Unity

by Kieva Lynn

Chapter Sixteen

Pallazo de' Blueblood (Former Ponyville town hall). Silver Spoon tossed and turned in her bed, unable to sleep. Partly, the problem was that the 'bed' was just a cot, not the luxurious four-post sleeping place she had grown accustomed to over the course of her young life. Partly, the problem was the distant rumbling sounds of some kind of battle, which was even more frightening to her than the day when the forest creatures attacked.

But, mostly, the problem was the even louder whining coming from Blueblood. "How dare they hold a battle at this hour!" he complained. "However will I get my beauty sleep?"

"Your highness, there are times when it can't be helped." Platinum Spoon attempted to explain. "If the ruffians causing the trouble refuse to wait until sunrise-"

"Then they should be ignored!" Blueblood interrupted. "Loyal Vassal! Go to Ponyville and proclaim the royal edict that this foolishness shall halt!"

"Begging your pardon sire, but there is no Ponyville anymore, it's just Unity now."

"And that's another thing!" Blueblood hissed, "Allowing a name change for the sake of non-equines! Horrid bipeds, no! The town is Ponyville, so proclaims your King! Now go!"

Loyal Vassal nodded. "Very well. By your leave my king."

Rolling over in her cot, rolling her eyes, Silver Spoon wondered yet again why her parents had made such a foolish decision. Not that she had been much better at first; she thought back to the day they had left:

"Don't worry my child!" Platinum said as he watched the servants pack their belongings. "This will be like an adventure! And we won't have to live in the Town Hall for long... The common ponies will see soon enough that they need the leadership of a king and the elite. They'll welcome us back with open hooves, and we'll be back in power, and in the good graces of our new king."

"Okay Daddy! But... What about Diamond Tiara? She's my only real friend and her family isn't coming!"

Platinum had leaned in close and said "You'll make new friends my little Silver. And as I said, it won't be for long. A little discomfort now will pay off richly, probably in a matter of a couple of weeks. And won't it be fun to live under the same roof as a king?"

Silver had smiled hugely at this last: It hadn't occurred to her, and it did sound very cool...

"Yeah, that really worked out." Silver grumbled to herself. Daddy had been wrong about everything. It was three months now, the townsponies were doing just fine on their own, the other foals here were all losers, and the king was a royal ninny.

Worst of all, her father was so convinced of his own words that he refused to admit that he had been wrong. It would be so easy to admit they were wrong and go back to town. They could have their own home again, real food, and she wouldn't have to be lonely. If only... Stuffing bedding in her ears to block out the complaining, Silver Spoon drifted off to sleep, eyes full of tears...

West of Unity. Bert, Lyra, and Brayflox crept stealthily through the forest underbrush, edging as close to the searching tripods as they dared, given that only the Goblin had a working gas mask. "Gobbie-boom now?" Brayflox asked.

"Right. We'll distract it, you sneak in under cover of the smoke and plant the bomb."

Nodding, the Goblin agreed. "Gobbie set timer once bomb on leg." She ran forward, towards the towering war machine.

"So how do we make a distraction?" Lyra whispered.

"Watch and learn." Bert grinned. He rose to his feet, in full view of the nearest tripod, which immediately twisted to face him. It bought it's heat-ray around to attack, but Bert was already on the move, firing his gun as he went. The ray blasted the ground just behind Bert, barely missing him, and began charging for another shot. "Now'd be a good time Lyra!" He shouted.

"Oh!" The unicorn exclaimed, seeing the plan. She jumped up into sight, shouting "Hey! Hey batter-batter-batter! Ssss-wing batter!!!!"

The tripod swiveled to face her and fired, missing only when she teleported out of the way. As it locked on to her new location, Bert began to fire again, reclaiming it's attention. Even as the heat-ray was firing, Lyra was bouncing up and down, shooting bursts of magic that couldn't reach the machine but did grab the pilot's notice.

Again, Lyra teleported clear of the heat-ray blast, and then Brayflox reappeared, running out of the poisonous smoke shouting "Run! Run! Big boom-boom in ten... nine... eight..."

Falling into place, running side by side with the goblin, Bert and Lyra covered their ears when the countdown reached zero.

And nothing happened.

"Uh-oh." Brayflox said.

"Uh-oh!?!?"

"Boom-boom timer maybe go kerfluffle."

"Wonderful." Lyra snarked.

Seated in the tripod's cockpit, the Mor-taxian again consulted it's instruments. The equine life form was doing things which should not be possible. It was teleporting, for one thing, and also discharging some odd form of energy, in quantities far in excess of what a biological creature should be capable of. "Mystery." It thought. "Priority: Data acquisition. Safety: Outweighed." Intent on capturing the creature for study, it guided it's machine out of the safety of the Black Smoke...

"It's following us!" Lyra screamed as the trio ran for their lives.

"That's actually good maybe." Bert said. "Brayflox, what does it take to set off your explosives?"

"Spark-charge, or big slam."

"Big slam, like, a hard impact?"

"Yes, yes!" The Goblin confirmed.

"Excellent." Bert said. "You two keep it's attention for a minute!" He broke off, running in a different direction, while Lyra and Brayflox continued their run in the same direction they had already been going. The tripod followed, though of course neither knew that it was purposely trying to capture Lyra.

Bert crouched down in the underbrush, to the side of the tripod's path. He didn't have long to wait. Less than a minute later, it arrived, trodding determinatedly after Pony and Goblin. Looking closely, Bert could see the bomb Brayflox had attached to one of it's legs. He took aim, and fired.

Lyra screamed and dropped to the forest floor as the bomb exploded in a spectacular fireball. The tripod, caught mid-stride, had no chance to correct for the sudden loss of a leg. The entire machine crumpled to the ground with a tremendous roar.

"What was that!?" Anita gasped as a rumble far louder than the others rolled through the trees. Her children gathered in close around her.

Holding tightly to her own son, eight year old Michael, Angela whispered "Tom, are you sure we should keep going this way?"

"No, I'm not." Thomas admitted. "But what other choice do we have? Besides, look..." He pointed ahead, to where lights were becoming visible through the trees. "We're almost to civilization. And those blasts sound a lot further away, hopefully we'll be safe up here, and in any case I doubt it'll be any more dangerous than the wilds."

"I can't argue with that." Anita agreed. "There could be wolves out here, or cougars."

"Yeah, give me people any day." Thomas said.

They continued down the path, and in just a few more minutes came to a sharp edge where forest ended and cultivated fields began. The fields were corn, half-grown plants perhaps three feet tall, and beyond them was a wooden wall with a gate that was closed. Two men stood guard at the gate, and others were visible walking the top of the wall. All were armed.

"Still prefer people?" Angela whispered.

"Over lions and tigers and bears? Yeah." Thomas looked over his companions, then said "Stay here. I'll approach alone, see what I can learn."

Walking towards the guards, hands up and out to show he was unarmed, Thomas called out to them, "Do you speak English?"

"We do. Identify yourself!"

Thomas gave his name, and asked where he was.

The guards looked at each other. "That's a long story, which we'll let the Sheriff fill you in on." One of them said. "In the meantime, you aren't alone are you? We were told there was a group of people approaching." Seeing Thomas' uncertainty about answering, he added "Look, you're among friends here. You're American citizens, right? So are we. You've got nothing to be afraid of from us."

Nodding, deciding the chance had to be taken, Thomas motioned for the others to join him. As they approached, Anita asked about the sounds of battle. "That's also for the Sheriff to explain ma'am." The second guard replied. "I'll go let him know you've arrived. Please wait here."

Sheriff John Tucker arrived ten minutes later. He was a rugged man with a plainspoken voice and Anita found that she was certain he was trustworthy right from the start. Waving off their questions, he made sure that no one was injured, then led them through the gate and across town to the Sheriff's office. Inside, he started a pot of coffee brewing, then sat behind his desk while motioning for them to sit as well.

"I've got quite a long story to tell you folks. And, I suspect you've got quite a tale of your own as well. But, let me guess: Your tale begins with a strange storm popping up out of nowhere..." Tucker said.

Eyes wide, Angela said "It sounds like you've heard this story before."

"Oh yes. Tell me, where were you when the storm hit?"

"New Mexico." Anita replied. "On the road out in the middle of the desert."

"Have you heard any news regarding the vanishing of a town in Indiana? Would've been about three and a half months ago."

"Fallow Meadows!?" Thomas exclaimed. "The whole area's been cordoned off by the army, but they won't tell anyone what's going on. Is that where we are?"

"But how did we get to Indiana from New Mexico?" Anita asked.

"Easy folks, I'll explain it all as best I can... But you're not in Indiana. Or on Earth." Tucker ignored the looks of disbelief as he began to explain what had happened to his town, and how they had come to see they were no longer on the same planet. At one point, Thomas stood, strode to the door, stepped outside, looked up. Saw two moons in the sky. Returned to his seat, shaken.

"It's true." Thomas said, telling the others what he saw.

"So, what?" Anita asked. "We're stuck here?"

"There are some very smart folks in town working on figuring out how and why this has happened," Tucker explained, "With the hopes of someday reversing it. But for now, yes, I'm afraid we're all stuck here." Rising from his seat, the Sheriff poured coffee for all of the adults, then returned to his seat and said "I have more to tell you as well."

"You mean those explosions?" Thomas asked.

"Well, yes, I'll get to that. But first..." Resuming his tale, the Sheriff told the rapt newcomers about how they had discovered another town of refugees, populated by aliens. Of how those aliens had proven friendly, and how they had ended up merging their towns together.

Anita was uncertain of what she was hearing. It sounded too far-fetched, even with what she had already experienced, and she was about to say so when suddenly the front door burst open. Through the open doorway came something... ...Pink. It was bouncing up and down, and vibrating so rapidly that no features could be made out. And it was talking in a mix of recognizable English words and sounds Anita had never heard.

Under the wide-eyed gaze of his guests, Tucker stepped over to the pink blur, knelt down, and grabbed it with both hands, which stopped the shaking and bouncing revealing a bright pink pony with the Sheriff's hands on either side of it's muzzle. "English words only please Pinkie." He said, "Our guests haven't had the translation spell yet."

"Oh right! Sorry!" The pink creature bounced closer, looking over the group, and said all in one breath "Hi! Welcome to Unity! I'm Pinkie Pie, what are your names? Where are you from? Do you like cake? When would you like for me to throw your surprise welcome party, and keep in mind that since it's a surprise party whatever time you choose will be when I don't throw it 'cause otherwise it wouldn't be a surprise anymore would it-" Mercifully, the Sheriff clamped a hand over her muzzle.

"Pinkie, I'm sure they'll appreciate a party but let's wait until they're settled in okay?"

"Oh, okay."

"Good. So why are you here?"

"Well," the pony began, "I was coming to tell you that my Pinkie sense was acting up. Crossed-eyes, twitchy tail, an itch in that spot on my back I can't reach to scratch on my own, which is the tell for 'New friends are coming.'" She looked towards Anita and said "And here they are!"

"Okay..."

"Okay! Anywho I've gotta get to work now. Bring them by when we open, I'll cover a free breakfast!" And with that the odd being bounced out the door.

It was Angela who recovered first, staring Sheriff Tucker in the eyes and demanding "Okay, what the hell just happened?"

Tucker laughed. "Pinkie Pie happened." He said. "Yes we have aliens in town, and yes they're talking ponies. If it helps, you won't experience that regularly. Pinkie is odd even by pony standards, but she means well enough."

Head held in his hands, Thomas sighed and said "What's next? Unicorns? Pegasai? Dragons?"

"Um, yeah... About that..."

West of Unity. Rainbow Dash, Macintosh, Bethany, and a Goblin named Muckvik moved to put their part of the assault plan into operation. Ater splitting up from the others, they had circled around in the opposite direction, approaching the tripods from the northwest. They watched as one of them stalked out of the protective smoke and subsequently exploded."One down." Bethany said.

"On the ground." Rainbow agreed. "Muckvik, you ready?"

"Yes! Yes! Gobbie boom time!" the goblin agreed, running into the smoke to plant his bombs. But moments later, both of the tripods began to move again, back towards the pit. Muckvik returned, saying "Gobbie no want be stepped on."

The machines trod out of the smoke, and down into the pit. "Looks like they're getting smart." Macintosh said. "Protectin' what matters to them."

"Well at least they're clear of the poison gas." Rainbow said. "We can all go in now."

"Eeyup... Unless they're planning something else."

Muckvik cocked his head. "Hear sound? Wing-flappings!" No one was sure what he meant, until the team of pegasai that had flown the injured back to town came into view, flying low over the treetops, heading straight towards the pit for a new attack run.

"I hope they know what they're doing." Bethany whispered.

"Yeah." Rainbow agreed.

It quickly started to seem like a good attack plan. The pegasai swarmed in, circling around the tripods, distracting them, moving too fast and randomly to be hit with heat-ray blasts, too high to be grabbed by the machine's tentacle-arms. Then, with a loud clattering sound, the aliens threw a new wrench into the works: The machines discarded their tripod legs, leaving the bodies floating in the air unsupported.

"All right that's cheating!" Rainbow yelled.

No longer limited by the legs, the alien machines proved fast and maneuverable, rising higher, swatting the surprised pegasai out of the sky with their arms. "We've gotta do something!" Bethany exclaimed.

"Oh I'll do something all right!" Rainbow answered. She grabbed a bomb out of the Goblin's hands and took off into the sky. Flying in a vast, wide arc, accelerating the whole time, Rainbow curved back around towards the pit, pushing, pushing for all she was worth, approaching closer and closer to the sound barrier.

As she zeroed in on the closer of the two machines, she could see it turning to aim it's heat-ray at her. But it was far too late for that to do any good. With a ground-shaking boom of light and sound the pegasus blasted through the sound barrier, and began to curve upwards, away from the machine. At precisely the right moment, she threw the bomb, which impacted and detonated simultaneously against the outer hull. The former tripod fell to the ground, flames and smoke rising from it's ruins.

"Whoa..." Bethany whispered.

"Eeyup. That's Dash for ya." Macintosh agreed.

"Yeah, now how do we handle the last one?"

"May not have to." Macintosh said. "Look."

The final remaining machine was retreating down into the pit, into the building where it had been constructed. Elsewhere in the pit, aliens could be seen rapidly working, removing heat-rays from the damaged machines and also getting new ones from storage buildings. They were pulling some of the devices towards the edges o the pit and others towards the central spire.

"What are they doing?" Bethany asked.

The bushes rustled and Bert walked into view. "Fortifying." He said. "I'd say they plan to ring the pit with those, as well as mounting them on the tower."

As Rainbow Dash and the rest of Bert's team returned, along with the pegasai that had survived the last fateful attack run, Sword Breaker asked "Should we rush them now? Before the weapons are in place?"

"That could be costly. Those heat-rays are probably already functional."

"So what? We just leave them?" Lyra asked.

"Mostly." Bert answered. "I think we should have the pegasai do one fast, high-altitude bombing run on the building that flying machine is in. Try to take it out."

"Agreed." Sword Breaker said. "But leaving them here to get entrenched... We could pay for it later."

"Unless they really do all get sick and die like in the book." Rainbow said.

"But can we count on that?" Bethany asked.

Bert grinned. "I think we can. Come on, I wanna show you all something..." He led the way and everyone else followed...

Back in Unity, Sheriff Tucker led the new arrivals through the streets of town as the eastern sky began to glow pink with the coming sunrise. Mostly the roads were still empty this early, but here and there someone could be seen opening up a storefront for the day's business, or sitting on a front porch sipping coffee. After awhile, they were joined by children and teenagers, all heading in the same direction. "Oh yes," the Sheriff said, "School is in session as well."

"Aw man!" Paul complained. "We're still gonna have to go to school?"

Anita reached over, ruffled her son's hair. "And a good thing too!" She chuckled.

Angela asked "Do the human and pony children go together?"

"Yeah." Tucker said. "I guess the combined curriculum was a bit tricky to come up with, but the teachers all managed. There are some differences in classes of course. Magic lessons for unicorns, flight for pegasai, that kind of thing."

"Magic." Thomas sneered. "I'll still believe that when I see it."

Tucker chuckled. "Take a look then." He pointed down the road, to a unicorn that was trotting towards them with a glowing horn and a book, also glowing, hovering the air next to her.

"I'll be damned."

"Yeah, that was my reaction too." The Sheriff replied. He called out "Morning Twilight!"

The unicorn stopped and looked up. "Good morning Sheriff. Is there any word from the attack teams?"

"Some injuries in the hospital. That's all we know so far."

"That's too bad. If only they would have talked instead of immediately attacking... Well, are these our new arrivals?" Twilight smiled.

"How did you know...?"

"Pinkie of course. She stopped by to let me know." Looking straight at Thomas, then Anita, she said "I know you've got to be nervous right now. But if you'll trust me to do it, I can cast the translation spell so that you'll be able to understand Equish words."

"This isn't gonna hurt is it?" Five year old Sarah asked.

"No, not at all." Twilight assured the girl.

"I guess we're going to have to get used to this stuff." Anita said, shaking her head. "I'll allow it."

"I guess I will too." Thomas agreed, and Angela nodded as well.

"Okay, this will only take a few seconds." Twilight smiled. Her horn glowed briefly, then she asked "How's that?"

"Those words weren't English." Paul said, eyes wide.

"Equish." Tucker said. To Twilight he asked "Can I assume you also included the Goblin language?"

"Yeah. Better to do it all at once."

"Good. So, I'm taking our new friends to Sugarcube Corner, you hungry?"

"Yeah, I'll come along." Twilight grinned.

Pinkie Pie looked up as the bell on the door chimed, and smiled at the sight of Twilight and the Sheriff, along with the new people. "Welcome!" She happily greeted them.

"A bakery?" Anita whispered as they walked to an open booth.

"Yeah. They mostly make breads and sweets, but they also serve breakfast." Twilight answered. She hopped into the seat on one side and sat in the rear corner.

As everyone else took their seats, Pinkie came and distributed menus. reiterating her insistence that this meal was on the house, which reminded Anita of something. She pulled the coin Thomas had found from her pocket and asked about it.

"This is an Equestrian ten-bit piece." Twilight explained. "The images are of the Princesses, Celestia and Luna."

For awhile the group simply talked of nothing, pausing to order and also when the food arrived. Anita noticed that the bakery was a popular location: Nearly all of the seats were taken by humans or ponies. She saw why quickly when her pancakes arrived. Eventually, the conversation turned serious again.

"Have you had any luck at all in figuring this out?" The Sheriff asked Twilight.

"No." The unicorn answered, slightly hanging her head. "I've read every book remotely related to teleportation magic and unusual events. There's nothing applicable. The most I can say is that there seems to be a pattern to how whatever this is brings everything to the same planet, even though it takes from multiple worlds..."

"Is it possible that this is on purpose?" Thomas asked. "That someone or something intelligent is behind it all?"

"Very possible." Twilight nodded. "But without more data, I can't say for sure... I need to have some pegasai make high altitude flights out to a couple of hundred miles, build a map from what they see, and then start plotting the precise arrival locations of each new group... Maybe a pattern will emerge."

"The pegasai could take cameras with them." Tucker said, get us some good images of what's out there."

"Good thinking. I'll speak with Rainbow Dash about it as soon as she's back in town."

With a ding the door opened again and Midnight Steel entered, looked around, and motioned for the Sheriff when he saw him. Tucker joined the pony and they conversed in hushed voices for several minutes. Returning to the table, he said "Duty calls folks. Twilight, could you show our guests to Town Hall? I'm sure they can do something about finding room for them to stay."

"Of course."

As the Sheriff walked away, Anita said "What was that about?"

"At a guess something's come up that requires Sheriff Tucker's attention." Twilight replied, though she was also wondering just what could be wrong. "Anyway, let's finish up, and then we'll see about getting you all put up somewhere..."

In the forest Bert Gumbal led the way back to where the tripod he had shot the explosives under had fallen. The machine was in ruins, with no sign of anything still functional. The explosion had crumpled its legs, but the main body of the tripod was not burned. It sat, listing to one side with multiple gashes torn into the hull, presumably from the shrapnel of it's own legs. And off to the side of the machine sat...

"Oh my God!" Bethany whispered in shock. "Is it alive?"

"Yeah." Bert said, "but it's been knocked out by the wreck."

Before them on the ground lie the tripod's pilot. It was breathing raggedly, had numerous contusions and cuts, and as Bert noted was unconscious. But it had survived the fall.

"What are we going to do with it?" Lyra asked.

Sword Breaker said "You and I are going to pool our magic to carry it back to town. Once Miss Sparkle casts the languages spell, we'll interrogate it, find out what it knows."

"Maybe make happy friends with squid-thing?" Brayflox asked.

"Maybe." Macintosh answered, "Though, I gotta feelin' these guys don't want friends."

"Carrot and Stick." Bert said. "I mean look at it. I'm pretty sure it's already getting sick. Maybe if we can cure this one the others will be more amicable. And if not, well, they won't be around for long will they?"

From the direction of the pit came a deep resonating call. "Let's go, before they come looking for this one." Lyra said. Sword breaker agreed, and working together they carried their prisoner back towards town...