” Laughing hysterically at her lack of a good answer, Scootaloo felt more than a few beads of sweat fall from her brow.
“Nothing!” she announced to the entire world. “I mean,” she tried to explain more quietly. “Just – just, ahh, hanging out, you know? Chilling. Out. Being chill. Everypony has wheels these days.”
“They do?” Dash asked, flipping around to make a flashy, perfect landing. Lowering her eyes, she stared at the wheels on Scootaloo's wings. “Are these broken or something?”
“Broken?” Scootaloo stretched her neck to try and see what her idol was pointing at.
“Usually, the, um, axle-thing is in the middle of the wheel. This one was built funny.” Dash stuck her hoof into one of the spokes of the wheel, moving it forward. In the process, Scootaloo was forced to trot forward, the tip of her wing stuck in the axle as it went around and around. Instead of just being in the middle of the rotating wheel, however, the wing itself made a smaller circle.
“That's weird,” the chromatic pegasus observed. “Everypony has these?”
“Uh... yeah...”
“Oh wow! Look at that!” Another pegasus flew down, but without the flair Dash put into it. It was a stallion, blue on blue, with a simple azure and gold vest and a strange harness. Said harness carried what appeared to be a mug of some sort of drink with a long straw.
“Oh ho! You like this, huh?” He proudly pointed to the mug holder. “Pretty cool, isn't it? I bet you've never seen a pony who could fly and drink at the same time!”
“It looks weird, Mister.”
The stallion recoiled, shocked to the core. “What? B-b-but Miss Pie made it for me! It isn't weird!”
“Wait till you see him in a giant hat made out of pie. I can't believe some of the ideas you two have.” Dash shook her head at the lunacy of the two pastry-crazy ponies. She pointed to the wheels on Scootaloo's wings. “This is Soarin, by the way. And this kid here is Scootaloo. So, you know these things?”
“Sure!” Soarin replied, walking around the filly and nodding his head. “They're weight wheels. Boy, that's some old school stuff, though. What kind of crazy pony trains like that anymore...?”
“Weights? Of course!” Dash jumped up, stars in her eyes, and head full of less than thought-through ideas. “If I attach weights to my wings and legs then I bet I'd get super strong!”
“Hey, hey, now,” Soarin objected, trying to get a word in.
“Then I'll just take the weights off, and be like, POW ZIP BAM! Sudden burst of unexpected speed! Hoof to the face! Blasting away leaving an after-image!”
“Actually...”
“Quick!” Dash frantically looked around. “Somepony find me a boulder! Anypony find me a boulder!”
“Right away, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo volunteered on the spot, speeding off - only to stop as Soarin stomped a hoof down on her tail, pinning her in place.
“Hey, listen,” he said, shifting a hindleg to hold Scootaloo back while a front hoof stuffed Dash's mouth closed. “That's a stupid idea.”
“It is?” Dash muttered, hoof-in-mouth.
“Look, while there is a degree of weight training involved in a lot of stuff, none of it fits your flying style. If you just strap a bunch of heavy stuff to yourself, chances are you'll just hurt your wings and be worse off.” Soarin glanced over at Scootaloo next. “I'm not so sure about the kid here.”
“I'm not a kid,” the filly growled. “Scootaloo. I'm Scootaloo! Why do all you adults keep calling me a kid?!”
“Sorry. Scootaloo, then,” Soarin said, letting go of her tail. “I actually trained with weights myself, but that was for endurance. It isn't something either of you should need.”
“But - but the wheel?” Dash pointed over at her inspiration, no longer looking quite so brilliant. “You said it was weighted?”
“The weight there isn't on what you think it is. It's a low resistance weight, making it harder to push and move forward,” Soarin explained, spreading his wings and walking in a line. While he did so, his wings made little circles. “It trains the whole body: legs, torso, pectorals and supracoracoideus. It's a basic body motion tool, which you don't need, Rainbow. You probably never needed it. Plus, look at the ground.”
Dash did so, particularly noting where there were grooves in the grass left by Scootaloo's circling.
“Uhhmm...” She stared, even narrowed her eyes while ‘hmm’ing, then suddenly turned to Soarin with a bemused expression. “What am I supposed to be seeing again?”
“I’ll explain. This is a side of a hill,” he said, trotting up and then holding out his hoof to around Dash's eye level. “An incline. She circles up and then back down in periods of high effort and muscle relaxation. Like I said: very old school stuff. Most pegasi just do this in a gym these days.”
“Ohhh!” The weathermare finally got it. “That's pretty neat. And, look at that, Soarin, you can actually be pretty respectable and knowledgeable and stuff!”
“Of course I can!” Soarin puffed up, assuming a stately pose. “I am a Wonderbolt after all!”
“Is that a pie over there?”
“Where? Where?!” Soarin immediately abandoned his dignified posture and started looking around, nostrils flaring. “I don't smell it. Where is...? Aww.” He straightened up and glared at his student. “Rainbow Dash. You... you lied about pie.”
“I know,” Dash replied with a grin. “But I wouldn’t do it if you weren’t so easy.”
“Just for that, I'm adding a written test to your training!”
“NOOOOO!!!”
Scootaloo watched the two carefully. “You're training, too, Rainbow Dash?”
Rainbow Dash paused in her crying to the heavens over the horror that was written exams. Whatever mercurial grief she had felt quickly vanished, as if it hadn't been there are all. A cocky grin lit up her face.
“Sure am!” Dash replied, proudly thumping her chest. “I've got a big fffii- race to train for! A race! That's it! Plus, check it out! I'm training with the Wonderbolts! Isn't that awesome! A Wonderbolt as my personal trainer!”
“Must be fun,” Scootaloo deadpanned.
“Actually, he's kind of weird...”
“I heard that!”
“And obsessed with pie...”
“I am not 'obsessed' with pie.”
“And he's a sucker for a pretty face.”
“Okay, that's true.”
“Heeeeey, if that's true, how come you haven't fallen for me?” Dash slowly turned to stare at the bemused stallion. “Don't I have a pretty face?”
“Sorry. I'm in love with the town DJ.”
“Vinyl!?” Dash blasted over to stare him down face to face, shaking him by the lapels of his Wonderbolts flight suit. “But why? I'm sooo much cooler than she is!”
“Vinyl, is that her name?” Soarin wondered, and grinned broadly at the weathermare's ire. “Anyway, enough joking around. You still need to work on Boltcke's sixth rule of air combat. So let's get back to it, huh?”
He punctuated the serious declaration by slurping loudly from the straw that poked out from his drink harness. It did wonders for ruining what little of his serious image remained. Groaning in defeat and resignation, Rainbow Dash let him go and slouched a short distance away before remembering one of her fans was watching.
“Okay, okay,” Dash decided, shooting Scootaloo a wink before taking off. “See ya around, kid!”
“I'm not-”
But she was gone.
Soarin also tensed to take off... but the goofy Wonderbolt hesitated. Looking back at the filly, his eyes narrowed for a moment. Then he was off, a blue streak chasing after rainbow and cyan. What the suspicious look was for, Scootaloo couldn't say. He couldn't have figured that out, could he?
Resigned, she went back to circling, wheels on her wings.
“I don't care what anypony says,” the flightless filly grumbled. “I hate these stupid things. And I'm not a kid!”
- - -