All's Right With The World

by Dusty Tome

Chapter Seven

Pinkie sauntered down the hallway of the airship, listening to conversations here and there, and humming to herself in between. She absent-mindedly curled a lock of her shockingly pink hair around a finger as she began to run the events of the past few days in her mind. She always hated when things slowed down, because that was when the silence made itself known, and silence always brought dark thoughts. Pinkie sighed, smoothing out her red duster, and straightening the lime green vest underneath, before reaching into her brown cargo pants and grabbing a small grenade.

With practiced precision, she deftly disassembled the explosive, separating the pieces and grabbing the fuse. She whistled while she tinkered, an upbeat tune that she had stolen from a few midgets in the coal mine back home. Pinkie blinked a few times, then giggled as she tested out her new toy.

She had used the spoon and hammer from a few grenades and a few other bits and pieces to make a miniature launcher, and the explosive compound from said grenades was mixed with flash powder and flint to create pellets that would cause a loud bang, a flash, and a generous amount of smoke. She was already giggling as she thought of all the trouble she could cause with them. Glancing upwards showed her an open air duct, and with a devilish grin, Pinkie shed her coat and disappeared into the ventilation system.

“Okay, Luna, listen. All I’m saying is that if I were the one who made the universe, I’d have done a much better job. I have a list of several hundred design issues I want to address, but we don’t even have a complaint box! This is no way to run a cosmos.”

“Well, Twilight, why don’t you indulge me in these ‘design issues’ over some di-”

“Wait!” Twilight gasped, as she rushed forward to cover Luna’s mouth, looking about frantically “Did you just hear a giggle? Or an explosion?”

Luna merely shook her head, unable to speak over both of Twilight’s hands pressed against her mouth.

“That’s what I’m afraid of. I’ve known Pinkie for about ten or so years now, and nothing good ever comes when she’s silent.” She shuddered, pulling her hands away from Luna’s lips, “Like the ‘Martock Incident,’ as the guards are calling it.”

“What hap-”

Twilight cut her off again, this time with a loud shush, “Never ask. I shouldn’t have mentioned it, bad things happen when people mention it. It’s probably cursed.”

“You are just making that up so that I will be nervous, waiting for some mysterious happening to manifest. You probably just can’t think of anything funny enough to put in there, can you? That’s just lazy planning on your part.” Luna chided coldly.

“No trust me, sooner or later it’ll happen, no doubt when the pink menace is asleep, just like last time. Why do you think I had hooks hanging from chains in my room? For some kind of kin-”

Twilight was cut off from further speech when a loud bang and a large amount of smoke filled the small chamber. When she had cleared her eyes from the flash, she noticed a new weight in her arms, and looked down to find a sheepish looking Luna curled in her arms, sans skirt, which lay on the floor where she was standing seconds before.

“Really? An immortal goddess, Courier of the moon, and Consort of the Night, scared out of her skirt?” Twilight chuckled.

Righting herself and smoothing down her tunic, Luna turned her nose upwards, “Your speech earlier certainly didn’t help things. I’ll bet this was a ploy. Are you giggling?”

Twilight sighed, ripping the vent open with a shimmering aura, sending pinkie tumbling onto the floor, giggling as she fell, “Nope. Like I said, if it’s quiet, this one is up to no good. And that’s still not the thing.”

“Ohhh, you’re talking about number six-twenty-two, aren’t you? That was fun!” Pinkie giggled noisily, rolling on the floor in pain, more from her laughter than her fall.

The commotion was cut short as Rainbow’s voice rang through the chamber, amplified by sound crystals. “Yo, Twi, situation here. Everybody else better come up here too, got a feeling that the next couple of minutes are gonna suck. Hard.”

“Damn, I thought we’d be out of Altenneera’s borders before any more trouble showed up.” Twilight said thoughtfully, before wincing, “Nine hells, its Garble’s boys, isn’t it? Luna, you might need to stay back to shield the ship if I’m right.”

As they began a brisk pace to the bridge, Luna bore a confused expression. “Why do you seem so cautious of this ‘Garble’ character, and why would he be such a threat to the ship?”

“Dragon supremacist, he is stupidly fond of eating people, believes that everything three feet above the earth belongs to him and his ‘clan,’ which is just a ragtag group of bullying dragons that were banished from their clans for committing crimes beyond even the Black Dragon’s standards, and he is a heartless bastard,” Twilight explained. “Genocide is okay to him, as long as a few dozen are left to repopulate the species, so go beyond that, and you get Garble. Nobody really knows what he did, except for Spike, and he tells me that it’d give me nightmares if I knew. Garble tried to recruit him about a year ago.”

Luna boggled. “The Black Dragon? Geryon? He would never commit such an atrocity. The black drake Geryon is bound to Celestia through an act of peace and guidance. If these accusations are to be believed, then my sister will not be pleased.”

“What’s happening, Dash?” Twi asked, stepping through the door to the bridge. As she looked through the transparent front of the ship, her worries came true, “That’s Garble isn’t it? Damn it all to the Hells and back. Pinkie, grab T three, I know you brought it. Dash, just keep circling him.”

Pinkie saluted, before turning to skip through the door, as Rarity and Spike hurried in.

“And exactly what are you planning to do, huh Gearhead?” Dash said from the controls. “You can’t fight what looks to be an easy hundred-strong dragon flight. Plus, you can’t fly, unless those wings you were rocking back at the yard work. Besides, if the entire Flight Guard and even the freaking Wonderbolts couldn’t put him down, what do you think you can do?”

“I’ll take charge,” Flash announced, stepping forward gallantly, “Page twenty-two of the guard handbook states, quite clearly, that in the eventuality of a dragon encounter, to give them gems and hurry away. I say we give them s-” Flash was cut off when a very large clawed hand covered his face, and pushed him into a chair.

“Sit down you absolute git, you obviously haven’t met any dragons, and you’re about as useful as a wet paper towel. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be watchin’ that girl that tried to murder us? Now, like I was gonna say, before somebody cut me off, if I know Twi well, and I like to think I do, I say she’s gonna turn that flamin’ arm of hers into dragon fyre, then rip his wings off, like he did to me.” Spike mused, “And I’m gonna fly around swinging my hunk of Mage-steel like it’s out of style, while Pinkie launches grenades at the rest of them. Simple really, oughta take about ten minutes. Maybe less if Miss Rarity and Luna join in.”

“Well, Darling, I’m not sure I could even do much to help the current situation.”

“Rarity, Spike can enchant the gem in the hilt of your rapier to cover your blade in dragon fyre on command. He did it to both of the gems I wear,” Twilight explained, showing the small amethyst on the bangle on her right wrist, and the emerald set in the middle finger of her mechanical arm, “Although, make sure you tell him a command word you won’t use on accident. I almost caught the house on fire twice. As for Luna, she is going to stay here and shield the ship. That way we can make sure everybody is going to be safe.”

Rarity drew her rapier, and held it to Spike, who began to breathe a slow stream of fire into the gem, and commanded her to whisper her word into the gem as he did so. When they were finished, the blade floated even with her shoulder, pulsing with her magic, and she spoke, “Kinjarra.”

Rarity let out a small squeak of surprise as the blade burst into life with green flame, the signature of dragon fyre.

“Why Kinjarra? What does it mean?” Spike asked, noticing the Rarity’s eyes turn downward.

“It… it was the name my grandmother gave to it, when she made it. It was always her ‘magnum opus,’ as she put it. No one but one of my blood or one I feel for can use magic on it,” she explained quickly, with a blush.

Spike sat down with a chuckle. “Another time, then.”

Rarity didn’t have a chance to do more than nod, as Pinkie came back through the door, humming a strange tune, her hair straight, and a maniacal smile plastered on her face.

Before anyone could comment on Pinkie’s apparent change, and noticing a pointed, questioning look on Luna’s face, Twilight guided everyone but Rainbow to the top deck.

“Alright, Pink, shoot them from here, Luna, same but with a shield. Spike, Looks like it’s time for a little payback, eh?” Twilight said with a wink, earning her a nod in return.

The marks on her body glowed brighter for a second, before she burst into flame and ice, wings flapping slightly to hover, testing for flight. When she was satisfied she could fly, she stretched out her right arm and shouted a single word, letting her disgust at the dragons in front of her flow into it, “Marú.”

The flames slowly turned a sick, deadly looking green color, the color flowing to her right eye, giving it a green, slitted iris, mimicking Spike’s. Without another sound, save the explosions and growing cackles from Pinkie, Twilight fell head first, backwards over the railing. Her wings spread wide, as she turned onto her front and took off swiftly towards the flight of dragons growing ever nearer.

She pulled up slightly, noticing a glittering blade wrapped in flames moving about the drakes, and small explosions rocking them, knocking some out of the sky. Then she spotted Garble roaring in outrage, and she smiled. Her day was getting better and better.