“Come on… bring the stabbiest of stabs…” Floydien hissed, his fuming muzzle casting condensation across the dashboard of the Noble Jury’s cockpit. “Nancy Jane and Nancy Jane’s beloved have much bark spark to impart.”
“There’s no telling what kind of a mess the battlefield will be once we get there, Mr. Floydien,” Ebon said as he stood next to Eagle Eye and Pilate in the rear of the cockpit. “I’d strongly suggest against firing blindly on whatever we see once we reached Seclorum’s airspace.”
“Fire with what?” Eagle Eye squinted curiously at Ebon. The ship rocked through turbulence as it sped the ponies southeast through the cold chill of night. “Floydien’s ship here doesn’t have any armaments.”
“For real?” Ebon raised an eyebrow. “I would have figured we had a cannon or two…”
“Only gun is sailboat boomer’s nostrils after Floydien kicks his teeth into his sinuses for breaking Floydien’s concentration!”
“Whoahhhhh!” Ebon Mane waved his forelimbs, leaning back. “We’re all on the same side here, remember? Threaten death on me once I’ve deserved it, okay?”
“Too much spit for one hemisphere,” Floydien muttered. “Flip the skies light-ways and fill the the firmaments then!”
“What do you even have to concentrate on?” Ebon gestured towards the starry expanse beyond the dashboard. “It’s been nothing but smooth sailing so far! I bet all the Ledomaritan zeppelins are on the east end of the front!”
“It would be like the Queen’s army to put all of their strongest units forward.” Eagle Eye shuddered. “One fatal blow, and the most elite of Ledomare is kaput.” He glanced aside at his friends. “Tomorrow could be the last sunrise for the Confederacy.”
Silence.
“Good… g-good riddance, right?” Ebon Mane remarked.
“Mr. Mane…” Pilate sighed.
Ebon shrugged. “I can’t be the only pony thinking that! I mean, at least with this country finally kicking the bucket, we won’t have ponies chasing after our tails with eternal bloodlust!”
“Once a boomer stabs, he stabs for life,” Floydien grunted, his antlers sparkling.
“Yeah, but, you gotta admit, it’ll be smooth sailing once we’re rid of this horrible continent and its stupid war.”
“If Rainbow’s legacy is a testament of anything, Mr. Mane, it’s that the world brings trials and tribulations in many different forms, and none of them are anywhere near predictable.” Pilate glanced aside, his plate of runes flickering. “It’s best that we not obsess over a destination and simply work on the nature of the journey--” Every rune locked together in a continual glow, and the zebra teetered forward in pain. “Unnnngh!”
“Pilate!” Eagle gasped. With swift telekinesis, he lifted the zebra back and sat him on his haunches.
“You okay?” Ebon rested a hoof on his shoulder. “Your head kind of went… all ‘flashy’ just then.”
“I… I-I’m not sure…” Pilate seethed through clenched teeth. “O.A.S.I.S. just… overloaded right then.”
“Your head could handle that?”
“Of course!” Floydien barked, not bothering to look back. “Striped boomer’s skulliest in the clonk department!”
“Is it still acting up?” Ebon asked, nervously grazing a hoof along the plate across the zebra’s head. “You seem to be breathing easier.”
“Because I don’t feel as though my skull is on fire,” Pilate muttered, nevertheless rubbing the side of his head with twitching ears. “Spark almighty! What in blazes was that…?”
“Perhaps your leyline is losing connection with the entanglement?” Ebon asked.
“Impossible…” Pilate stood back up, albeit warily. “This felt like a spell gone wrong. I imagine it’s what a unicorn would feel when magic backfires--” He froze in place. He tilted his head towards the others.
Eagle’s violet pupils shrank. “Josho…”
“Is…” Ebon leaned forward. “Is he sending you a message?”
“Hard to tell.” Pilate’s face tensed in concentration. “Over the past twenty-four hours, I’ve been… losing touch with him. I assumed at first that it was because he was performing more teleportation jumps, or that he had crossed a greater distance than our mutual entanglement would allow. But, I can’t shake the feeling that something is… stale.”
“Stale?”
“On h-his end. As if Josho has entered a state of static motion. Feels like eating week-old bread and not feeling whole.”
“But, if that was the case, what just happened right there with your--?”
“Gaaaugh!” Pilate reeled again, this time colliding with the wall of the cockpit.
“Hey!” Floydien grunted. “Be kind to Nancy’s throat!”
“Pilate, what’s wrong?!” Eagle Eye held Pilate once more. “Is it happening again?”
“Yes…” Pilate winced. “And stronger this time.”
“Then s-sever the connection!” Ebon Mane exclaimed, leaning in to nudge Eagle Eye. “Like everypony says you did back in Foxtaur!”
“And lose track of Josho?!” Eagle Eye retorted. “He’s depending on us too, y’know!”
“But if it’s taking such a toll on Pilate--”
“No… No!” Pilate held a hoof out, panting as he silenced the cockpit. He stood up, brushing himself off. “Just… just give me air.” He gulped. “I need to concentrate. I… I think this is a message…”
Ebon and Eagle Eye exchanged glances. They gawked at the zebra. “What kind of a message?”
“Uhm…” Inside the metal world beneath the Eastern Front, a Ledomaritan soldier trotted into a group of huddled equines, all staring at the edge of the golden plateau. “What… is he doing?”
“Shhhh…” A nurse held a hoof before her lips, all the while staring at the obese pony seated before them. “He needs concentration.”
“Concentration to do what?” The stallion balked. “He’s capped just like the rest of us! That horn is useless!”
“It does not do just magic,” a Xonan remarked, craning his tattooed neck to get a better look. “A different spirit it has, full of hopefully and purposing.”
All the while, Josho sat on folded legs, his eyes squinting as he leaned his head forward. The metal material on the end of his cap glistened from the distant shelling above. He took deep breaths, his facial muscles tensing and untensing as he murmured in quiet little spurts.
“Come on… come on…” He gritted his teeth. “Feel the tug. Get a clue, Mr. Black-White-and-Egghead all over. I need a hoof and in the most bromantic way…”
The ponies simply watched in stunned amazement.
Josho barked, “Stop crowding around me! You’re making me smell my own body odor!”
Nervously, they backtrotted, giving him breathing room.
Pilate jolted, clenching his teeth. “Th-there it is again…”
“You okay--”
“No, I mean yes. It’s fine.” Pilate stood up straight, though he still winced from time to time. “If the books I’ve read are of any indication, I’m experiencing Acute Manafeedback Nausea.”
“Wh-what?” Eagle Eye made a wretching face. “But that’s impossible! You’re not a unicorn! Only ponies with magical horns experience A.M.N.” He blinked. “Or… y’know… unicorns who’ve lost their horns and… f-feel phantom nerve sensations…”
Pilate slowly nodded. “I’m quite aware of the symptoms, Eagle. Belle describes them to me all the time.”
“But how can Pilate be feeling them?”
“I don’t think it’s my senses at play here,” the zebra thought aloud. “But rather, a mutual friend of ours.”
Eagle Eye did a double-take. “Josho?” His jaw dropped harder. “Josho’s lost his ability to use magic?”
“And I’m the one suffering from the feedback, because I’m attached to his same leyline.”
“So, why’s it acting up now, all of the sudden?” Ebon asked.
“Josho must be trying to do a powerful magic spell,” Eagle Eye said.
“Not necessarily.” Pilate paced about in thought across the cramped cockpit. “He could be attempting a very basic spell, or maybe trying to teleport. The fact of the matter is--now, for some reason--I’m feeling it every time he attempts his mana-summons.”
“You think he knows that it’s having this effect on you?” Ebon asked.
Pilate stroked his chin. “Hmmm… it would be a feasible way of communicating something.”
“Communicating what?” Ebon remarked.
“That…” Eagle Eye bit the end of his lip. “That the old stallion needs our help? Somehow?”
“But what can we do?” Ebon exclaimed. “We’re still miles away!”
Pilate stopped rubbing his chin. His ears twitched in thought. “Perhaps it’s time that I perform my very first unicorn spell…”
The other stallions looked at Pilate as if he was on fire.
“The hay are you talking about?”
“I think it’s best that I explain it to Eagle Eye and Eagle Eye alone.” Pilate turned in the general direction of the unicorn. “Well? You think you’re up for saving your portly companion’s life?”
“Depends. Is he gonna owe me for it?”