Chapter Two
Greybled leaned on a guidepost, breathing heavy. Some of his pursuers didn’t let off him for a mile after he ran out of New Trot. They all thought he broke the vendors arm on purpose. That stupid pony shouldn’t have touched him. The half-unicorn scolded himself for still considering ‘them’ ponies. After all, he left the hive to become one of them.
When someone looked at Greybled, all they would see is another pony with a grey coat and a strange metal gauntlet covering his right foot. Only he and the hive knew, that under the metal, he hid the only part of his body that was without any doubt ‘changeling’. A leg with a black carapace and holes in it. He already thought of an explanation, should somepony ask about it.
Another, smaller giveaway were two scars, hidden under his fur. When he asked his mother about them, she said he was born with crippled changeling wings, which could never take him of the ground. The royal medic advised her to remove them and she complied and personally ripped them off. Greybled didn’t remember any of that, for it was shortly after he was born. One of the worker drones once told him, that the queen just ripped them out because she was furious that he looked so much like a pony, but that drone may as well just tried to get under Greybled’s skin. So he chose to believe his mothers side of the story.
The changeling hybrid finally had caught his breath and looked at the sign, which stood between the Y-junction he was currently at. One arrow pointed towards a place called ‘Appleloosa’ and the other pointed to ‘Dodge Junction’.
The map of Equestria, he studied back in the hive, had neither of those places on them, so he decided to just take the dirt road to Dodge Junction. He hoped he’d find some way to travel from there, to the other side of the country, for free... he was in trouble.
***
Artemis was walking through the air-harbor district of the empire. 20 minutes ago he said good bye to his mother and sister. They were both brought to tears by his departure.
Shining Armor insisted on seeing him off at the ship. Some of the ponies turned their heads to watch, for they had never seen royalty this close, but no one dared to talk to them. A few bowed in respect and others weren't even aware of their presence. The less commotion the better.
On pier 14, a rustic looking airship was towed to the landing platform by 6 thick ropes, 3 on each side. The hull looked old, but well cared for, no splintered wood or big cuts, like some of the other vessels had. There was one row of cannons, looking out from holes in the side of the ship and one row on the deck. Artemis began to count the cannons as his father interrupted.
“This is a Crystal Frigate, my son. It has 8 cannons on each side. By todays standards, that might seem petty, but when it was built, there was nothing in compare. Ponies back then feared, they would offend the windigos if they built bigger ships.”
He pointed to the balloon on top of the airship, “The balloon is filled with galian, a gas that can only be found in the crystal mines of the Empire. It floats just like helium or hydrogen, but it adds an enhancement to speed and acceleration of the ship. Nopony knew why, until your aunt Twilight found out that the galian gets infused with crystal magic, while stored in the mines.”
“You know a lot about airships, did you ever serve on one?” Artemis curiously asked.
“10 years ago, I was leading an armada of 20 ships against the bandits of the snow-gryffon tribe.” Shining’s eyes looked upwards as if he tried to remember something. “That was also the first time, I came in contact with your new captain, but back then he was just a navigator”.
As Shining Armor finished his story, Captain Barding was trotting over to them at a medium pace. He was even rougher looking without his parade uniform. Now he just wore a captains hat with golden olive branches and the inscription 'C.S. Temeraire'.
Barding stopped in front of Shining and saluted, completely ignoring Artemis. The prince regent, happy to see his old friend, gave him permission to loosen up by declaring, “At ease, soldier”.
The captain dropped his stance and started talking like a normal pony, “So you really did it?”
Shining raised an eyebrow, not catching Bardings drift “What?”
“You persuaded Cadence to let her precious little boy go” He said, clearly taunting.
“I am not little” Artemis butted in, as manly as he could muster.
Captain Barding dropped the smile and nearly shouted, “Talking without permission?! And no ‘Sir’ at the end of the sentence?! I hope you like toilets, because I sense you will be cleaning lots of them!”
Artemis mouth stood open and he tried to form a sentence, “But, but... you said, to be casual when not on a ship” Barding's glaze hardened “...Sir!” the colt added quickly.
“When wearing this cap,” he emphasized by tilting his head a little, “I am your captain, your first commander, and even, your god, do you understand sailor?”
“Yessir!” Artemis replied, standing at attention like he learned in the military academy.
Barding turned back to Shining Armor, “Is there anything else?”
“No, just make sure he comes home with both wings on his back.” Now it was his turn to say his farewells. He embraced Artemis for a few seconds and told him to be brave, do as he was told, and that he was proud of him.
His son tried his hardest to stay cool, he knew that sailors were machos and he couldn’t afford to cry in front of them. So he just gave a silent “goodbye, dad” and looked back at the ship, only his slightly wet eyes betraying his inner turmoil.
His new captain once again saluted Shining Armor and addressed his first order to Artemis, “Follow me”.
***
Greybled woke up when the sun was setting. He reached viewing distance to Dodge Junction in the early morning hours, but decided to enter at night, to avoid as much attention as possible. The city was still busy, even after sunset. In most of the four story apartment buildings, electrical lights illuminated the windows. Airships glided overhead.
The grey half-changeling saw an apple salesman who was distracted by an undecided customer. At the sight of the apples, Greybled took advantage of the situation. He powered his horn and three of the golden delicious were covered in a faint green aura and started rolling down the vendor’s stand. They didn’t hit the floor, as they floated a few centimeter above the floor. The hybrid leaned down a little, letting the fruits gliding on, directly inside his right saddlebag. Quickly, he closed the bag and took a look around, but nopony seemed to notice his act of thievery. He didn't waste another thought about the salesman.
The apples triggered euphoria in Greybled, for he had finished all his supplies the day before. Greybled walked to a dark sideroad, ducked out of sight of the main road behind a trashcan and started eating his loot.
A metal door to his left was smashed open and a brown pegasus stallion was thrown out, hitting the wall on the other side. He wore a black west and a tie. Two figures followed him, a green unicorn and a ridiculously muscular zebra. None of them noticed Greybled watching the scene, still munching on a golden delicious.
The pegasus tried to take flight, but was pulled back to earth by the orange magic of the unicorn. “Don’t you dare!” the magic user shouted angrily. “You still owe us the bits.”
Their victim who was looking more desperate by the second was pushed against the wall by the tough zebra. Breathing was hard for him as one of the zebras legs was pressing against his chest. He croaked out, “Please, I have the money on me, I only came to you, to pay up.”
“You mean those bits?” the unicorn asked rhetorically, while levitating a medium sized bag out of the pegasus’ west. “Those are the bits you owed us last week, Lucky Flutter wants double now.” He threw the bag to the floor behind him, not taking his eyes off the squirming pony. A bit rolled out of the fabric sack, and fell over right in front of Greybled.
This was just perfect. The hybrid was no expert on the equestrian currency, but in a bag this big, filled with the small gold coins, a trip to the Crystal Empire should be no problem. He laid the apple, he was eating a few seconds ago to the ground and started to rise, slow and stealthily.
Greybled tried his hardest to keep his metal gauntlet from clanking as he took the money bag in his magic. When he first lifted the bag, more coins fell out, hitting each other, and making that very specific coin sound.
Greybled cringed and looked up, the two gangsters hadn’t heard him. Most likely because the unicorn was still shouting at his prey. Now that the bag floated in the air, the noise was no longer apparent. The teenager backed up as silently as he could, never letting the thugs out of his view. He didn’t have any intention of alarming the criminals or to help the pegasus.
Only 10 meters separated him from the main street now, where he could hide in the crowd of ponies exploring the nightlife. Suddenly his left hind-leg hit a metal trashcan and the lid fell off and on the stone tiles. A vibrating gong noise filled the street and drowned the ranting of the horned pony. Both of the goons were eyeing Greybled now.
The colt turned 180 degrees and started sprinting to safety, the bit bag following behind him. He was hit by something heavy but soft out of nowhere and stumbled over. The world was turning. In his dizziness, he saw the projectile that hit him standing up and running away from the scene. Had he just been shot with a pony?
Alarmed by the clopping sound of hooves, the hybrid gathered his senses and stood up. The time to flee was over, now was time to fight.
As the thugs saw that he wasn’t trying to run anymore, they also slowed their pace. Again, it was the unicorn which started the conversation. “Are you really that stupid? No one steals from Lucky Flutter and gets away with it.” His voice was menacing but quiet. “We wanted to make an example out of that lowlife gambling addict you met just now, but I guess you will also do the trick” The stallion pronounced the word ‘met’ as if he cracked the joke of the century.
In perfect synchronicity, at the end of the last sentence, the zebra started charging full speed and the unicorn fired an orange blast from his forehead. Greybled wasn’t caught by surprise though and skipped to his right, to avoid the blast and then jumped up to let the zebra pass under him. His combat training came back to him as he unleashed a spell, aimed at the unicorn who just barely redirected the blast into the wall with his own magic.
Back on the ground, the hybrid immediately turned around to dodge another charge-attack that would have knocked him out for sure. He swung his right leg, to extract his weapon of choice, a black metal staff extending from the tip of his armored right hoof.
When handling the pegasus a few minutes earlier, the zebra had an aura of calm around him, like he was only doing his job. Now he was angry. This time, he didn’t take his eyes off Greybled as he gained speed to tackle him. It didn’t do him any good, as a green ball of energy hit him in the face, slightly disorienting him.
Greybled was shocked that the zebra continued running after taking his blast literally head on. However, the blast gave him the opportunity to jump out of the equine’s way and pushing him in the side with his whole weight. Like the unicorn did to the spell, the hybrid redirected the zebra into the nearby wall. He hit the bricks head first and fell to the ground unconscious.
The unicorn watched the scene unfold, not believing his eyes. A teenage unicorn just defeated the fiercest fighter equestria has ever seen. Now the same teenage colt was staring him down with a death glare. “You’re dead, you hear?!” The henchmen shouted before bolting away in full speed.
The half-changeling had no intention of following him, he just grabbed the bag and all the loose coins on the street and left.
After bringing some distance between him and the back alley, he entered a park and found a remote picnic table and started counting his hard earned bits. As he was halfway through the bag, at 148 bits, he heard a noise. The hybrid looked around but couldn’t find the source.
Finally he heard where the sound was coming from. He looked up, but it was too late.
A white Pegasus in armour collided with him, knocking him on the ground. A second later, another pony jumped him. Greybled tried to push them away with a spell, but he couldn’t activate his magic for some reason.
“You’re under arrest.” The second pony said sternly.