Chapter 47
Tobias
Blue crystals jettisoned from every wall and even hung from the ceiling, leaving the stone floor of the caverns uncovered. Considering what we’ve seen on this world already — dragons, unicorns, a castle precariously balanced on a mountain, myself perched on a cloud — you would think that this place would have been a little more extravagant. Still, the size of the crystals was impressive and not regularly seen on Earth.
“Can’t believe I’m down here again,” Twilight muttered to herself. She was leaning against Applejack heavily and every step she took was laboured, but she refused to remain behind and rest. She still wore her peculiar tiara; when Luna had attempted to take it from her, she had clutched the thing between her hooves defensively. To be honest, if I had a magic crown that could make controllers freeze in place, I’d probably hold on to it as well.
“Ya had the option ta stay behind and rest, Twi,” Applejack chided. “Nopony forced ya ta come but yerself.” Like Twilight, she refused to give up her necklace. I wanted to ask why the jewel was shaped like an apple, but decided to leave it for another time.
Even down here there were still controllers, as unmoving as the others the Princesses were collecting. There were a few unicorns and pegasi among them, though humans and taxxon far outnumbered them. Some Changelings were chittering to one another as we passed, glancing our way but otherwise ignoring us.
“Sir Tobias, if you could so kind as to illuminate this passageway we could proceed.” Luna’s voice cut through the darkness and I hurried ahead, setting my wings aflame and lighting the cavern. I honestly was having a hard time staying as a hawk lately. A phoenix just seemed so much more...magical.
It was so much easier to simply stay aloft as a phoenix; I could hover in place almost without moving, barely flapping my wings at all. And this thing could move when it wanted to. Being actually able to help out in battles beyond diving at opponents and raking them with my talons made me feel more useful as well.
<Tobias, does your morph secret some form of chemical that combusts when in contact with the atmospheric gasses?> Ax asked, swerving a stalk eye towards me.
I was momentarily thrown by the odd question and glanced over myself as best I could. <Uh, no, I don’t think so. I’ve just got feathers and skin.>
<Then perhaps there a protein in the feathers that acts a catalyst?>
“No, there is a much simpler answer to phoenix fire,” the princess said. “It is produced from their internal magic reserves and distributed evenly over their feathers.” She paused a moment in thought. “Though if you prefer the original myth, they are simply normal birds which have been blessed by the sun and are able to reproduce its light at will.”
“Oh, yeah, ‘Celestia’s Blessing’, right?” Twilight piped up, suddenly energetic. “They flew so close to the sun that it blessed them for their bravery with angelic songs and brought forth the fire of their hearts.”
<A rather fascinating myth, but surely your species has discovered the true scientific reason,> Ax insisted.
“Was Our explanation of magical distribution not satisfactory?” Luna inquired.
<No, it was not,> Ax said bluntly. <You mean to tell me that you have never studied these creatures in great detail? There is no compendium of strange phenomena or any theories from some of your scientists?> Ax, rather uncharacteristically, was sounding extremely frustrated by this point.
“Ax, man, let it go,” Marco said gently. “It’s a magical land of magic ponies, what more do you need to know?”
<Magic is just a catch-all term for something we do not understand. Even my own race used ‘magic’ at one point in time, but we studied and learnt from our experiments.> His tail twitched slightly as he spoke. <How can an entire species not care?>
“We do care!” Twilight shouted indignantly. “There are schools all over to help unicorns learn how to control their magic, and the Canterlot Library boasts the largest collection of books and recordings of knowledge in all of Equestria.” She lifted her head and seemed to look Ax in all four of his eyes. “And, just so you know, we’re quite fluent in the sciences as well.”
<So you claim, and yet—> Ax was cut off when we rounded a corner and were hit face-first with a wall of sunlight. I dimmed the fire in my feathers and waited for my eyes to adjust to the brightness, but surprisingly it was like nothing had changed for my vision at all.
Looking into the light I saw that we were somewhere on the far side of the mountain. There were several Yeerk ships crashed all over — I guessed the weird rainbow light had reached this far. One Bug Fighter was perched on a cliffside just outside of the cavern, and looking through the windows I could see that the crew of Hork Bajir and Taxxons were also frozen.
“Oh my,” Luna gasped. “We had no idea they were so close...”
“How did they manage to bore through solid rock without alerting any of us?” Twilight wondered.
“Maybe they did this recently, like before the attack?” Marco said. “It wouldn’t take that long from the looks of things.”
“Wouldn’t take long? Ah think even a unicorn would have trouble movin’ this much rock,” Applejack cut in. “An’ no offense, but y’all ain’t exactly the strongest creatures around.”
<They would have used tools to move and bore through the rock, much more advanced than any you currently have at your technological level,> Ax replied.
“You late!”
The voice cut into our conversation and all six heads swerved to look at the lone Changeling that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Given their camouflage ability, I wonder if they can turn invisible, I wondered idly. Regardless, the Changeling hovered up beside us and gave an impatient look.
“Queen wait for long time. She and human prince find something.” It paused for a moment, as if trying to remember. “Small version of flying boat used to find Hive.”
<Wait, Illusion?> I asked, to which the Changeling nodded.
“Yes. You not know me?”
“Irrelevant,” Luna said. “What did Chrysalis and Prince Jake discover?”
“Come! See!” Illusion said before buzzing down the cliff side.
“...I guess we’re supposed to follow,” Marco muttered. “Does he realize I can’t jump down a sheer drop?”
“And We thought you humans had ingenuity,” Luna said before her horn lit up in midnight-blue light. The same light then covered Marco, Ax, Twilight, and Applejack, who were then lifted a few inches off the ground.
“Two minutes and I could’ve been an osprey or a seagull,” Marco grumbled.
Ax’s stalk eyes were twisting and turning all over. <I thought this planet lacked gravity-manipulation capabilities.>
“Levitation spells are the most fundamental of base magics,” Twilight replied matter of factly.
“Now is not the time to discuss this,” the Princess said, cutting off Ax before he could argue the point further. She simply leapt off the edge of the cliff after Illusion, carrying everyone besides me in her aura and gently floated down. I spread my own wings and followed after her with little more than a thought.
Not thirty feet down the mountain was another cave, though this one was at least twice the size of the one we’d exited from. Inside I could see something made of metal — at first I thought it was a Bug Fighter, but upon closer inspection I rejected that idea on the grounds that the thing was too big. Changelings were all over the ship, inspecting it and moving paralyzed controllers to the side. And as we continued our descent I was able to see Jake, Rachel, and Cassie talking with the Changeling Queen. It was almost surreal, seeing three humans talking and smiling with some weird cockroach-horse creature without the humans getting eaten.
“It’s not polite to keep royalty waiting,” the Queen said without even turning to look at us. Illusion flew over and landed beside her, staring straight ahead at Jake and the others, his chest puffed out proudly.
“A Princess is never late. She arrives precisely when she means to,” Luna curtly replied. “Now, what is it you have discovered?”
“An excellent question, sister,” a regal voice spoke from the pathway in the back of the cave. A white light illuminated the entrance, revealing the white princess Rainbow had called Celestia. Speaking of the pegasus, she was right beside the princess, along with Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie — all still wearing their respective magic necklaces.
“Twilight, what are you doing?” Rarity said once she laid eyes on Twilight. “You should be resting and recuperating.”
“I’m fine, Rarity,” Twilight insisted as she and the others were let down by Luna. “There’s more important matters at hoof.”
“How could anything be more important than your health, Twilight?” Rarity persisted.
“Our nation, and all the citizens who live in it,” Twilight said defensively. Rarity seemed abashed by her response and didn’t say anything further.
“There will be time for these discussions later,” Celestia said before turning to Jake and the others. “Now then, you were saying what you have discovered?”
“Yes, we found a Yeerk spacecraft, your highnesses,” Cassie said, even bowing a little at both Celestia and Luna. “We were just thinking over some plans on how it might help us against the mothership.”
<It is merely a transport ship, lacking even a fraction of the firepower required to incapacitate a Yeerk Mothership,> Ax stated. <At best we might be able to load it with spare explosives and disable the engines, but that will still leave their communications and relaying abilities operational.>
“Even if we hit an engine and bring it down?” Jake asked. I saw Rainbow wince at the mention of crashing a ship, though she tried to hide it.
<I do not believe attacking a single engine will suffice. We would need to hit all three engines simultaneously in order to force the mother ship to fall out of geosynchronous orbit, and depending on how far up they are flying they may well be able to make moderate repairs to survive the crash.> He paused a moment. <And even if they are unable to survive, they would still be able to send a distress beacon.>
“Assuming it’s even still there,” the Changeling Queen cut in. Everyone looked at her, to which she continued, “I’m just saying. Your invasion fails, you don’t stick around. You retreat and regroup.”
“They most likely don’t know about the failure,” Jake said. “Which is why we need to do this as quickly as possible.” He crossed his arms across his chest. “That said, we can’t attack the ship, and we definitely can’t sneak onboard. I’m open to ideas.”
A long awkward silence held in the air, eventually broken by Marco. “Oh, good, nobody has a plan. Let’s just go home, then. Things will work out perfectly in the end, I’m sure.”
Twilight glared at him, some of her energy having seemingly returned. “How can you just give up like that? Aren’t we important enough to help?” Her horn sparked with magic, I guess would be the word, and something sparked in my own mind.
<Actually, guys, I think I have an idea.> Everyone turned to look at me and for a moment I felt rather nervous about having so many eyes on me, but I shook it off and looked at Twilight. <Of course, it will require your help, Twilight. I can’t order you to help, but—>
“Nonsense,” she cut me off with a smile. “I’ll be happy to help.”
“Wherever Twilight goes, I’m in too!” Rainbow jumped in exuberantly. One by one, the other ponies reached pitched in their own words of loyalty and stood beside Twilight. It was almost poetic, the way these six stood by each other.
<Alright, here’s what I’m thinking we do...>