*Canterlot Castle*
It was early morning in Canterlot. She was raising the sun as her little ponies wen't about their morning rituals. Getting ready for work/school, opening shops, and just preparing for the day in general. It was peaceful this morning. As the sun reached the horizon she released it from her magical grasp and set forth the day. As she finished Luna flew beside her landing next to her sister.
"Good morning, Luna. How are you?" Celestia asked in her usual motherly tone.
Luna rubbed her head against her soft white fur. "Tis a wonderful morning dear sister. The night court was lively this time around." she looked out to the city as ponies began to fill the street. "The young Prince Blueblood was here again." she said in an unusually chipper tone for the night Princess.
Oh, here we go again. Celestia rolled her eyes. "What has he done this time Luna?" She can already feel the day was going to be long. "Did he oppose your right to rule again? I swear that nephew of mine-"
"Oh, dear no sister." Luna said slyly. Celestia quirked an eyebrow. "He was actually quite helpful this time around. It was refreshing to see. His time in the Badlands has proven to be a wise move on your part."
Celestia relaxed at this news. "How was the meeting then? Did Chrysalis agree to meet with us then?"
Celestia had actually sent the spoiled prince to the Badlands as punishment for being a royal pain in the butt, with the intentions of having Chrysalis and him meet to negotiate a truce between their kind. The attack from Lord Tirek left many nations in the world in fear and seek the aid other more powerful nations. The Griffin Kingdoms, Equestria, Dragon Hordelands, and the Changeling Empire in the Badlands. All these nations had solidified their power and military strength in hopes that no other nation would be foolish enough to challenge them. A unfortunate side effect of Twilight Sparkles rise to power and her subsequent defeat of Lord Tirek. The truth was that everyone feared the Equestrian nation and it's Princesses. If they could defeat a powerful lord of darkness what chance did they as mere mortals have?
Chrysalis was the first to jump the bandwagon to gain favor with the Princess only to have to deal with Blueblood. It was a humbling experience for both of them and now they were in agreement to have a meeting to discuss peace and integration of the changelings into Equestrian society. According to Luna anyways.
"I'm glad our nephew has grown from this experience. It will serve him well when it comes to be his time to rule along side us." Luna nodded in agreement. She placed a hoof over her mouth yawning enticing a giggle from her older sister. "I see you're tired Luna. Does this mean you won't join me for breakfast, or should I say dinner in your case?"
"Nay sister, we are tired. We shall turn in for the day until the night approaches." Luna said turning and walked away from the balcony. Celestia walked her to the doors opening them for the sleepy alicorn. "Thank you sister. I'll see thee tonight then?"
"Count on it." she said nuzzling the smaller alicorn. "I'll see you tonight Luna, sleep well."
As Luna left her chambers, Celestia went to her bed resting on several plush pillows she'd placed into a pile in the center. Using her magic, she levitated a scroll that was atop a vanity unrolling it as it floated gracefully to her. It was her latest friendship report from her student and newly appointed princess, Twilight Sparkle. She wrote about two ponies who were now close friends of hers, ponies who were wronged by society and given second chances to turn their lives around Lightning Dust and Trixie Lulamoon.
Trixie was apparently visiting and brought Lightning Dust with her when she found the pegasus homeless in the Whitetail Woods and how they became best friends. Both were pardoned by Twilight for their past transgressions and the two are integrating into Ponyville quite well. Today has just been full of surprises. Celestia thought to herself as a knocking came upon her doors.
"Enter." Celestia called out.
Three maids entered along with two unicorn guards. "You majesty." one maid said bowing to her. The others bowed as well. "We're here to begin cleaning your chambers but weren't expecting you to be here your Highness."
Celestia nodded to the ponies beckoning them to rise. "Not at all. Please carry on, I was just on my way out."
As she walked past, the maids and the two guards bowed to her not budging until she was out the door. As she headed down towards the dining hall she made a slight detour to her favorite place in the whole palace. She worked her way to the upper parts of the castle to a long hallway filled with stain glass mosaics depicting different events in Equestrian history. The one she was looking for was the most recent and thus the furthest down the fall. It was Twilight and her recent victory against Lord Tirek.
It depicted her in a fierce battle with the Lord of Destruction ultimately with her victorious. It was a day Twilight had fulfilled her destiny and truly earned her title as a Princess of Equestria. She couldn't have been more proud of her former student. Just as she was about to leave a bight light shone through the window and Celestia covered her eyes from the intense light. Suddenly the bright light flashed and was gone followed by a loud explosion as the windows shattered to pieces raining down a rainbow of shards across the hall.
"What was that?" Celestia said shaking from the sudden explosion. "I must find out!"
With a mighty leap, she took flight out the former window and took to the skies. As she flew over the castle, the explosion sound echoed off in the distance. Following the sound she turned her head to see a winged creature in the sky circling over the outer perimeter of Canterlot. Just as she was about to give chase, Luna appeared next to her by teleportation hovering next to her.
"Sister! Sister! I sensed a powerful magical presence and the loudest explosion I've ever heard! Are we under attack from the Changelings?" the younger alicorn exclaimed.
Celestia shook her head. "No sister, not the changelings. It was caused by that strange flying creature I believe." she replied to her sister pointing to the strange beast circling the city. It's roar echoing loud but steady.
Luna looked at the creature with fear and wonder. "What is it Tia?"
Celestia shook her head flying back to the castle. "I'm not sure Luna, but I want you to follow it. Make sure it doesn't attack anyone."
"Anyone?" Luna queried.
"Yes Luna, anyone. No pony or non-pony shall be harmed this day."
"Understood sister." Luna saluted flying after the creature.
Celestia took a moment to compose herself and ran off to her chambers. She wrote two letters, one to Twilight and the other to the Wonderbolts. She instructed both to meet her in Canterlot immediately. Sending them off through an open flame she took to the city to rally her guards while Luna followed the strange creature.
*PoV Lightning*
Trixie was screaming at me again. She always did when she was mad about something or anything. It's annoying. Americans can be so, strange to say the least in what upsets them. "You nearly hit that building! Don't you dare tell Trixie that you did it on purpose! Cause Trixie knows that's a bold face lie!" As my RIO I value the Trixie's opinion, but she can be a bit much when voicing her opinions.
Shaking my head I call over to her keeping an eye in the city below me.
"Lt. Commander, calm yourself!" I smashed my hand on the panel.
That did the trick. The young woman behind me stopped her rant and I finally had full concentration on what was going on around me.
"Look, I know this is all very strange but we need to focus now." I turned my head to the left seeing something small off in the distance heading towards us. The small object left a smoke trail behind but our instruments weren't picking anything up. Just then a small beep pinged on the radar and Trixie called out, startling me.
"Unidentified objects heading towards us!"
I pivoted starboard going into a nose dive as the small object split into three and scattered across the sky leaving smokey trails behind them. They were fast like missiles but these were different. The objects moved erratically, unlike missiles that homed in on a target.
Losing sight of them I was sure the danger was over, but to my surprise Trixie called out to me again.
"Targets inbound!" She yelled. "Bank left! BANK LEFT!"
I turned hard left as she instructed and two of the objects flew past us. I wasn't sure but I could have sworn one was blue with a red tip. It was a strange color scheme the other was just blue. This was really something. As I leveled off the two objects turned and in an instant were heading back towards us.
I instinctively armed the guns and fired at them making them scatter. They flew past us and circled around with seven others like them, nine in all and began to chase us.
"Trixie! Send out an emergency signal! Comm. 223!" I yelled over my shoulder.
"Roger!"
*Canterlot Radio Station*
A single ivory unicorn sat in a large room surrounded by microphones and wires. She laid back in her seat talking into a headset that had a small microphone at the end, eyeing her partner a grey earth pony with a long dark grey mane and tail wearing a similar device on her head.
The unicorn looked up to see a red light turn green, making her grin.
She leaned forward towards the mic. "Hellllooo Canterlot and all you listening in on the VO Radio!" The unicorn hollered into the mic raising her hoof in the air, hoof pumping. "This is your favorite DJ in the world, DJPON-3! Along with my great friend Octavia! Say 'hi' Octy."
"...Hello."
"..."
"..."
"...That's it?"
"Yes, why?"
"Huh, nothing, just thought you'd be more into this and all."
"Vinyl we're live." The earth pony said tapping the table.
"Oh right." Vinyl said embarrassed. "So, today is a special day everypony! I just got word that the Changelings are indeed coming to Canterlot to form peace between our two nations! Isn't that great!"
Vinyl let out a "wohoo," but Octavia looked disgusted crossing her arms frowning.
"And it seems that, Octy, here doesn't share in my enthusiasm! Come on Octy, tell us what's on your mind?"
"Changelings. Dirty changers want peace? Bah! They don't deserve it after what they did." Octavia said bitterly into the mic.
"Geez, what a real let down. Come on Octavia, surely you can understand that it's not all bad? I mean word is that Blueblood was the one who set up the meeting with Queen Chrysalis, and he claims they attacked out of desperation due to Lord Tirek or whatever his name was." Vinyl said reasonably.
But Octavia was having none of it. She scoffed at the mention of the spoiled prince. ''Heh, that arrogant ass of a prince? With her? Now there is a match made in Tartarus."
Vinyl frowned at her friends reaction. "Hey now there's no need to get all offensive Octy-"
Suddenly there was a great amount of feedback making both mares ditch their headsets as a faint voice started calling out from the speakers.
"Позвонив в любой союзной ремесла , это Стена 199!" The voice called out in a panic. "Мы под атакой неизвестных сил США и запросить инструкции!"
Octavia pulled up her headset and put it back on hearing the same voice calling out. She didn't understand it though. The voice spoke fast in a panic like something was wrong. Vinyl heard it too, but had no way of telling what was being said.
"The heck is this?"
*PoV Lightning*
I could hear Trixie repeating the same message as I flew over the city. The small objects were still on our tail and were very hard to evade. I decided then to try an d out maneuver them in the city itself. I turned the plane hard right while turning the nose into a downward spiral heading for the city below.
The objects seemed unfazed as they followed me like ducklings would their mother. I flew past the towers of glass and steel but found that several structures were part of the archaic castle. It seemed the newer buildings were a part of the castle just within. It was so backwards to me. I was so deep in thought I didn't realize I was heading for a tower until Trixie screamed in my ear.
"Lightning! Watch out you dumbass!"
I gasped, pulling back on the throttle and pulled hard on the controls sending us skyward as two of the objects flew into the stone tower below us.
"Wow, that was close!" I said looking back to see the last few objects coming at us. "Well, let's see them try this!"
*Canterlot Suburbs*
A small pegasus colt was running down the empty streets of Canterlot. The Princesses made a public order instructing everypony to stay indoors due to a large flying monster. He searched the skies looking for any signs of the monster. He could hear it roaring but couldn't see it. He flew up into the sky heading for his home. What a mistake that was.
In the few seconds he flew a shearing roar was head. He looked to his side and saw it. The face of Death. The monster.
His tiny eyes went wide as the giant monster roared flying straight at him. He let out a loud girl shriek as he shot upwards but the air forced him back down onto the monsters back. He held on as the creature swerved back and forth through the city. It flew up over his favorite hayburger stop and flew straight for a bridge. The monsters wings clipped the bridge supports and made it collapse behind it. The colt looked back to see the Wonderbolts casing the monster just as several of them were buried under the collapsing bridge. He tried to called for help but the shear amount of noise the creature made he was sure they never heard.
Just then he looked at the monster. He realized then it wasn't a creature at all. He was a top a glass dome of some sort and inside were two other creatures of some sort. One sat in front with the other in the back of the flying monster, or thing the other in the front. They wore dark green and tan suits with black oval shaped heads with no eyes as far as he could tell.
He then realized the one in the back was pointing to him several times as the one in the front looked directly above to see him. He waved giving it a weak wave when he suddenly felt the thing spin on its axis and he slid right off.
He screamed loudly as he fell not able to gain control as he fell. Just seconds before hitting the ground instead of the hard cold concrete of the street, he felt something soft and warm. He opened his eyes to see one of the Wonderbolts had caught him, he felt his wings stiffen when he realized it was Fleetfoot who was holding him, his biggest crush in the world.
She looked down to see he was awake and nodded to him silently. She then turned her focus on chasing the monster.
*PoV Lightning*
I remember flying over a building. Just seconds after I realized too late that I was heading deep into narrow streets. It was getting harder to fly here and I was running out of options. The MiG 35 was a lot of things, maneuverable in such tight quarters was not one of them. Trixie kept an eye out as the small objects refused to be evaded.
But there was a silver lining to this. Along the way we managed to lose a few of them.
"There are still seven of them! Molinya! I'm gonna try the new R-80s!" I heard her say.
But that was no good. "Negative. We won't engage unless fired upon first!" I ordered.
Just they I pulled up over a small building and rounded several corners in a large opening where several streets merged together. It reminded me of pictures I had seen of New York back home. I picked a random street and flew the plane down the narrow street. I had to spin the plane 90 degrees to fit it down the street, thankfully it was short.
Just then I heard a thunk noise from outside the plane. But I paid no mind to it, probably clipped something. Speaking of which. As I leveled off the plane once more, my heart skipped beat when I realized a two story building was now directly in my path. I pulled back on the throttle again and pulled up just barely missing it.
"BRIDGE!" Trixie screamed in my ear.
In front of me as we ascended was a large bridge. There was no way we'd clear it if we continued to pull up. Instinctively I pushed down on the controls diving just beneath the bridge, and gunned the throttle to maximum power and flew under. The MiG's wings clipped the supports making it collapse behind us.
Trixie screamed, covering her eyes no doubt, as the bridge collapse and I felt relieved to see open skies just beyond the upcoming wall. Just when I thought it was over, Trixie squealed loudly making me nearly jump out of my skin.
"Wh-what is it!?" I looked around trying to see what Trixie saw.
"It's soooooooooo cute!" I looked at my rear reflector I had put up just to see Trixie while flying.
She was pointing up at the cockpit. Looking up I saw indeed the source of her delight. A small horse like being with tiny wings was holding onto us... smiling... and waving at us nervously. It was indeed very cute.
"I hate cute things." I growled.
I twisted the controls spinning the plane on its' axis again making the cute little horse slid off and into the streets below. Trixie, in her most obnoxious fashion screamed looking back where the little guy fell.
"You are so evil! Why'd you do that!?" she hit me over the chair making me lose concentration.
"What are you doing?! Get off or you'll make me crash!" I warned her holding tight on the controls. I then realized I accidentally armed the main gun and was firing it all over the city. Finally I had enough and swatted her hands away. "WILL YOU SIT DOWN AND LET ME FLY?!" I yelled at her.
Something was wrong though. Trixie was babbling something pointing at the cockpit again before her eyes rolled in the back of her head and she fainted. I wasn't sure what caused this until turned my attention back to the front. Then I saw what happened. My view was covered in red and there was another horse impaled on the gyro sensor near the front of the nose.
Must have hit it flying over the city. i thought sadly.
True I had no sympathy for animals during combat, but this was an innocent creature probably going on with its life until its untimely death due to our being here. I wondered about this when I noticed it was wearing armor. Knight styled armor.
I pulled up over the wall keeping an eye on the horse thing as I took to the skies. I saw a large cloud formation with a rainbow colored waterfall and decided to head there. It seemed like an ideal place to hide while I planned my next move. That and I had to wait for my unconscious girlfriend behind me to wake up. The down side, she was going to be mad when she woke up.
*Canterlot*
Spitfire flew up to see the carnage the giant monster had caused. She landed on the ground lifting up her goggles slowly as she took in the view.
All around there were hundreds of dead or dying royal guards and a few civilians. The wall barricade they had built to stop it was torn apart by its breath. While chasing it, Spitfire lost six of her best Wonderbolts, and closest friend Soarin. Now the monster torn through hundreds of guards like they were nothing.
Their bodies littered the ground and walls. Their blood painted it red. Some were torn in half while others were simply obliterated. It made her sick to look at. She knew it was her job to deal with situations like this, but all the death and destruction was too much. She shook falling to her knees as a lone guard stood up from the crowd and limped towards her. He had a section of his side missing along with his left leg. Spitfire ran towards him as he fell, his armor clanking on the cold street.
She held him close and got a good look at him. He was young. Too young. He was probably just old enough to be considered a stallion by the looks of it. He coughed a few times blood drooling from his mouth. He was in pain, she could tell, but he was trying to be strong. He looked up at her and smiled.
"Ca-captain Spitfire? Is-is it really you?" he asked weakly.
"That's right private." she said looking at his rank bar. "You did well son. You did well, now let us take over."
"Aye ma'ammm."he trailed off as his body became limp.
Spiteful couldn't hold it in any longer. She covered her mouth with a single hoof still holding onto the stallion. She cried for a good three minutes before she felt his body being pulled away by the rescue squad. Fleetfoot was nearby with the colt in her arms still, watching Spitfire, but hiding the colts eyes telling him not to look.
The smell of blood lingered in the air along with the smell of burning flesh and fur. Whatever this creature was, it was powerful. Terribly so.
Finally Spitfire after recollecting herself stood up and walked over to the teal pegasus with a hard expression.
"Fleetfoot."
"Yes ma'am!" she tried saluting with the colt in her arms.
"I want you to call our reserves and the recruits from the Academy. I need a few of them for a mission."
Fleetfoot looked shocked. "Are you sure Captain? The recruits? Who could be so good at flying that you'd send them out after this thing as recruits?"
But spitfire grinned sadistically tapping her hooves together. She turned her back to her and said, "We will send the best we have. My best duo in the Academy. That monster will pay for all the death it's caused. I promise you that. Soarin..."
"Who do you wish to send ma'am?"
"Send for Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust." she ordered, walking down the street to help with the recovery.