//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 - The Beginning of the End 
// Story: The End of the Crusade 
// by playnwin 
//------------------------------//

        
Chapter 2 - The Beginning of the End


Still elated from the day’s events, Sweetie Belle was just now beginning to feel the inferno that pretended to be weather around Ponyville. After agreeing to a celebration for her newly gained cutie mark, Sweetie Belle had followed Apple Bloom and Scootaloo towards Sweet Apple Acres, and their clubhouse. She had assumed that that was their final destination, but Apple Bloom had taken a sharp right right before the path to their clubhouse began, and Sweetie had no clue what was this way, as she had never been that way before. A quick glance back towards Scootaloo revealed little, as the orange pegasus appeared just as confused as she.
 	Apple Bloom didn’t stop until she reached the top of the hill that they had built their clubhouse upon. At the top, awaiting the rest, with a dramatic pose and a fluid gesture, she waved down the other side of the hill.
“Huh. When did that get there?” 
Agreeing with Scootaloo, Sweetie Bell could only stare at the enormous barn that stood on the other side. Painted gold and red, this barn was huge, bigger than even the barn at Sweet Apple Acres. Running down to it, Apple Bloom stopped both of them outside, and slipped inside alone. Not long after she had gone inside, various sounds came floating from inside; the sound of power tools, hammers, fire, welding even, in unfathomable volumes and quantities. Sweetie Belle could not hazard a guess as to what the other filly was doing inside as varied and chaotic as the sounds were. Through all this chaos, Apple Bloom quickly came back outside, covered in oil, wearing a grin from ear to ear.
“Ah present to y’all,” followed by a quick whip on a nearby rope, “the biplane!” 
Inside the newly revealed barn, was a... contraption of some sort. It seemed to be mostly made of wood, with two horizontal bars surrounding a central tube. Between the bars was several ropes connecting the two, as well as sheets of fabric running along each bar. Along the central tube was a metal block connected to a piece of metal shaped sorta like a fan.
“Okaaay? I really like its... fan?”
Apple Bloom knew that Sweetie defaulted to that praise whenever she was lying, and scowled at her. “This is no ordinary machine, Sweetie! This is something new, something nopony has ever managed before. This machine allow earth ponies and unicorns to fly alongside pegasus!”
The only thing faster than Sweetie’s jaw dropping was Scootaloo’s leap into the air.
“Really? That’s AWESOME!” Flipping around a few times in the air, Scootaloo dropped down next to Apple Bloom, who was climbing into the front seat of the biplane. “Does it really work?”
“Of course it does! Ah designed it myself!” Feigning insult, Apple Bloom quickly hid her own doubts. “Ah made sure it was safe! And since today is so special, Ah decided that today Ah’d take Sweetie out on a ride with it. Ah’d take you in it too, Scootaloo, but, you know, it wouldn’t be special to you, seeing as you fly everyday. But you should come with us anyways. It’d be way more fun that way.”
Nodding in agreement, Scootaloo began to help Apple Bloom pack things into the biplane, and beckoned to Sweetie Belle to help. Eager, Sweetie rushed over to help in the preparations. While they were preparing, Apple Bloom took the time to show the other two Crusaders the plane, and name the various components. Not long after she had finished the quick lesson, they were set to go.
After adjusting a few knobs and levers, Apple Bloom turned a key built into the dashboard, which resulted in a low thrum to emit from the engine. After carefully checking the various dials and indicators that Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo couldn’t understand, Apple Bloom leapt down from the cockpit, went up to the propeller, and gave it a swift buck, being careful to quickly step back. The fan blazed into motion, the entire biplane struggling against the brakes that Apple Bloom, in light of their previous exploits, had been very meticulous while installing. Hopping back into the cockpit, Apple Bloom waved to Scootaloo, signaling her to stand back. Checking to makes sure both she and Sweetie Belle were strapped in, Apple Bloom pulled on the brake release, and with a gentle tug, moved the accelerator forward, bringing the biplane along the stone runway she had painstakingly built. 
As the plane moved down the runway, at ever increasing speeds, Scootaloo took off alongside it, pacing herself to stay right beside it. She could see Apple Bloom and Sweetie inside, the first calmly determined, the second hanging on for dear life. Scootaloo fought to stay calm as Apple Bloom pulled back of the stick, bringing the biplane off the ground and into the air, but slowly relaxed as Apple Bloom’s latest engineering marvel showed the same quality and care as all of her others had.
Sweetie Belle, however nervous, trusted that her friends would keep her safe. Once in the air, her gaze wandered, watching every which way around her, looking from horizon to horizon; she could see almost all of Equestria from their current vantage point. She had never experienced anything like it. She suddenly envied Scootaloo, being able to experience this anytime she wanted. Riding the wake of this envy was a strong surge of pity as Sweetie Belle thought of all the years the Scootaloo had been unable to fly, stricken with the fear that she may never be able to fly. It ended bittersweet, as after the long, hard years of torment, she ended up as one of the greatest fliers borne of Ponyville.
Sweetie remained lost in her train of thought and the view until Scootaloo spoke up.
“Think we should start heading back? That’s Manehatten down there; the Griffonian border isn’t too far away.”
“They still mad at ya?” Apple Bloom inquired, voice laced with amusement.
Confused, feeling left out of the loop, Sweetie Belle piped up, “What happened?”
Turning in slight surprise, Apple Bloom turned to look at Sweetie. “Ah never told you?”
Still confused, Sweetie shook her head. With a grin, Apple Bloom gestured towards Scootaloo, indicating that she would tell the story. Putting the plane into a shallow bank, Apple Bloom watched Scootaloo sigh in irritation. Pulling up a cloud to sit on, Scootaloo began her story.
“Remember last summer, around the founding of the Cloudsdale chapter of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, when we decided to get our cutie marks in business management? It was my turn, and Appleoosa had requested a legion to help with their renovation. Being Apples, they could build it easily enough, but the old structure were still standing, and the legion was to help bring down their library, hospital, and town hall for bigger and better ones.”
At this point, Apple Bloom interjected, “Why are Crusaders always stereotyped to be good at destroying things? We never get called in to help build anything.” Considering her talents in engineering, this was certainly unfair to Apple Bloom, but the other two could only wonder where the stereotype had come from.
“Anyways, due to a, erm... clerical error, the legion arrived in Griffonia, and, ummm... well, lets just say the griffons didn’t like some foreign ponies tearing down their perfectly good library. And hospital. And town hall. Eventually, Griffonia traded them with Equestria, so it turned out alright. Though Princess Luna was super mad that she had to free that group of griffon tax evaders. So, yeah, all Crusaders might be banned from Griffonia for one or two...”
“Years?” Sweetie asked. Two years was a long time.
“Centuries?” Scootaloo replied sheepishly. “We probably shouldn’t go there anytime soon, on pain of eternal night.”
Sweetie Belle’s protests of innocence were cut short by a loud bang coming from the engine and a sharp swerve from the biplane. Sweetie Belle, who had raise herself from her seat to get a better view of Scootaloo as she told her tale, was thrown violently from the cockpit, too quickly for her screams to be heard by her friends. Scootaloo swung down to fly after her, but stopped hurriedly to check on Apple Bloom. The earth pony had already grabbed a wrench and was fighting her way towards the engine block gave a curt nod to Scootaloo, who flashed off after Sweetie Belle.
Flying faster than she ever had before, Scootaloo pumped her wings for all she could, and more. She fought air resistance in the fight for speed, desperately trying to catch her falling friend. She thought of nothing but her singular goal until she felt her outstretched hooves brush what felt like a wall of air. Blinking, trying to see what obstacle she had reached, Scootaloo was surprised to see the beginning of a mach cone forming in front of her.
She had done it! She had reached the speed necessary to make a sonic rainboom! At this, a thought of her friends flashed through her mind. At this short a distance, she couldn’t risk making a sonic rainboom. It would shatter the biplane and push Sweetie even faster towards the ground. Scootaloo speeded up again, but once she ran into the sound wall, rather than push through it and rip a hole in it, she twisted her wings, spinning her around and passing through the wall of sound, rather than break it. This obstacle cleared, Scootaloo hit even faster speeds, flying through the sky, at speeds she never could have imagined. Speeds so fast that, in her determination she didn’t even notice, her speed created such friction with the air that, following in her path, was a bright streak of purple flame.
Quickly closing on Sweetie Belle, a quick flare of her wings brought Scootaloo to subsonic speeds and whirled her backwards into an upright position, where a painful collision was transformed into a graceful backflip. After a few loops, Scootaloo brought the two of them back into a normal glide down towards the ground.
Not long after Scootaloo had dashed off, Apple Bloom reached the engine compartment. A wrench in her mouth, she slid open the cover, and almost dropped it in a coughing fit brought on by the trapped smoke inside. Waving her hoof to clear the air, Apple Bloom looked forward to try to calculate how long she had to effect repairs. Current angle times the speed they were travelling at... multiply by gravity per second per second... subtract the drag coefficient... extend the arc and...
“Horseapples.” 
Of course. It couldn’t be any other place, it had to be Sweet Apple Acres. Not just one of the fields, which would be bad enough, but the main barn, which would bankrupt the Apple family. With renewed determination, Apple Bloom worked her way back towards the engine.
Looking inside, Apple Bloom saw that the cables running to the plane’s elevators and rudders had snapped, flailed around, and got caught in the pistons. Those would need to be cleared and reconnected before there was any hope of saving the biplane, and quite probably Apple Bloom with it. With the wrench, she loosened the pistons, allowing the cabled to run clear of them, before she tightened it back up again. With the cables cleared, she reached for them, and was interrupted as the now-loosened cables brought the pane into a whirling spin.
Desperate, Apple Bloom reached for the cables, and caught one. She gave it an experimental pull, and could feel the rudder shift left. Reaching for the cable that moved in response, she grabbed at it and tied it to her right hoof. Attaching the other one, she pulled on the two in conjunction, bringing the plane out of its spin. Working towards the last two cables, Apple Bloom grabbed one, and pulled it. The plane’s dive grew steeper, and she quickly dropped it, grabbed the other one, and pulled hard. Jumping out of its dive, the pressures on the pane were nearly too much for it to bear, the entire frame creaking and groaning under the stress.
Apple Bloom was thanking her luck when it turned, again, against her. Nearly level, the plane’s tail, under the immense pressure of coming out of a steep dive, bent, then broke, snapping cleanly off. Looking back, Apple Bloom could see a fire starting up, growing bigger and closer quickly. Belatedly, Apple Bloom realized that the flame was purple, but did not have enough time to consider this before Scootaloo swooped in, grabbing her from the doomed biplane.
Landing on a nearly hillside, the three solemnly watched the plane fly over Sweet Apple Acres, crashing deep into the Everfree forest. A slight sigh came from Apple Bloom, who had hoped for some salvageable materials. Immersed in the moment, not one of the three noticed the dual flashes of light, or the dual revealings of true destiny. For Scootaloo, a tri-pointed star immersed in violet flames, and for Apple Bloom, a three-pronged star with and overlayed wrench and the lightest outline of an apple behind it.