//------------------------------// // 43 - Skytracing the Stars // Story: Re:Harmony // by starcross7 //------------------------------// Chapter 43 - Skytracing the Stars Couch or bed, Lancer could sleep almost anywhere in his apartment. Last night, it was the couch. Formerly a military pony, getting up early was second nature to Lancer. Waking up to a complete mess was not part of it. In the darkness of early morning, the indigo earth pony's hooves bumped through screws, flashlight-screwdrivers, and cables of varying thickness and lengths. Shoved at the very corner was a tall blue box that had its double door opened. Time Turner was half inside of it, with his flank sticking out without shame. It would even be more shameful if his Nature's Call had been fully exposed. Lancer could almost make out the bottom parts of the hourglass. He shuddered, thinking about the time when he walked in Turner when he was showering. He didn't plan on taking him in. Cheerilee, sure, but by happenstance Time Turner was also out of a job and without a home. He had that blue box that he was always seen carting around, and both he and Cheerilee were both planning moving at the western tip of the Ponyville Slums, also known as the notorious Ponyfield Borough. As one of the President-Advisers, Lancer had access to advanced information that no other pony had, and when he learned of Cheerilee's travel, he immediately offered--or rather, he insisted that she should stay over at his apartment while she searched for a new job. At first she seemed hesitant, as if she was afraid of him. She almost fainted when he made the initial offer, but a wide smile drew across her face at that time and she took up his offer with vigor. Time Turner happened to be around that time… Thus, Lancer's bedroom became Cheerilee's room, and despite the pile of luggage at the corner, it remained neat and organized, save for a half-naked mare sleeping under the covers. He did not come in with ill thoughts, however. His clothes were still in his closet, but no ordinary stallion could resist taking a gander at the magenta mare's smooth-brushed fur, her curly pink tail twitching in R.E.M. sleep, and the partial reveal of her Nature's Call. Lancer had seen mare's exposed flanks in various confiscated pornographic magazines, and today he was close to seeing it live. He could almost make out sunflowers. Lancer understood why Winter Tulip often teased him about hooking up with Cheerilee. She was pretty. Perhaps it was guilt and pity that made Lancer take Cheerilee in to his home. Not that he was directly responsible, but he felt it all the same. He had been nothing but a good protector for Little Miss, often taking her out to Gaeaopolis to buy ice cream and other frivolities against all protocol. Only once or twice did he reprimand her, but Lancer never yelled at Winter Tulip. Yet the question as to why she would suddenly vanish from the safety of the Palace of the Earth weighed heavily on his heart. Maybe Ace was right. Maybe he was using Lancer as a way to get into Posey's heart, and it was beginning to look like that Lancer would never reach his first love and first crush. He secured his uniform on his body and gave his orange mane and tail a quick brushing. His apartment would keep, provided that Time Turner did not blow it up first. Hopefully, Cheerilee would set him straight. He stepped outside into the streets of a clean and well-to-do neighborhood, constructed solely for military staff and important government heads. A car had been waiting for him, and the driver, a white earth stallion named Aries helped him in. "Any news?" asked Lancer as the car moved. "Winter hasn't been seen in the Slums, Sewer Town, or Sweet Apple Acres," replied Aries. "You're right. She's going to search for her long-lost sister." "I hope Taurus finds them before the Changelings." The freeway to the airport was empty due to the long parade of tanks moving in. Black airships floated in the dozens while jets on patrol screamed between them. Clone Soldiers and Roboponies marched on the sidewalks almost endlessly, and Draftmechs guarded the runways. Lancer couldn't get over this aggressive show of force. War was fast approaching, and he hoped that wherever Winter Tulip was, she was safe. Even though it was printer paper, Twilight rolled it up like her scrolls in Unicornia and sealed it with scotch tape signed with the image of her Destiny Glyph in permanent marker. "Saved and sent," said Spike after setting it ablaze with his dragon fire. "With all these reports we're sending, mom and dad are going to be up their necks with them." "I only sent the seventh report so far. Have you been keeping up with your letters?" "I'm almost done with mine, but I didn't want to waste any ink or pencil lead should you or Applejack might need it." "Don't worry. Use as much as you want. They're your family. We're your family." The little dragon blushed and giggled, but she coughed himself out of his flattery and embarrassment of being accepted once more to the herd, considering his short-lived betrayal. Spike then suddenly burped a stream of green flame, which then manifested a more modern form of communication of an envelope with a letter inside. Twilight had initially thought it was for her, but with it being addressed to Spike, he possessively hid it from the unicorn inside the captain's cabin. "Well okay, it's nothing private," he said after skimming the written words. "It says here that Golden Harvest is liking her new job at Sugarcube Corner and that… mom's pregnant? Oh my gosh! I'm gonna be a big brother!" "Did somepony say that they're gonna be a big brother?" Pinkie said, popping in suddenly. "Get on my back, Spikey. We're gonna throw you a baby shower in honor of your mom!" The pink blur left with the purple dragon on her back to leave the purple unicorn in peace, even though it was implied that she was invited. Twilight would join the celebration later, for she prepared another sheet of paper and a pen to write on. The only thing that could come to mind was the amulet Trixie wore: a red jewel, a horse head, two wings, and one horn. These were the traits of an Alicorn, and no matter what, it still appeared very odd if not outlandish for a creature to exist, not counting manticores and true chimeras. Trixie was one of the best unicorns in Unicornia, and she might even be better than Twilight if not for Chieftain Velvet's concentration on her own daughter. That amulet, however, amplified her powers with demonic magnitude. Most of these spells Trixie used have never been heard of or seen. So in this sheet before her, Twilight sketched as best she could the design of the black amulet, an outline of all the spells Trixie had cast under her influence, and an illustration of the demonic crimson cloak that took a life of its own. If not for Verde's assistance, she would have already defeated Twilight and her friends. What bothered her was that such power wouldn't be easily controlled by a non-magical society. It did not make sense that a cursed artifact would willingly let itself be dominated by Earth ponies. Twilight rolled that and taped that sheet and started another. This time, she sketched what she knew so far about the Elements of Creation. She wrote a brief page on Applejack's Element of Truth and its unique ability to cut through falsehoods or obstacles to the truth. She went a little more in detail on Pinkie Pie's Element of Pleasure, which gave her super speed in the form of inline skates and was capable of buzz saw cutting, but not in the same caliber or speed as Applejack's Sword of Truth. Then there was the Fluttershy's Element of Empathy, the Butterfly Star. Twilight barely witnessed and felt its healing effects, but it seemed that somehow the Element of Empathy had to ability to transfer pain and injury from one living creature to another. She would like to test it out further, but of three Elements they had so far, that proved the most risky, if not deadly to wield. She was glad that a gentle pony such as Fluttershy was its wielder. There might be a way to test the Element, and Twilight needed to find the yellow pegasus. As she set her pencil down for another burst of writing, the entire airship shook with the sounds of rock, and with Pinkie shouting, "YOU ARE A PIRATE!" Twilight ran out of the cabin and met up with a peeved Applejack in the hallway before the two mares burst into the galley and dining area. Using tables as a makeshift stage, Pinkie Pie somehow found musical instruments to form a rock band. Pinkie Pie was on guitar and vocals. Sunny took to the drums rather impressively, for she wielded four drumsticks with her front hooves and the tips of her wings. Fluttershy stood almost to back, but as timid as she looked, she completed rocked the electric bass. Over to the side, Angel Bunny managed the audio mixer, and Gummy was on a stool with a pair of castanets in his claws. All three ponies and their animal friends were dressed up, in form of another, as stereotypical pirates. Yar har, fiddle di dee, Being a pirate is all right to be, Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free, You are a pirate! The terrible song continued on for several more minutes, ending with Pinkie Pie dropping to her knees to grind the guitar strings with her teeth. Spike, Winona, and Owlowiscious sat at the tiny audience area cheering, howling, and hooting. "Thank you!" cried Pinkie Pie. "We are the band, the Pink Pistols! I'm your vocalist and lead guitar, Pinkamena D. Pie. Behind me rockin' the drums is Sunny D., and at bass is the über-moé sensational sensation, Flutterbass!" "What in tarnation is goin' on?" asked Applejack. "You nearly scared us half to death." "We're pirates!" Sunny cried out. "Yar," Fluttershy softly exclaimed. "We ain't pirates, pink," said Applejack. "But we stole this airship!" cried Pinkie. "We're borrowin' it." "But we're fugitives!" "We're freedom fighters." "But we dressed Fluttershy as a pirate! Just look. Look at her!" Admittedly, Fluttershy looked awfully cute dressed in her skull-and-crossbones bandana, a striped shirt, and torn-up trousers. She didn't appear too happy, but with her saying "Yar," in the most diabolically sweetest, sugar-inducing and heart-attacking voice was the icing the cake. Both Twilight and Applejack nearly died from the overload of cuteness, and together they could not help but utter a low and soft "daww," from their lips before regaining their serious composure. "Mrs. Cake is pregnant," Twilight said to Applejack, "and Spike's gonna be a big brother." "Well, why didn't you say so? Come here ya little dragon and lemme give you a good pat on the back." "So, you like our song?" Pinkie asked. "Sunny and I just made it up just now." "You have any others? That doesn't involve pirates?" "You know, I was inspired by Twilight's awesome planning that I had to write this one. It's called, 'In the Land of Twilight, Under the Moon'." The baby shower continued with a few better songs performed by the Pretty Pink Pistols (Pinkie couldn't settle on a name). Most of the songs involved Twilight's name or the word twilight, and many of the passages required a fiddler, which to Twilight's surprise Applejack stepped in to fill. She never seen the orange mare so lost in her music that it was almost saddening to watch given her violent history. Still, Twilight could not get over on how Pinkie Pie managed to acquire all these instruments on this airship, and she could have sworn Sunny and Fluttershy did not fly down to the surface to grab them. As it turned out, this airship was part of a sting operation to arrest band members whose songs criticized the government, and had thus confiscated all their instruments. The mystery of where they got the pirate costumes remained unsolved. As much fun as everypony wanted the celebration to continue, the airship could not maintain itself, and Twilight had to convince Pinkie Pie and Sunny that afternoon chores still needed to be done, considering what they went through two days ago. Apart from the general cleaning of the airship, laundry had to be picked from outside from the crow's nest on a clothesline attached to the rudder. The turrets needed to be cleaned, and all the bullets, bombs, and grenades needed to be tallied. Sunny and Fluttershy had special duties of maintaining the mist outside and collecting clouds to squeeze out water into the buckets. Once their chores were done, Sunny took Fluttershy out for more high altitude flying lessons. Seeing the pegasii pair looked as if one was teaching the other how to swim. In pirate clothes. During dinner preparation, Twilight finally managed to call Fluttershy for a few experiments in the captain's cabin. The first involved two oranges: one heavily bruised, and one pristine. Fluttershy commanded Element to take the form of two Butterfly Stars for each orange, and like advanced magic, the bruises from one orange transferred over to the other. That answered part of Twilight's theory, but they were only dealing with organic materials. The unicorn did anticipate this and she procured two pipes of the same length. One was rusted and bent, and the other pristine. Fluttershy did as Twilight had asked, and like the oranges, the damage from one pipe transferred over to the other. For the final experiment, Twilight asked Fluttershy to transfer the "damage" of the now-rusted pipe to a healed orange. This time, not only the orange became bruised, but it also began to rot, whereas the metal pipe straightened up and restored its metallic shimmer. "Is that good?" Fluttershy asked as her Element of Empathy returned to its necklace state. "It is," said Twilight as she jotted more notes to paper. "Fascinating. It almost seems like you can transfer almost anything not just between ponies, but also between objects as well without any noticeable loss of energy during the transfer. And if it's between two dissimilar objects, the Element of Empathy, the destination object will exhibit equivalent damage from the source." "Pardon?" "In short, you have the ability to transfer injury between one object to one another. We unicorns can perform similar feat, but we end up exhausting ourselves quickly, and it's usually a one-way process. Although, the Butterfly Star appeared on your eyes and you fired eye-beams into the dragon. Wouldn't applying the Star on his body be enough?" "I'm not sure. I just wanted to make sure he felt the emotions of all the poor creatures he killed over the centuries. But I never meant to kill him." "I know you wouldn't, but I'm glad it is you who have this Element and nopony else. You're the perfect pony who will know who receives pain and injury or not." "But I don't want to have this kind of power. It's too much, and I don't know if I can use it under pressure." "With us around, we'll make sure you won't have to use the Element of Empathy on anypony. Sunny, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and I will teach you how to defend yourself without the use of any kind of magic." "Oh, I'm not sure if I can fight with you girls. You're so good at what you do." "But you packed quite a punch when we were forced to fight in the Cavern of Treasures, and I was surprised when you summoned that thunder cloud to attack me." "I just got lucky, that's all. I know next to nothing about how to use Atmos Arts." "Sunny and I will fill you in what we know. Now don't worry about yourself, Fluttershy. You're a stronger pony that you think." Twilight had her right front leg on Fluttershy's shoulder when Applejack entered the room through the partially closed door. Each pony should have been cordial of each other's presence, and for some reason the mood became tense. Whatever composure or smile the orange pony had, it had vanished when she caught the unicorn and pegasus together. About that time, the pink butterfly-shaped jewel on Fluttershy's necklace twinkled. "I'm not interruptin' anythin' am I?" asked Applejack almost indignantly. "I told you before," replied Twilight. "I asked Fluttershy to participate in an experiment of mine." "I know about that. I just assumed it would be in a general area and not in your room. Dinner's ready you two." Moments after Applejack stormed off, the pink jewel on Fluttershy's necklace twinkled again. The yellow pegasus immediately stepped away from Twilight and poked her head out the door. "You should probably talk to Applejack," said Fluttershy. "Oh, she's always like that," said Twilight. "Don't mind her." "It's just that you two… Oh, never mind." The yellow pegasus trotted off before Twilight could ask her what she meant by "you two." Starving stomachs threw off the unicorn's focus, and she found herself hurrying off to the cafeteria. She didn't see Applejack in the cafeteria, and she was the one who had helped Pinkie Pie prepare a feast for the ponies, the baby dragon, and all their animal companions. Of course, Pinkie concentrated on deserts, all of which were sugary and too colorful for the blandness of Gaea. Even with Pinkie Pie and Sunny entertaining the others with their comedy duo routine, Twilight's mind remained preoccupied with many things, most notably Applejack's reaction to Fluttershy's appearance in the captain's cabin. The unicorn tried to ask her about what she meant, but the pink pony and Sunny pulled her to the stage to goad her into doing an improv skit. Fluttershy was right though. Applejack appeared angry, and so the unicorn snuck out and sought out the orange earth pony. She wasn't in the cockpit. She wasn't in the crew quarters. She wouldn't be in the galley or the cafeteria, because somepony else would have seen her. She wasn't in the armory either. Twilight checked her cabin as well, even though finding Applejack inside was a farfetched notion. Finally, Twilight climbed the ladder all the way up to the crow's nest, and sure enough, Applejack was there leaning over the low railing. The orange pony almost did not notice the unicorn poking her head out from the hatch opening. It was too peaceful and serene to make it a big deal. The night breeze was soft, and the airship moved at a leisurely pace so that they would maximize fuel efficiency. "Hey," said Applejack. "Hi. Can I stand next to you?" "Sure" The crow's nest was small--small enough to reliably accommodate one pony, yet barely large enough to fit two mares. From flank to shoulder, Twilight's body pressed against Applejack's. The unicorn could feel that her friend was trying her best to look away from her. "Just because we have another companion in our group doesn't mean I'm going to spend less time with you," said Twilight. "Sorry, Sugarcube," said Applejack. "Sometimes, I act on my emotions without thinkin'. I nearly did something wrong back there." "You didn't. You were just feeling jealous, that's all." "That ain't it, Twi, and I just can't seem to shake this shame off of me. When I saw you and the others back in the cave, I just lost it. I was gonna kill that dragon, and I might have went on to battle the entire Gaean army till I have died. "The last letter Granny Smith wrote to me. She wrote that she was done fightin' and I thought she was bein' a coward by givin' up. But the years she spent in prison made her realize that all this harborin' hate for Posey was doin' nothin' but making us like them, and that ended up with me being the last of the Apples. She didn't want me fightin' forever. She wanted me to live as a mare." "When will that day come?" "I dunno. I'm supposed to forgive Posey, but I'll still on the fence on that. But what I do know is that I ain't fightin' her for revenge anymore. I'm fightin' to protect my sister, my friends, and you, Twi. I won't let Posey or anypony like her get their hooves on the Elements of Creation. So, where's our next stop, Sugarcube?" "Sunny said that the next Element is north." "Gonna be risky. Gaea and Pegasopolis are in a constant battle for the Crystal Mountains for all its minerals. They're all goin' tit for tat over there with no progress. Plus, there's a snowstorm that's constantly raging over there, and it ain't the work of the pegasii." "It's still a few days away, so we can relax until then." "Relax, huh? It's been a while since we had that." "In that case, I'll leave you alone then. I'm sure it gets crowded with two ponies smooshing each other up here." "Wait." "What is it?" "Can you, um, stay here for a little longer?" "What for?" "It just... I want to show you all stars up there, with the sky bein' all clear and whatnot. I'm sure you're dyin' to point them out after bein' cooped up in your underground village for all those years." "All right, I'll stay." "Great. Let's start with the North Star up over there…" Applejack went on. Twilight already knew about the stars from all the old books she read. For now, the unicorn allowed the earth pony to enjoy herself and her company.