Before we went to see the mode of transportation that I had wanted to see in action since the day I was born, we had to make two slight detours. First, I had to retrieve my spear from where it had embedded itself in the rocky bridge that had served as a choke point for the Fenrir. As it turned out nobody had been able to move it at all since the battle, and when I yanked it up from the bridge without a problem, Freya told me that it was most likely enchanted so that it could only be wielded by myself. That's cool, right? I mean, the spear never misses a target once it's been aimed, it can absorb magical energy like a sponge, and only I can use it?
But I digress. The second detour we made was to the armory, where I was beholden to one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen in all my years. Not that there were many of them, mind you, but still. Freya had ordered that the fastest--and best--blacksmiths in all of Valhalla make a set of what they called "flyg rustning," and what I call badass. It combined a leather undershirt with fur sewn into the inside, an extremely lightweight chestpiece made of a gold-tinged metal that only covered my chest and shoulders while leaving my wings a full range of motion, a plate-armor skirt that had vertical plates instead of horizontal to allow for maximum leg movement, and a pair of warm socks and boots that had the same type of fur that was sewn into my undershirt. A series of narrow, interlocking plates that were clearly capable of shifting were meant to be places on the top of my wings, and the last plate on each end bore a wicked combination of a 4-inch spike with a 3-inch scythe right beside it. The armor even had a place to holster my spear on my back where it wouldn't obstruct my wings, which I immediately tested and found to be absolutely perfect.
Hey, don't hate. You ever try carrying around a spear meant for a god to use? It was fucking heavy, even if I was chosen by it.
After the blacksmiths made sure the armor was well-fitted, which it was, Freya led the three of us to a place that I couldn't believe I hadn't seen before. In the very back of Valhalla, facing towards the entrance of the massive cavern, was an air dock. No, I didn't say airport, I said air dock, and that's because these fuckers knew what the Gods intended when they gave men the idea of an "airship." Dozens of ship hulls attached to zeppelins were moored, and dozens of different creatures meandered about as they went about their business. "Mother just opened up this form of trade last year," Eir's demure voice informed me, "and many of the elder council were against it. But Mother went ahead with it anyways, and as a result we are now the second-largest port in the north. We even started working on our own airships, and I believe that is what Mother intends to show us. She always was a bit of a show-off..."
The snigger that I had building up in me at that comment was snuffed out like the butt of a spent cigarette when Freya stopped and gestured towards the ship that was coming into the dock that we were in front of before she said, "And there's the first airship of the Royal Valhallan Air Fleet, ladies and gentlegriffon." For the second time in my life, I was rendered absolutely speechless, and some distant part of my brain noted that both of my companions seemed to be as awed as I was. When Freya told me that there was an airship waiting for us, as awesome as that already sounds, she grossly undersold the magnificence of what the three of us would be flying in. We stood in star-struck awe as the ship flowed gently into place before a series of glowing tethers, emanating from a group of glowing crystals lined up along the dock, snapped out and halted the vessel in its tracks.
124 feet of gold-hued metal, seeming to glow with a soft inner light, formed the hull of a two-zeppelin airship that was the single most badass thing I had ever seen in my life. On the zeppelin balloon that I could see, two pitch-black wings erupted from a golden likeness of Celestia's Cutie Mark, which I assumed was the symbol of the nation. Some part of my brain that wasn't reeling from the sight absently noted that Freya must have some kind of fetish for the Princess of Equestria, but that part was pummeled into submission quickly so that I could enjoy the sights. I could clearly see a large number of swivel-mounted, old style machine guns, looking very similar to the Gatling Machine Guns that had been made famous in the American Civil War, mounted atop the open deck of the warship, along with two twin sets of swivel-mounted 12 pounder cannons at each end of the deck. The massive cannons were covered with metal domes that had relatively narrow slits just below where the cannon's barrels projected from the domes that covered where the firing mechanisms were obviously housed. Six slowly-rotating, massive propellers were mounted on the back of the ship, which was obviously how the vessel moved without the strange-looking sails that were present on the singular zeppelins that were attached to the rest of the airships in the dock. To give you a better picture of how awesome this thing actually was, imagine the hull of an old-style ironclad battleship, paint it gold, attach it to two Zepplins that were each longer than the actual ship, and give it the weapons compliment that I had just described. It dominated the entire dock, drawing the attention of every being on the dock no matter what their species, and I was opening and closing my mouth as I tried to think of anything to say in response to the sheer awesomeness of the sight before me.
Of course, being the master of the English language that I am, an eloquent masterpiece that will be remembered for all time erupted from my lips with all the force of a charging freight train. "Fuckin' A!" I shouted as my eyes greedily drank in the sight before me, and I wondered how in the world I hadn't noticed this fine piece of machinery before the queen had pointed it out.
"Quite an unusual expression, Skuld, but I assume that you are expressing appreciation for the Valhallan Air Fleet's first warship," Freya remarked, causing me to cough and blush heavily as I realized that I had just spat out a curse in front of royalty. She played it off better than I did, however, as she merely flexed her wings--don't ask me to describe how that looks, because until you see it it's nigh-impossible to understand-- and continued, "Then just wait. You're about to meet the people who built it, and those three are slightly more... exuberant than even this beautiful vessel."
I turned to Freya and saw that she was sporting a very satisfied smirk, before I turned to Blitz and Eir only to see them looking confused as I undoubtedly did. What could possibly be more "exuberant" than this monstrous, beautiful machine. I was only a student engineer, and not a very good one at that, but even I knew that without magic there was no possible way a metal ship this large could ever get off the ground, even with the two massive zeppelins that it was attached to. Just then, I heard a feminine voice call out in an accent that sounded alot like the one you heard in the old-timey movies from people in New York, "Get the gangplank, dear sister o' mine, 'cause we've got passengers to board!"
Even though I had never heard the voice before in my life, I recognized the accent as something very familiar and easily related to the universe that I found myself in. Why, I had no idea, but just as I began thinking about it a very similar, yet slightly different voice said, "Of course, dear sister o' mine, I'm on the job!" A metal grate began descending from a space in the deck's railing, physically connecting the stone dock with the mighty vessel that it was magically tethered to. It was covered in a rusty red, shimmering aura that I immediately recognized as Unicorn magic, and my eyes immediately shot up to the deck to seek out the pony responsible. I mean, come on, I had been transported to the world of My Little Pony, and I had yet to see a single Pegasus, Unicorn or Earth Pony my entire time here! I was just a bit excited to see my first one appear from the deck that was raised above the collective heads of my companions and I.
I was also understandably confused when the first pony that came into view at the top of the gangplank was not a Unicorn, but a chestnut brown pegasus pony with a spiked-up, dark brown mane and an hourglass cutie mark. It was obviously Doctor Whooves, but he was also one of the most strangely-dressed beings I had ever seen, let alone pony, from either reality. The good Doctor's ensemble screamed "Steampunk!" at anybody who looked at him, and though I normally considered the style to be gaudy and unattractive, this pegasus managed to pull it off with flair. A pair of bronze-rimmed goggles with several magnifying devices attached to them sat atop his head, keeping his relatively short mane swept back away from his face. He wore a dark beige sports coat with several brass buttons and chains, with a dark brown, ruffled dress shirt and striped gold-and-brown tie underneath. On his left foreleg, extending all the way up to the hock*, there was a strange device that was very obviously mechanical in nature, and so intricate that I don't think anybody could determine what it was unless they had designed it. He sported the cheekiest grin I had ever seen on any creature, and the eyes that seemed to be just a bit too big for his head sparkled with mischief as he cantered down the gangplank.
No, you read right, he CANTERED down that gangplank. Almost a Pinkie Pie-esque bounce.
"Hello, hello, Your Majesty, Lady Skuld and Herr Stalfeader," he intoned in a clearly English lilt as he walked up to each of us and grabbed out hands in his hooves and shook them vigorously in some strange twist of impossible anatomy that made my eyes bug when I saw it. He began"To those that don't know me, my name is Doctor Clockwork Whooves, but just call me Doctor, everyone does. I hope you like what we've done with the ship, aw, who am I kidding, how could you not like it, though I hope you don't mind that I still couldn't get that darn air conditioning system to work in the boiler room... ah, well, enough of that, let's go have a look-see at the V.A.F. Light of Valhalla, shall we then? All aboard that's comin' aboard, as it were," he finished just as he turned around and took off just as quickly as he had arrived, looking for all the world as if he were a toddler about to show off his newest toy.
Now that his whirlwind of motion and fast-paced speech had ended, the four of us that he had been adressing could finally take a breath and give each other looks, three of which were a very similiar "What the hell was that?" while the odd one out was a "I told you so, didn't I?"
I shrugged it off and set off up the gangplank, followed closely by the rest of those that had agreed to come with me on this voyage and trailing just behind the chestnut pegasus that had invited us on board. Freya remained behind, and as I looked back once to her I saw that her eyes were trained solely on Eir, a look of concern clear on her face where there had been only light amusement before. When we reached the deck I felt a low, almost non-existent tremor in my hyper-sensitive flight feathers, which were responsible for sensing air currents and wind direction while I flew. Still not completely used to the idea of wings, by the way, even if their use came naturally to me, but I'm getting away from the point again. It wasn't like the vibrations I got with the wind, which were intermittent when I wasn't in flight, but rather a constant hum that I believed might be from the engines. I looked back to Eir as she stepped on and saw her tense up for just a second, confirming that it wasn't just me, before I turned around again when I was satisfied that it wasn't another extra sense like the one that had alerted me to the arrival of the Fenrir.
"Welcome aboard, don't worry about that sensation in your flight feathers, s'just the boiler. Now, I've got to do a last-minute flight check before we disembark, wouldn't do to have us explode because the ammo isn't properly stored, so I'll have my lovely assistants give you the song and dance routine. And yes, before you ask, that was meant literally. Shim, Sham, the stage is yours my dears!" he called out as he gestured to our left, where I saw two unicorn mares that seemed almost intimately familiar. They were twins, that much was immediately obvious even though they each had a hoof and the brim of a top hat covering their faces. The top hats bore inverted color scheme, the one on the left wearing a white one with a red band around the cylinder portion while the one on the right wore a red version of the headgear with a white band. The coloring of the hats matched their manes perfectly, which made them stand out even more than they would have due to the muted yellowish-tan color of their pelts. They wore identical, bright red and white vests with many pockets, not nearly as fancy as Doctor Clockwork's, though around their necks hung goggles that seemed very similar to the pegasus's. They stood flank to flank in a v formation that exposed their cutie marks, which was a set of two interlocking gears for the one on the right while the one on the left bore a steam gauge.
Suddenly, a bright light shone down on the two of them from the rigging high above the deck, and though all three of us looked up to see where it was coming from I was later informed that neither of my companions had seen the source of the illumination any more than I had. Suddenly, music sprang into being from seemingly nowhere, and though I whipped my head around to try to find out who had brought an orchestra on board, I had no luck in determining the source of that mystery, either. Then, a voice started singing in a tune that nagged my mind to death with how familiar it seemed, even though I could not place it.
♫"Well lookie what we got here, sister o' mine, it's the same on every pier,"♫
The one on the right tipped her hat up to reveal bright green, sparkling eyes and a gleaming smile. I jerked back in shock at their intensity, and was about to ask what she meant when the vocalist's twin looked up and gave a sad frown, looking as though she was about to burst into tears, just before she began as well.
♫"Creatures with gaping jaws, wide eyes and so clueless it makes me shed a tear,"♫
♫"Perhaps they're not aware that there's a better way to get around?"
♫"Well then we need to teach them 'bout the new way o' getting off the ground~!"
I was very, very close to figuring out why this all sounded so very familiar, though the fact that they began performing a vaudville dance routine along with their song didn't help my concentration.
♫"Well you just got an opportunity,with this bit of serendipity~,"
♫"She's Shim!"
♫"She's Sham!"
"The Flim Flam Brothers!" I shouted out and snapped my fingers as I remembered where I had heard the tune before, too late realizing that it was a mistake as the music and dancing immediately ground to a halt. Shim and Sham turned their heads towards me in unison, a look of pure malice occupying their surprisingly expressive eyes while I suddenly found myself afraid. You'd think that rabid wolf-monsters trying to gut me would cure me of any sense of fear, but you don't understand the amount of pure hatred that was emanating from the two unicorn mares. It was like staring at demons. I looked back to get some support from my friends, only to find that they were currently moving back away from me with looks on their faces that told me I was on my own.
Some companions, right?
I looked back to find that Shim and Sham were advancing towards me in unison, the terrible glare still in place while they did so. "We came all the way to the Bergard Mountains, to Valhalla by Celestia's sun-kissed plot, to escape those thieving scoundrel's bad reputation..." Shim informed me as the twins came within just a few feet of me and stopped, looking very intimidating despite their three-foot-tall stature. Perhaps it was the angry-looking, rusty red glow that surrounded their horns, warning me that they were charged up on magic.
"And you're telling us that not only does someone know about them in this place, but it's a Valkyrie? Where in Tartarus did you hear about those crooks? Sham asked with the same amount of venom as her sister. I was starting to sweat slightly as I recognized that she must be using ponified curses, and when they both reared up and planted their forehooves on the chestplate of my armor I am ashamed to admit that a small whimper escaped my throat. I seemed to be getting intimidated by alot of females in this universe...
But enough about my emasculation.
"Well,talk!" they shouted in unison, prompting me to open my mouth and fish around uselessly for a lie that would allow me to maintain my cover as a member of this world. I wasn't sure how the ponies would react to finding out that I wasn't from their world, let alone that their world was a little girl's cartoon show in my world, and I didn't want to be the one responsible for informing them of that second tidbit.
Which was why I was immensely grateful when I heard a chipper English voice call out from behind me, "Shim, why'd the music stop? Did someone mention your brothers again?" I momentarily wondered how many times this had happened before the pair had moved to Valhalla, before the absence of hooves on my chest drew my attention back to the mares. They were both glaring at me with looks that told me this wasn't over before they turned around and began trotting over to the port side of the ship, which was facing the port.
"Not to worry, Doctor, our guests just wanted to get underway quickly, so we gave them the... abbreviated version. Sham and I'll untether the ship, so you go ahead and start guiding the old girl out," she half-lied to what appeared to be her boss as the two unicorns' horns lit up and the magical tethers began fading away from the ship. I looked back to see the Doctor giving me a knowing grin and my two friends in his wake, Eir giving me a sympathetic look while Blitz looked like he was about to burst out into laughter. I scowled at the two of them as the Doctor waved for us to follow him an began trotting to the only raised portion of the deck other than the weapons platforms, which I quickly recognized as the wheelhouse.
As soon as we were inside, the griffin immediately burst out into laughter and fell to the floor, holding one hand over his golden eyes while the other pounded the deck. "Das ist verdammt lutsig! You vere chewed out by ein pony!" he breathed out between belts of laughter, making me want to take that German accent of his and stick it right where the sun doesn't shine.
"Now, that's not very nice, Herr Blitz. They were Unicorns, after all. She would be foolish to disregard them as threats," Eir scolded him soundly as he simply redoubled his laughter, prompting the Doctor to roll his eyes and mutter something about Griffins before he trotted off to the center of the wheelhouse and took a lever in his mouth, cranking it back once before pushing it forward a very small amount. The hum of the boilers picked up and the ship began to move, rolling the laughing Griffin into a wall as those of us who were on our feet managed to maintain our balance.
I most certainly did not let out a petulant laugh at his pain as the Doctor began to guide us out of the dock, somehow managing to operate the steering wheel with his less-than-dexterous hooves and talk at his normal super-fast pace at the same time. "Word of advice, Miss Skuld, don't mention their brothers ever again. Shim and Sham Mechanica--that's their last name, by the way, they probably didn't tell you--designed all the non-apple related mechanical systems on that Super-whatsit-something-5000, and their brothers stole it right out from under them! Nasty business, that, especially after the Apple Trust got wind of Flim and Flam's little showdown in Ponyville. Their brothers made sure that their sisters couldn't make an honest living in Equestria, just because they look and sound similar! I actually met them in Bitsburg, trying to get a grant from my former college's Board of Directors for their engine designs. Oh, but enough of that, you lot should get out there and see the sights! There's nothing quite like looking at the Bergard Mountains first-hoof from an airship, I think you'll find. Go on, shoo," he said as he let go of the wheel and ushered all three of us out of the small room through the same door that we had come in from before he slammed it shut behind us.
Well, if nothing else, that pony is excellent for giving me some exposition to explain WHY I'm in such deep shit. If only he could time travel--and dimension-jump--he could probably go back and tell my past self why accepting deals from one-eyed old men was a horrible idea.
My eyes quickly adjusted to the change in lighting, and what I saw left me speechless for the second time that day. In the time that it had taken for the Doctor to lead us into the wheelhouse, explain why my mention of the Flim Flam brothers' names pissed off those mares so much, and to usher us out, we had cleared the cavern and come out into the open, sunny air of the mountains. And I was immediately made aware of why he had said that there was nothing like seeing the Bergard Mountains first-ha--... hoof. I had realized that the mountain that we were in had to be massive for the cavern that housed Valhalla to not simply collapse, but what I hadn't realized was that compared to the mountain, that gargantuan cave was barely qualifiable as a depression in the earth. The mountain seemed to stretch up into the sky for miles, so far that even if the zeppelins hadn't been in the way, I doubted I could've seen the top. It had to be at least as big around as the entire city of New York, considering the way that the mountainside stretched off almost to the horizon in both directions. As I looked left and right, I saw that we were flying through a valley that was lined on both sides with eight mountains that, while none quite so large as the monstrosity that threatened to puncture the very heavens, all put any description of Mount Everest to shame.
"I haff lived in zese mountains all of mein life," Stahlfeader said, suddenly solemn in the face of the greatest peak to ever exist in what I suspected was any universe, "und still, ze sheer size of Mount Asgard und her eight sisters... es ist erstaunlich, nein, Frauline Eir?" The Valkyrie who had inspired me to take on this quest nodded mutely, evidently just as impressed as Blitz and I, just before the vessel tilted to stern and the ship quickly turned completely around, pointing to the end of the valley where it branched off into several more, lined by mountains that were significantly smaller than the ones that made up this valley, though still overwhelmingly large, and for a moment I realized just how small I actually was, and how big the situation I had gotten myself into was.
I was fu--
Meanwhile, on a almost-empty plane of existence that was not too far removed from the one that our hero currently found himself on, two beings looked down at a very heavily mismatched chessboard. Well, I say "looked" and "chessboard", but only because the actual mechanics of what the beings were doing are impossible to put into words without taking up the entirety of the English language in explaining them. The black pieces severely outnumbered the white pieces, of which there only remained two knights, a bishop, the royal pair and two pawns.
"You send a lone mortal and a few companions against the army that I hath arrayed against you, Odin? Thou art growing senile in your old age," one of the two beings said as a black rook moved and placed the white queen in jeopardy. If our hero were to be listening in, he would immediately recognize it as the voice that had accompanied the glowing green eyes in his dream-vision after the battle. She continued, "That, or thine desperation hath grown more than I anticipated in the face of defeat."
"Perhaps, Granddaughter, though there is one thing that thou hast failed to realize during the length of our conflict," Odin responded as he moved one of his knights to take her rook, simultaneously taking the piece and placing her king in check. A growl escaped the more feminine of the two as this happened, and Odin smiled as the rook vanished from existence. "This is a chess game, dear Granddaughter. I hath never viewed it as anything but," he said calmly, "and thou hast allowed thine self to believe that this is a war. Had it been such, thou most assuredly would win with the current situation being what it is. However, chess is not about who is most aggressive, nor who is most defensive. Chess is all about the endgame."
Odin looked into the glowing green eyes of his granddaughter and smiled, knowing that his calm demeanor was driving her insane. "And thou hast been setting up my victory since the game began. Check."