I was shocked at the fact that I was seeing ponies swimming around the cove, but the fact that they were seaponies was even more amazing. Sure I had read stories about them in Equestria, but there was no evidence that they were actually real. I turn to the Admiral to see him grinning at me as if he expected my reaction of surprise. “So are you going to explain what this is all about or am I going to have to guess why there are seaponies swimming around here?”
He starts laughing as I while I glare at him, though I can’t hold that face long so I just shake my head at him until he finally starts explaining. “They are the surprise that I told you about before lassie, and the reason why we were never caught by any of the kingdoms in the seas we raided. True the ponies chased us away from our homeland, but the seaponies were never affected by whatever changed the others and in fact helped us escape. Since then they escorted our ships around and played scout for us in exchange for many of the things we made. So, think that they will come in handy with this war you are dragging us into?”
I shake my head though I am smiling about all this since it is a better surprise than I expected. “Well it sure is a surprise, but I bet that the princesses will be even more surprised to see them show up out of nowhere. I’m assuming that there is a reason that they’ve stayed hidden from the world all this time?” I raise an eyebrow questioningly at him as he chuckles and towards the frolicking amphibious ponies.
He waves out at one of the brightly colored ponies, who starts swimming over towards us on seeing him. I observe as the mare swims towards us and take in her yellow coat and lavender mane. As she gets closer I notice that her eyes are the same color as her mane and I’m surprised to see a horn rising from her forehead. Strange, none of the tales I’ve read say anything about there being a unicorn variety among the seaponies.
Once she gets near us the Admiral turns back to me again. “Princess Flarenza, I would like you to meet Sea Star, group leader of our escorts on the way here from the islands. Sea Star, this is that lassie I’ve been telling you about that has finally brought us home.” I lift a paw to wave at her and am surprised when she surges out of the water onto the docks and looks me right in the eyes and speaks in a voice too adorable for the annoyance behind it.
“Well it’s about time we finally see one of you royals around. Do you know how long we’ve been waiting for you to get off your tails and leave that stupid portal so we could go home ourselves?” I open my mouth to reply but am brought up short when I realize that her posterior was no longer like that of a fish, but of a regular pony now. Well I guess that would be one reason why they were never seen if they were around Equestria, though I wonder if it’s just the unicorn types or if all of the seaponies can change like that.
I shake myself out of my musings enough to give her my full attention again. “I’m sorry that our disconnection from the world caused you such problems, but I never even knew you were real until just now. Granted I do agree with you in that it has been too long since we had been away from the world and should have gone home long ago.” She continued to glare at me for a while before she finally nods and leaps back into the ocean once again.
I turn towards the Admiral and raise an eyebrow at him over what just happened. He looks at me with a grin before patting me on the shoulder as he walks back towards the portal. “She must really like you to let you off with just a nod, lassie. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to her eventually. Now let’s go find the General so we can figure out what is going on with this war.”
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It turns out that the unicorn types were the only ones that could transform on land and with how rare they were there wasn’t much extra help from them for the war on land. Luckily Aurora had brought in some figures from the front recently which gave us an idea of what we were up against as well as what the Equestrians had on their side. The problem was the numbers weren’t looking good as they were outnumbered four to one and reinforcements would only bring it down to three to one.
I was glad that the representatives of the diamond dog clans were willing to help us with the war. It turns out that the memorial service was enough to convince many of them of my sincerity of what happened, and the unsure ones just didn’t want to be left out in case I was telling the truth. With their numbers it mad the odds a little better, but our side would still be outnumbered by nearly two to one during the battle so more extreme measures were going to be needed.
While most of the kitsune were dealing with making the castle and coastal town more comfortable during the winter months, I had a select few helping me create firearms for the ones crewing our ships during the attack. Using gems as the propelling mechanism for the weapons made it where we could more easily create ammo for them, and even made a few special rounds out of gems. Luckily their armor was up to par already as I had been working on that during our last war.
With all of that, as well as my own special toys I was making I had little time for anything else beyond the rare visit to Twilight for updates. My guards were busy training during this period as well, and Rose was out in the Everfree hunting down the timberwolves, especially those four guarding the stone now that I had the location from my map. I was able to squeeze in a bit of time every night to read up on the history of Equestria that I had missed while I was gone.
What I read really made me want to slam my head into my table as the princesses really had some issues after I left. I had already heard much of Twilight’s problems with her golem experiments but that was only the tip of the iceberg it seems. Since I was reading through her personal copy I got information that wasn’t in the normal books but I didn’t expect her, as well as Cadence, to have dabbled in necromancy. Luna stopped Twilight early, but Cadence’s isolation up in the Crystal Empire meant they were too late to stop her from raising an army of undead. From the notes in the margin I pieced together that they had lost it a century or two after the deaths of their friends and family and were looking for a way to bring them back.
The civil war was mostly the fault of Celestia as she had been ignoring the problems that had gone on between the pony tribes for so long and it only then came to a head. It was only through the efforts of Luna and Selene that they were able to keep the earth and pegasus tribes from breaking away as well as the few loyal unicorns. Even after it was all over the unicorns that were involved in the revolt were allowed to leave in peace which led to the problems with the current war.
There were many other minor incidents over the years as well, but nothing too noteworthy that would help me out. I had an idea that could help even the odds with the war but it would have to wait until I got to the front to try and implement it. Going over everything I had done to prepare as well as what we were up against I let out a sigh. “All that there is left to do now is wait and hope that everything will turn out for the best. I just hope that we can handle anything unexpected that gets thrown at us since they are using darker magics.”
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Spring was finally arriving meaning that the time for what could be the final battle was soon to arrive. A fleet of twenty-five ships had set sail already and were estimated to arrive around the time that I made it to Manehatten myself. Rose should also be there with whatever she had been able to gather from the Everfree and, while I couldn’t see how many timberwolves she found, I could feel a sense of gloating from her down the magical link between us. I was now waiting at the train station with Twilight for it to get pick me up for the trip to the warfront.
Twilight was mostly healed now, but she was still not done with the therapy needed for her to use her wings at full strength, so I was going alone since Selene was essentially protecting Celestia. “Too bad you couldn’t come with me Twilight. It would have been just like old times again when we were traveling all over the place. Of course if you still do things now like you did back then you’d probably go overboard with your magic creating another problem again.”
Twilight looks at me oddly for a moment before answering. “Hey, I’ve gotten better about using magic for everything, but what do you mean by causing another problem by going overboard?” I glance at her before motioning back towards the Everfree Forest with a paw. “Back when you fought with Tirek you both used a huge amount of magical energy which reshaped the landscape. What you didn’t know, and I found out while I was gone, is that using too much magic in an area can cause some unintended effects. Luckily in this case the Everfree and my home soaked up most of it and you saw the effects from that. If that didn’t happen then anything could have happened, even warping reality to something even Discord would admire.”
Twilight winces when I say this while I continue. “It really explains a lot about why Celestia rarely uses her magic and when she does she is careful about how much she uses. Luna is an exception when it came to the undead as the magic used to counter them negates each other, leaving little contamination of the area around it.”
I glance over at Twilight to see her writing this all down and I chuckle at how she never changes. Once she finished writing down the little I said she looks back up at me expectantly. “Once this is over you and me are going to have a long talk. You’ve found out so much that I’ve never heard about before and it’s just not fair. I’m supposed to be the one that knows everything about magic, not you.” Her pouting at me looks cute like it always did and I just pat her on the shoulder.
Looking up I see the train approaching and I decide to leave Twilight with something to annoy her until I get back. “How about this for an idea, Twilight? Once this is all over I’ll let you borrow a few books from the Sionnach library that we managed to save when we evacuated. I made sure that everything that wasn’t recreational or historical was saved first.” Twilight’s ears perked up at the mention of the library and she turned her head towards me in shock as the train pulled up.
“Wait, you have an entire library and you never said anything to me? You have to let me see it Flarenza, where are you hiding it?” I laugh at her reaction as I climb onto the train and find my seat. As the train starts to pull away Twilight is following my window along the outside shouting at me. “Flarenza! Tell me!”
I laugh to myself as I watch her fall behind as the train picks up speed and I wonder if I might have been a bit cruel to the kitsune back at the castle. While Twilight would be focused on the library instead of worrying now, I wouldn’t put it past her to trek all the way out there and start interrogating them for the location of the library. Of course it’s not like I really hid it when I used the perfectly good library room that was already there and came with a few, if faded, protection spells already.
Since it’s going to be a while until we get to Manehatten I decide to do a sweep of the train for changelings. As an extra precaution I throw on my cloak to keep my identity hidden in case there are any. From what we can tell we successfully kept my kingdoms involvement a secret from the other side so we had a huge advantage if it was true. As I moved through the train I went over the tentative plans we had already laid out.
It turned out that they did a rather good job of sweeping for changelings as there were none on board. Since there was nothing else to do I spent my time up near the front of the train with the commander of the pony reinforcements. While he was officially the leader of the reinforcements, I was tasked to make sure that the train made it through safely. In fact the commander was the only one that officially knew of the fact that if anything happened that I was in command.
It was a good thing that we were expecting trouble on the way as that was exactly what we got when we neared Manehatten. “So ma’am, what are your orders for dealing with that thing?” I examined the airship hanging under its balloon that was dead ahead and obviously blocking the path of the train. Blowing it out of the sky would be the easy way to deal with it, but that would be a sure way of warning the enemy that there was a major threat on board. “Tell whoever is running this train to pour on as much speed they possibly can without putting us all in danger. I’ll shield the train from attack while you have everyone else at the windows ready to keep any gryphons from boarding.”
The commander looks unsure but still nods and heads off to do as I asked. I climbed up to the top of the train and, after adhering myself to the top of the car, started projecting a spell to shield the train. After my experiences before with trying to block firearms I made sure to angle the shield this time so that it deflected the rounds instead of blocked them. I also made sure that it didn’t stop anything from going outwards from the train so that the ponies could fire out if they needed to.
Soon the airship disgorged its compliment of flyers as it turned to aim its cannons at the train. Extending my senses I wasn’t surprised to find that the ship had a large number of protective enchantments on it, but I actually was surprised when I found that this wasn’t true for everything on it. “Did they really not protect the most dangerous thing on that ship from magic? Could they really have been that stupid or egotistical?”
I check again and find that I wasn’t imagining things at all; they actually forgot to protect the ammunition for their cannons from spellcraft. “It’s like they want me to just destroy their ship so that it looks like an accident.” I grin as I reach into the bags I had brought with me and pull out a couple signal fireworks and rig them in a way so that the second will fire off just before the first blows. “Well if they want me to take it out that bad I guess I should oblige, and I won’t even have to use too much power either.”
As the airships opens fire on the train and I feel the cannon fire get deflected of my shield I form a small ball of fire encased in a small barrier which I attach to the second rocket. I take aim and let the first rocket fire as I subtly guided it with telekinesis to where I wanted it to go. The gryphons dodged out of the way as it flew, and didn’t look twice at it even when the second on fired off towards their airship. I smile as I felt the ball of flames land right in the middle of the stack of ammo and I release the shield around it with spectacular results.
Many of the gryphons turned in shock when a giant explosion erupted from the airship which spread to the balloon’s canopy, overloading the fire repelling enchantments. From there the ship was impossible save as it started falling towards the ground trailing flames and debris. While the gryphons were distracted by the loss of their ship the ponies were using that to pick of them off as we roared by in the train. Seeing as the worst of the threat was over, I climbed back down into the train once again to meet with the commander.
“Well that went better than I expected, you’ll be happy to know that they were dumb enough not to protect their ammunition from being sabotaged with magic if you can get anyone up on their airships.” The commander just shakes his head before saluting to me with actual respect in his eyes this time. With this obstacle out of the way I made my way back to my seat for a short nap before we arrived in Manehatten.
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Manehatten had really changed over the years since I had last been here, and not just because of the war. The city had obviously grown since then and it showed in the fact that some of the buildings had nearly doubled in size. Back then the highest a building got was maybe to thirty stories, but I counted nearly twice that on the tallest of them. If the weather hadn’t been let to run wild lately then I think some of the buildings would have been above the clouds.
While the rest of the reinforcements were being taken to their posts to defend the city, the commander and I were heading towards the tallest building at the center of the city. At the top we were told was the where Luna and Cadence were commanding the battle from. The building was heavily defended with guard checkpoints on every floor so it took us nearly three times what it should have to get to the roof.
As we reached the roof I saw a large tent that was probably Luna’s idea given her preference for more traditional styles at times. What caught my attention though was the fact that a changeling was standing guard which would explain much of why things were going badly. I sigh and throw up a shield preventing it from communicating with the rest of its kind as we were waved into the tent.
Inside we found Luna and Cadence speaking with their generals, one of them, a white unicorn with blonde mane, which looked familiar. I had been told that the Bluebloods were still around, and I was assuming that this was one of them. The entire tent looked up as we entered and the commander saluted the princesses. “Your Royal Highnesses, I’m the commander of the reinforcements from Canterlot to report in as well as escort, as your sister put it, a special surprise.”
They all look at us oddly before Luna looks towards me with a raised eyebrow as I step forward. “Before I say anything may I take care of the changeling outside that is posing as one of your guards?” I watch as Luna’s other eyebrow shoots up before a smile graces her lips, while Cadence looks a bit angry. “Of course you may.” At Luna’s words I turn towards the entrance and use my magic to drag the disguised changeling inside. He struggles when he realizes he is caught and even more after I dispel his disguise to the gasps of the generals.
“You know I’m getting a bit tired of finding you creatures doing things to hurt my friends. Maybe it’s about time that I live up to the name your kind has given me until you leave them alone.” With that I lower my hood revealing my form to the room which increases the panic of the changeling. To really sell the message I use my magic to amplify the creatures feeling of fear until it become blind terror and I let my magic leak from my eyes making them look as if they were aflame.
“So am I going to have to hunt down every one of your kind until there are none left or are you finally going to smarten up and leave?” The changeling is screaming in absolute terror as it tries to escape my grasp. I let it go and it streaks out of the tent and takes off flying away from the city, screaming the entire time. Looking around I notice more changelings fleeing the city, and I think I may even see a few leaving the enemy encampment in the distance as well.
Turning back to the others in the tent I find them staring at me in shock and confusion, though Luna has a smile on her face. “What, may I ask, was that all about? And who would you be?” I turn to the stallion that I was presuming to be of the Blueblood family who asked the question. “That would be about five hundred years of a changeling tale of terror being amplified enough that it flooded back along the link to the rest of its kind. I’ve learned long ago that not only do they feel and feed off of emotions, but used correctly they can be manipulated by them. As for your other question, I am the leader of the real reinforcements that are now waiting to launch a counterattack.”
The room went into an uproar at my comment, some in disbelief though most just wanting to know what I was talking about. I look over at the princesses with a grin as they just shake their heads at me until Luna clear her throat. “Excuse me generals, if you’d all excuse us we would like to speak with our friend privately. We’ll call you all in once we know the situation.” I’m surprised that she sounds so calm about this, but she always was more of a warrior than her sister so she was in her element at this time.
Once the tent had cleared Luna turned towards me with a smile as her calm appearance changed to one of gloating. “Ha-ha! I told my sister that you were still alive and that we would know that if something happened to you it would involve a lot of collateral damage and not you just disappearing.” She starts dancing around a little while Cadence and I just watch her, both of us shaking our head. While Luna is busy going on about her little victory, Cadence takes over for now.
“We’ll have to catch up on all that happened to you later, but what did you mean by you being the leader of the real reinforcements? Does it have something to do with why you are wearing a crown?” I had really gotten too used to wearing this thing as I had once again forgotten about it until someone else pointed it out. Of course Cadence’s question caught Luna’s attention as well as she stopped bouncing around to look at me.
“Yes the crown is part of the reason as Luna would know, if she remembers at least. While I was gone I married into the royal family of Sionnach, unintentionally mind you, and I’ve led as many as I could back to our home in the Everfree. Much of what happened will have to be explained later, but in the end I’ve essentially inherited and army.” I tried to avoid saying much about what happened, but Cadence must have sensed something as she swept me up in a hug. I was able to hold back the tears as the past months had allowed me some time to heal, but the pain was still there and I realize that she also would know of the pain of losing a husband. Of course Luna chose that moment to speak up again surprising me with what she said.
“So our old ally that we were tricked into driving away is finally coming home again. Tell me, what of Lord Inari and Lady Ogitsu? Are they still well?” I break away from Cadence to stare at Luna with my mouth open in shock. I recover and shake my head at her sadly which causes her expression to fall. “I see.”
I sighed and knew that at I had to at least tell her a bit about this. “I guess you found out about what actually happened back then. Somehow I’m not surprised since you never did treat me as badly as your sister, yet you always seemed sad around me.” I look over to see Luna nodding sadly as I sigh. “They created a small pocket world to keep their subjects safe, but they did it in a way that meant that they could never leave it. So when a war drove us out they were left behind. Lady Ogitsu did entrust a message with me to deliver to you and your sister. They forgive you for what happened.”
Luna gets a sad smile as I relay the message, while Cadence is looking at me oddly for some reason. I decide to ignore it for now, even when she gets one of those creepy grins that I remember her getting so long ago. “But for the important news we should probably step outside so that you can point out the important targets for me.” Luna’s eyebrow rises at this but she nods as we leave the tent. I lead them over to the side of the building that has a few of the harbor and the enemy fleet blockading it. I count near a hundred ships of metal out there and from what I’ve heard they are crewed by the non-griffon races for the most part.
I pull out one of the communication gems that I had and glance towards the mass of fog that was rolling in before turning towards the princesses. “I’ve heard that the enemy has a couple ships out there that are full of prisoners. Do you know which ones they are yet or has the enemy been able to keep that information a secret?” Luna looks towards the fog that I glanced at and did a double-take before squinting at it. While she was distracted Cadence responded to my query.
“Those two in the far back are where they are keeping our subjects. I can feel the fear and pain from the crystal ponies that they have there.” I raise an eyebrow as I hadn’t known that she had that kind of ability but it did make sense considering what she could do with love. I raise the gem up closer to my face and speak into it.
“Did you catch all of that, Admiral?” The crystal flashes three times in confirmation as I see Luna’s eyes widen and they glisten with tears. “Then you and our allies free them tonight before driving off that fleet. Show them why the Sea Dog Pirates are the rulers of the ocean.” Cadence’s eyes widen at this while Luna turns towards me.
“I know the magic being used in that fog. Is it true? Can they really be back again?” I smile slightly as I nod to her before she turns back towards the sea. “I can’t believe it, after all this time the seaponies were protecting the ones that we couldn’t.” Her eyes harden as she turns back to me and Cadence once more. “It has been so long since we were all broken apart, yet finally our kingdoms are together again and nothing has been able to stop us when we were one. What other surprises do you have for our enemy? Did you manage to bring the diamond dog packs over as well?”
I nod as I move over to the other side of the building too look over the army preparing to invade the city. “As well as a few other surprises to even the odds a bit. I just need to know where to direct them, preferably towards wherever the enemy spell casters are.” I squint as something catches my eye in the enemy army and my eyes widen. “Is that an Ursa Major I see? How in the world did they manage to get one of those under their control?”
The two princesses come up beside me to look over the enemy while Cadence points off to the side opposite it. “They took her child and are forcing her to fight for them. They have all their magic users in the area around it as a precaution, so getting close enough to free it has been impossible.” Her eyes widen as the implications of what I had brought with me come to her. “But if you have an army of diamond dogs that doesn’t matter since they can come up right under them through and defenses.”
I smile and pull out a second gem and relay the target information to Butch and Cassidy, who were leading packs in my stead. Turning back to the princesses I smile as they actually look hopeful about the coming battle. “So should we call your generals back and let them in on all of this so they can plan on how to take advantage of it? I’d also like to know where you want me to be to support in the attack. Nothing is going to keep me out of the fight this time.”
Luna was about to say something before Cadence interrupted her with a worried look on her face. “Should you really be out there fighting in your condition?” I look at her wondering what she is talking about and the confusion must have been apparent on my face. “You mean you didn’t know? Didn’t you realize that you aren’t just supporting yourself right now?” I have no idea what she is talking about but Luna seems to catch her meaning.
“Wait, are you saying the she’s pregnant?!” My mouth drops open when she says this as I do my best impression of a fish. The two princesses look at me worriedly before I finally come up with a response. “I’m WHAT!?”