The Doctor fluttered down to rest on the mountain top, and repositioned his helmet, he felt rather majestic in the armor, emblazoned with lightning bolts and cloud designs. He looked down at the green fields and forests of Equestria. Farther South was the Buffalo Desert, to the East the sea, to the far far West was Gryph's farthest reaches of territory. He smiled at the beautiful country. Hurricane landed next to him on the tip of the peak. "Wow..." was all she said. She then pulled out a large iron pole with a gigantic flag, picturing the face of a horse and wings. She waved it proudly, then shot downward, turning in an arc and leaving a gray cloud trail behind her. The Doctor was no match in speed, but he could make out the cloud she was heading for. He began his dive, and turned into a long arc toward the gigantic mass of clouds.
Hurricane waited for him to land next to her before moving to a large spiral of the cloud body. "As God as my witness, and as the Private Doctor as my witness, I lay claim to this great land. Let it be known that the skies of this land belong to Pegasus! And I name this cloud, the future site of our first city, and this colony, Pegasopolis!" She shouted like a clap of thunder. "This is the land we've been searching for!"
"What a view, I can see my future house from here." The Doctor said cheerily
Clover looked over the new land from the small cliff, she took in a breath of fresh air and sighed. She lit her horn and felt the natural magic that overflowed the countryside. She was attune with the magic of nature, the magic of this country. But not all unicorns saw nature as beautiful for the same reasons. "I've never seen such jewels!" Princess Platinum said in awe, looking fondly at her pile of gemstones. "This ruby is dazzling, this whole land is dazzling!" She got up on her back legs "I'm double dazzled! In the name of my father, and in the Unicorn Kingdom, I dub this land, and this colony, Unicornia! May she live on forever, and support her mother country well!" She jammed a flag portraying a Unicorn's head into the ground with her magic.
Smart Cookie was the first to leave the cave, and she took in the rolling green hills and the great forests with awe, she turned to see Chancellor Puddinghead come up from behind her. Puddinghead walked forward a few steps. Then crashed into the ground. "The air, the trees! The dirt. This dirt is the dirtiest dirt in the whole dirt world!"
Smart Cookie scooped up some of it and channeled her Earth magic into it, a plant sprouted immediately. "And fertile too. Perfect for growing food."
"IN THE NAME OF OUR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF EARTHINESS, I DECLARE THIS LAND DIRTVILLE, MAY IT KNOW LIBERTY AND FREEDOM FOREVERMORE, GOD WILLING!" The Chancellor shouted to the heavens. He flipped over, and his hat planted in the ground, a banner on a pole rising from it, showing plants, the earth, and the sun.
"What about 'Earth' instead of Dirtville?"
"Ugh, everypony's a critic."
"Forevermore... Forevermore... Forever more..." the words echoed across the country. From the cloud of Pegasopolis Hurricane heard the shout and smiled.
"Too late all of you, we were first! It's our land!" She shouted back over the land. "Private, gather our scouts, we are going to go meet with the other leaders."
"... what are we meeting them for?"
"Simple, to define the borders between our land, and the places they think they claimed first. Either that or persuade them to renounce their claims." She added silently, and if we need to, kill them all.
The other two tribes responded to the Pegasus tribe's summons, and they decided to meet on a large hill. "So then, how should we proceed?" Princess Platinum said sagely. Clover was at her right hoof, and had conjured a table from the stone in the ground.
"First we must address the issue at hand." Hurricane said next, lifting her helmet off her head and setting it down on the table. "Why you two have trespassed and laid claim on our land." The Doctor was at her side.
"What do you mean your land?" Platinum said disgustedly. "We planted our flags at about the same time, Clover proved it, and none of us have even laid borders."
"She's a unicorn, how do you know she didn't change the results?" The Chancellor said pointedly, Smart Cookie raised an eyebrow at the provocation and took her place at his right side.
"If she was going to skew the answer she would have proved that we put down the flag first, but as is, we put down our flags all within seconds of each other, and we can't narrow it down any further." She scowled at her mage, "right Clover?" She asked maliciously.
"Heh... uh... y-yes Princess, sorry."
"Ugh." The two other leaders turned to Puddinghead, who had slammed his head against the table. "Would you both shut up!? This land should obviously belong to the Earth Ponies! You Unicorns and Pegasi never did anything to deserve this place!" He frowned and waved his hoof over the landscape. "I see the Earth, and we are Earth Ponies, therefore this is our land." He shrugged and gave an obviously fake apologetic frown, then turned away from the table. Smart Cookie frowned and took his place with a sigh. She turned to the guard.
"Make sure he doesn't fall into a hole somewhere."
"Yes Ma'am."
"Who are you exactly?" Platinum asked with a bored expression.
"I'm the Secretary of Colonization, and I hold authority over discussing our borders." Puddinghead was suddenly back and pushed her out of the stone stool roughly. He sat back down and glared down at the muttering secretary.
"I am the Chancellor, I hold the authority here!" He turned to the other two leaders. "Get off my land!"
"Your land? We haven't defined our borders yet!" Platinum said angrily.
"Why define them? Just surrender now and we'll let you leave with your lives, in fact, we'll let the Earth Ponies stay to till our fields for us, eh? You Unicorns don't need the land, you always live in those mountains in those big cities and ignore just about everything else, we Pegasus live higher up, we need to live in warmer areas, and the Earth Ponies can stay and grow food, and if you ask nicely we'll share some of it."
"Are you threatening us?" Princess Platinum rose herself up, her cloak billowing with a sudden gust of wind. "Know that the Unicorn King will not take this lightly!"
"Oh boohoo, if we really needed to, we could kill every last one of you and the Unicorn King would never learn anything of this until we already have complete control of this land. But I'm not, because I'm nice, so you Unicorns get off of our land, and you Earth Ponies better be prepared to work hard enough for two races if you're staying."
"You'll regret that!" The Chancellor screamed, slamming his hooves into the stone table, causing several weeds to blossom on the stone. "We Earth Ponies are not something to be bartered over between you two freakazoid races! We are proud, and will grow food for ourselves before catering to every one of your selfish fancies!"
"Clover, if I give the signal, I want you to strike down every Pegasus in sight!" Platinum growled to her mage, the guards behind them stood at attention.
"But your majesty-"
"PEGASUS, STAND AT ARMS, WE ARE ON THE BRINK OF COMBAT!" Hurricane howled to her troops, which raised their spears and whipped blades out of their feathers.
"Earth Ponies-" Smart Cookie began, but the Chancellor was already on his haunches.
"Captain, when I give the word, unleash the fury of the Earth upon these freaks!" Puddinghead screeched. He then fell over from the force of the wind. He looked up, shivering in the cold air, and blinked in despair as a single snowflake came flittering down.
"Get to shelter! Get to shelter!" Clover yelled, magnifying her voice with magics, "To the caves, the caves!"
Platinum and her guards were pushing against the air with their magic, trying to force the cold and snow away, by now it was a physical force, one that could rip a Pegasus's wings right off their backs if it was going in the wrong direction, and it had gotten colder and colder as time passed, and the snow was already several inches deep after less than five minutes.
As Pegasus and Earth Ponies limped in to the caves, straddlers being dragged in with rope and magic, before the unicorns began backing away from the wind, by now the Pegasi had begun doing their weather control, but just as always, the strange winds violently resisted their power.
Clover scanned the distance with her magic and looked down in sadness. Smart Cookie shouted up to where she had perched on an evened out pillar of stone. "Any more stragglers?!"
"N-not any more... the-they're all dead. Or will be in seconds. Everypony is inside that will live..." Clover tripped slightly on her way down. "Two Pegasi, an Earth Pony and three Unicorns."
"It doesn't matter who they were." Hurricane said, "after all, we'll all be joining them eventually. All that matters was that they died honorably. They didn't, they died running from nature, they died without honor, no reason to grieve for them."
"Brute, when we get out of here we'll find the bodies and honor them properly." Platinum nodded and raised her hoof. "Collapse the entrance, we don't want to let the cold in."
"Yes Your Highness." The guards brought down tons of boulders in front of the entrance, sealing them with dirt ripped from the cave floor.
"Well, this has turned out for a fine mess Pinkie." The Doctor sighed and began his rounds again, Pinkie Pie following from below by ground, she was very fast for an Earth Pony, being able to keep up with a Pegasus in the air while still being on the ground. "Have I ever told you that I need need NEED something to do? All of the time? I just can't handle boredom, I can live basically forever and I need to fill every making moment with new experiences! I need to be outside, I need to be brilliant, I need explosions and secrets and danger and discoveries! I don't need to fly the same route for hours and hours making sure no one is killing each other!"
"I know how you feel, I need to be doing something too, or I start thinking too deeply and get all moody and philosophically and crazy! Did I ever tell you that I grew up on a rock farm?"
"No, that sounds interesting."
"Well it isn't. I spent fourteen years on that farm, turning over rocks every day, I literally was flipping every stone for miles, it was a reward if our parents let us water the moss for an hour!"
"Must be better than this at least, you're growing food for the Pegasi, that must be at least a little fun, I wish I could do that."
"Why don't you think you can?"
"I've tried it, I don't have magic like yours, I can stand on clouds without wings, but I can't control the weather, I came into this world looking like an Earth Pony, but one without any Earth magic." He shrugged. "I'm a Time Lord, not a pony."
"And it's not all it's cracked up to be, food growing takes time, and I have to keep those rowdy stallions from just eating every sapling I sprout, let alone waiting for fruit, and somepony already stole all my cookies!"
"Hurricane 'requisitioned' mine."
Princess Platinum walked up to the two of them, the two screeching to a halt in front of her. "Private Doctor, Pinkamena, have the Pegasi or the Earth Ponies found any exits?"
"Um, I'm actually with the Pegasi."
"Ugh, don't remind me, it's disgusting, and kept me from falling asleep last night, but I'm not one to judge."
"It's not like that!" The Doctor barked, turning red-faced. "She's my traveling companion, not any of... that... kind of... er, thing!"
Pinkie shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Princess, you're even worse than Commander Hurricane."
"Gah! You insult me!"
The two of them just trotted around her and kept making their way. "And by the way, no, we haven't found anything." The Doctor flew forward, Pinkie following closely behind.
The three of them had been going at it for hours, and the Doctor, Smart Cookie, and Clover were in the corner playing tic-tac-toe while their leaders screamed at each other. Every time one of them threatened killing the others though their subordinate would go up to their leader and nudge them, getting them to turn the conversation to other matters, it had happened enough times that no one was taking the death threats personally any more, except for the subordinates who had to keep getting up from their many games. "I'd give my whole uniform for a deck of cards." the Doctor said tiredly.
"Or a game of chess." Clover said with a sigh.
"If I had horseshoes I'd rip em' off for a good game of horseshoes." Smart Cookie said with a growl, "hah, three in a row. Your turn Doctor, Clover, it was a nice try."
"What if we created a three player tic-tac-toe game?" The Doctor said. "It would revolutionize boredom everywhere."
"ooh, that's a good idea." Clover said happily.
"... fund it." Cookie said very seriously. But then their attention was drawn to the 'real' conversation.
"Well it's our land!" Puddinghead said, bringing up the oldest conversation they had.
"No it isn't! We don't know whose land it is!" Platinum said for the hundredth time.
"It's ours, whether we planted the flag first or not, because when we get out of here, we'll be in charge, we have the only military power for hundreds of miles."
"More threats from the brute! She turned to the Doctor. "Well, aren't you going to poke her?"
"No, she said she was going to take control, not kill anybody."
"It was implied! And besides, if anypony has the greatest military power, it's us, we brought along Clover the Clever remember? The best magician or strategist born in the last two centuries!"
"So, do you think your witch could take on our whole air force?" Hurricane said seductively.
"Yes."
"I am also part of the conversation!" Puddinghead shouted to no one in particular. "And us Earth Ponies hold the checkmate on all of you! Mess with us, and we all starve!"
"Oh yeah? When my father hears of your threats he'll postpone the coming of day for however long it takes, even Earth Ponies can't support a harvest without sunlight!"
"Oh yeah? Well try doing it in the middle of a drought or a hundred day downpour, we Pegasi hold just as much control of the food!"
"So then the answer is simple, we all separate as much as possible, and all of us assist in the creation of the food until we can find the exit to this god-forsaken mountain." Puddinghead said, attempting to bring an end to the conversation.
"So you don't care for the mountain? In that case would you be willing to give us any mountains in your future territory?" Platinum whispered to the Chancellor.
"Are you crazy? These things are loaded with gems! I wouldn't give up the mountains for anything!"
"If we're discussing future borders, I suppose all of the sky wouldn't be too bad right? After all, what would either of you do with a cloud?"
"Not rain down lightning on our cities." Platinum said accusingly.
"That was war! This is different, this is colonization."
"Not that any of us have very much going as colonies, for all we know, only us, the Pegasus' scouts, my guards, and the Unicorn's bodyguard's are alive."
"So then what does it matter? We all failed, and our kingdoms' will die. The Pegasi will be lurking around every corner trying to burn down our cities for temporary warmth, the Earth Ponies will refuse to share whatever food they have left, and the other kingdoms will criticize my father's every decision! Because not one of these colonies will succeed all of the pony kingdoms will starve to death, and then what? What other creature will make the night turn to day? And I know the Griffon's sure as hell won't lift a claw to bring rain to anypony, and then the Zebra's will be tormented again as the only source of magically enhanced fast-growing vegetation. And all because of this horrible horrible blizzard!" Platinum was screaming now. But Hurricane came up to her, and pushed her back with a hoof.
"You Unicorn's think you're so high and mighty with your freaky magic? I'm still convinced one of you messed up and caused some sort of apocalyptic weather spell! And as you've clearly stated, every creature on Earth will suffer for it, and you know what? In the war that follows, we'll win. Even if we have to live under eternal day or night in a blizzard from hell we'll still stand above you, so I frankly don't care about us, just as long as you Unicorn's know your place in this mess."
The Doctor got up and pushed Hurricane back. "That was uncalled for, we'll get out alright, I know we will, I absolutely know it. And until then we don't need to be fighting over things that are not relevant!"
Smart Cookie and Clover stood up as well, and stood by their respective leaders. Puddinghead took in a deep breath. "Well from what I've heard, it's all you two's tribes fault, and everypony's gonna die, I don't think we have to go through any more of these stupid meetings." Hurricane walked up to him and stood above him.
"We'll keep having these meetings until we come up with something to do!"
"Get out of my personal space!" The Earth Pony stepped backward, and Commander Hurricane stepped into Platinum's way.
"Ugh, don't stand so close, I can smell the violence in your mane." She took a step back and made a motion in front of her. "You see this invisible line around me, please don't come any closer than that."
Hurricane stomped in the ground, and waving her hoof to the side, sprayed dirt at the Chancellor and Cookie. "You see this real, physical line? Touch this and it'll be war!" She turned to the Doctor. "Private, mark out our territory!"
"You're getting ridiculous and worked up about this Hurricane."
"It's Commander to you!" She continued the line a foot, "NOW MARK!" The Doctor sighed and began drawing a line that cut the leader's cavern in half with the line in the dirt.
"Don't let them have the advantage, mark our own border!" The Chancellor said to Cookie, who sighed and complied.
Clover looked at the two of them with some unease, she turned to the Princess, who only looked expectantly at her and gave a look that seemed to say 'well?'. Clover shook her head and began finalizing the borders.
The Doctor came to a rock and began moving his line around it when Hurricane roared at him; "Don't go around the rock! Go over it, or better yet, just take it!" She picked it up and threw it to the wall on the Pegasus side. It was caught midair and floated over to Princess Platinum.
"I believe your Private clearly marked that this rock was on our side of the border."
She set it down gently on the ground, she turned to Clover and whispered; "You know, this whole place is filled with gems, and that rock might very well be a diamond on the inside!"
Puddinghead walked over the Pegasus border and into the Unicorn side, picked up the rock and took it back to his own side. "You found my rock!"
"You crossed my border!" Hurricane screeched, the blades in her wings fully visible. "Give me that rock!"
"No, it's mine now." And the Chancellor, the oldest pony in the room, actually, scratch that, the Doctor has over a millennium, but the oldest looking pony in the room stick out his tongue and blew a raspberry in the mare's face.
"Grrrraaaagghhh!" Hurricane screamed. "I HATE YOU ALL!" Everyone's skin felt a prickling. "I HATE ALL OF YOU, EVERY SINGLE ONE! YOU STARVED US AND LAUGHED AT US!" She swung at Puddinghead, but he dodged just in time, going to an Earth Pony fighting form.
"Well I hate you, acting so high and mighty, using your freaky magic to read our minds and change the weather and the sky! You have no right!" He shivered as his tail blew from side to side.
"No right!? It is our bloodright! Just because you ungifted and uncultured mud-sitters can't appreciate true magic, and just because you Pegasi are brutish violence-driven beasts doesn't mean you can humiliate us! I hate the both of you to my core!" She then spit on both sides of the border, and turned up her head at the others. Her mane was writhing in the gale now, and frost was growing on the ground. Suddenly All three rulers were trying to kill each other, knocking the rock back and forth.
Clover was looking for a chance to intervene, when she turned to see the entrance be covered in ice. "Look everypony, the entrance!" Every pony in the room dashed for the entrance, but it was too late, it had completely frozen over.
Hurricane slammed her wing blades into the ice, and then yanked them free and discarded them as they were also encased in ice. "Great, there's no way out. We're trapped."
"You two deserve this horrible fate, you've done nothing but argue and fight this whole time!"
"You did a bit of fighting too your royal heinie-ness."
"Yeah, worse, I haven't been fighting nearly as much as you!" The Chancellor growled. Not even caring as his hooves were frozen to the ground.
"Ridiculous, a unicorn lady never stoops to fighting."
"That's because you pansy unicorns know you never win!" She turned to the Chancellor. "Earth Ponies are numb-skulled!" She said before being completely frozen.
Princess Platinum turned to the frozen commander and shouted "Pegasi are brutes!" She too was covered in ice.
"Unicorns are snobs!" Chancellor said, determined to get in the last word." But he too, was frozen with a permanent glare.
The three remainders backed into the center of the room, actually bumping into each other. A loud groan came form the ceiling and the three of them looked up.Three ghostly horses, with their back legs trailing behind them and with glowing white eyes and billowing fog manes galloped in the gathering snow clouds, keeping the three of them in the center. "What are they?" Cookie said, mesmerized by the chilling sight.
"They must be Windigoes... my father, er... my teacher, Starswirl the Bearded told me of them, and my magic will be useless against them... They are winter spirits that feed on hatred and pain and strife, and the more hated there is, the more powerful the blizzard they make..."
"And the more powerful the blizzard is, the more hatred that pops up." The Doctor said grimly. He let a sad sort of smile creep onto his face, "Me an' Pinkie, on our travels, met up with monsters that fed on love, and now she's probably frozen because of monsters that feed on hate. Funny world."
"Then this is our fault, all three tribes, our constant fighting gave them too much power. We brought this on ourselves." cookie said solemnly. She reached into her vest and brought out a list of beads, and began muttering a short prayer. She looked up to the ghostly creatures and got an accepting expression on her face. "We killed ourselves and our own land, and now we've brought it to this one too."
Clover stepped away from the growing frost on the floor. "And soon our bodies will become as cold as our hearts, and we'll all die for our hatred, all tribes alike. All because we were foolish enough to hate!" She said it sadly, and she stopped moving away from the frost.
"Well, I don't hate you." The Doctor said, forcing his sad smile to get a little bigger, he pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver, but it was dead. He dropped it on the ground and watched as it was covered in ice. "I don't hate you at all, to say it frankly, I hated Hurricane a lot more than either of you."
Smart Cookie looked at him and laughed. "Well, you're a little bit more accepting than the rest of us, going around with an Earth Pony." The Doctor was about to say something, already getting red faced. "I don't mean anything mean by it, I'm just saying, I'm glad to know there's a Pegasus that cares for us Earth Ponies for a reason other than food." One of the Windigoes stopped in his charge, his eyes glowing with cold blue light, observing the three of them.
"And even then, I'm not even sure I hate her, did you see her crack back there? She's been fasting since we got in the cave, but she's keeping that full armor on so that her own soldiers won't notice, no commander that puts their soldiers so much above themselves can I really hate, but then again she did threaten Pinkie... no. I don't hate her."
"Heh, if it means anything, I don't hate the two of you either." Clover said, smiling at her two new friends. "We've played tic-tac-toe together for so many hours I can't imagine us not being friends."
Another Windigoe stopped and looked coldly at the three ponies.
"Me too, you two are alright." Smart Cookie said, nodding. The ice began creeping up their bodies, and the Doctor felt a warmth in his heart and frowned, but turning to Smart Cookie and Clover, also slowly freezing, he decided it was time to act. The cold covered him even more and he moved instinctively toward the two mares, the three of them moving their heads closer together. The ice had crawled all the way up to their shoulders, but the warmth had moved up to his forehead, and burned in his skull, a little bit of yellow light floated from his skin.
"No matter what tribe we are, we are all Ponies." Smart Cookie said quietly.
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Tommorow's the premiere of Season Three! I'm pretty sure I won't include the Season Three canon in my story though, maybe I can work it in, maybe not, after all, the climax of 'Vortexes are Magic' will involve Nightmare Moon, and s3 might add some things that don't agree with me, but I'll keep ya' posted.
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