It had been a magical night, which actually doesn’t mean anything extraordinary in Equestria, but still. The time Dash and Applejack had spent together cuddling, kissing, plowing each others’ fields, and cumulating each others’ nimbuses. It had been enchanting, mystical, spellbinding….
Okay, fine, it was really sexy. The night had, in fact, centered almost entirely on rough, loud, consummately delectable kinky sex. (Equestrian poetic language has long run into problems with flowery description. When burgeoning Romeos cried up to their prospective Juliets that their beauty was fit to part the heavens, a common response was, “Can we please not bring my day job into this? I’ve spent all afternoon moving clouds to let the sunset through and really I don’t want to think about parting even one more heaven, thanks”.)
However, the night had, by corollary, also been exhausting. When Applejack awoke still wearing her ‘uniform’, with Rainbow Dash on top of her and tempestuously knotted rope strewn all over them both, she realized that she could count the hours of sleep she’d gotten on one hoof. And—as her stomach rumbled particularly loudly, and everything began spinning—that she could describe how much food was in her stomach with no hooves. She chuckled at that thought.
“Rainbow!” she mumbled. She tried to push herself up from beneath her lover and get out of bed, but got her rear hoof snared in an alpine butterfly for her trouble and tumbled to the floor. She chuckled at the way she swung from the ceiling, unsure of how she’d managed to attach the rope to the ceiling in the first place.
“AJ?” Rainbow Dash’s eyes opened as quickly as possible, given all her muscles were currently on strike. She stared at her hanging friend-with-a-benefit. “What are you doing?”
“Rainbow!” Applejack managed to say, chuckling at the painful sensation of blood rushing to her head. She wasn’t sure if that deserved a chuckle, and chucked at her uncertainty. It was like being back on the Dizzitron but, for some reason, kinda funny. But she did know one thing: “Rainbow, I really need to….” She couldn’t think of the word ‘food’, so she resorted to opening her mouth wide and pressing her hoof into it.
“Really? You know I’m not equipped for that, but, uh… I guess I could find a doorstop or something and tie it to my—” Rainbow Dash blinked a few times. “Ohhhh, you mean food, right?”
“N-no?”
“I’m going to take that as a yes.”
Rainbow Dash tried and failed to untie the butterfly knot, and settled for pulling Applejack really hard until her hoof got free, then supported her on their way out of the room. “Come on, the mess hall’s got a bunch of good stuff for ya.”
“Rainbow!”
“Yeah, Apple Tart?”
“Lookit.” Applejack looked to either side and giggled. “I’ve got wings, Rainbow Dash.”
“And you still haven’t let me preen them.” Rainbow Dash eyed the wings with a critical, but mostly puffy, eye. They seemed even more ragged than they had last night.
Despite the abominably early hour, the mess hall was occupied by almost every cadet. Rainbow Dash guided Applejack to a table, hearing disconnected whispers as the others watched them pass.
“Is that…?”
“Private Applefly?”
“I heard she flew ten laps around Equestria with her legs—”
“—ran a marathon on her wings—”
“—once stopped a rogue hurricane by glaring at it—”
“—won gold, silver, and bronze at one Equestria Games in the same event, and she was in the audience—”
“—kicked a dragon, fought a bugbear, and saved Equestria multiple times from evil monsters!”
“Whoa, no need to get crazy.”
Rainbow Dash sat Applejack down at her table, said, “Wait right here,” then flew to the buffet area. She piled a plate high with biscuits, pancakes, waffles, and at least one of every fruit she saw, then returned to Applejack in seconds flat. “You know what to do!”
“Sure do, sugarcuuuuube,” Applejack droned. With a speed that would have made glaciers check their watches in irritation, she leaned in toward the food pile.
“Uh….” Rainbow Dash glanced around, feeling an emptiness in her own stomach. The lack of a second plate seemed a glaring oversight in retrospect. “You gonna eat that? Because if you aren’t, I totally will.”
“Huh? Yeah,” Applejack mumbled. “Thanks for the pillow, R.D….” Her head sank into a waffle, and she began to snore, her eyes still half-open.
Rainbow Dash groaned. It was just about dawn, slivers of light were peeking through the mess hall’s windows, and they didn’t have time for this. “Come onnnnn. Look, just….” She pushed Applejack’s head off the waffle, pulled her jaw open, and put a pancake on her own hoof. “Heeeeere comes the cumulus!” she said in the most cheerful tone possible, moving her hoof forward.
At the last moment, Applejack’s head sagged again, and the pancake squashed against her cheek.
“Heeeeere comes the cumulus.” Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed, and she tried to get the pancake into Applejack’s mouth again. It squished into her lips. “The cumulus. Here comes the….” Something caught the corner of her eye, and she looked out the window. “Here comes the massive gray blimp, totally violating Equestrian airspace?”
“Mmmm,” Applejack said. “You can violate my airspace later if’n ya like.” She opened her mouth to take a bite, at which point everything (give or take) exploded.
Unverhohlen Bekloppte cackled with glee as his magnificent war machine broke through the cloud deck of Camp Hiyassekyte. He imagined it to look something like a second sun rising through the mist, except maybe something more like a murderous dolphin. He had heard of the vicious dolphins in the distant oceanic realms, and thought them quite terrifying—thus the application of the idea to his current situation was appealing.
He lifted a sippy cup, full of a red liquid, and bellowed, “Zis eez ze moment ve haf all been vaiting vor! Camp Hiyassekyte zhall vall! Zere vere zose who vondered vy ve built zuch a machine ven ve griffons could fly! Vell, I answer zem all now!”
He poured the cranberry juice into his gullet, swallowed with only a few hacking coughs, and turned to the weapons station.
“Prepare ze Great Danish arms, ze finest veapons manuvaktured by canine-kind! Ze ponies vill be gathered een zeer barracks, and ve vill vipe zem all out een vone volley!”
“Ah… da, Luftgeneral! Ze, um, Danish arms!”
Bekloppte rose from his chair and tottered over to the massive bay windows. “Zis,” he muttered to himself, “vill be un day to remember vorever, ze eend of ponies….”
“Veapons ready, Luftgeneral Bekloppte!”
Without looking back, Erste Luftgeneral Unverhohlen Bekloppte gave the order:
“Vire.”
A dozen loud thumps sounded to his mad peals of laughter.
Weaponized pastries pierced the Hiyassekyte mess hall. Discs of dough and jam accelerated to near-sonic speeds ripped through the structure’s cloud walls, striking tables, plates, and ponies alike.
Bumble was struck squarely in the face and began screaming bloody murder while brushing the residue from her face. Star Screamer was doing her namesake as she gaped at her ruined tail styling.
It was enough to bring Applejack into a barely-functional state of consciousness.
“Huh? Who, whuzzat?”
“We’re under attack!”
From somewhere, a bugle sounded, sharp brash notes echoing throughout the hall, adding to the din. Applejack turned to see Soarin, hoof raised in front of his lips, making the sound with no visible instrument. It wasn’t the strangest thing she’d seen in the past day.
“Privates! Everypony!” he yelled. “Pull yourselves together and fly outside. Man the air cannons! Camp Hiyassekyte must fight back! Lightning and Rainbow Dash, get to the armory! Everypony else, follow me!”
A dozen-plus ponies punched through the tattered loud walls of the mess like bees swarming from a hive, as another volley of danishes ripped into structure. The compromised walls gave way, and the roof began to drift up on a breeze.
“You maniacs!” Soarin wailed, looking back in agony. “You blew it up! Darn you! Darn you all to Tartarus!”
“Uh, you can build another one when this is over, right?”
Soarin grudgingly collected himself and looked at the cadet who had spoken. “Applefly…” He swept her up in a grateful hug. “I should have known it would be you. You’re right. It’s not the end of the world. We cannot lose hope—not yet.”
“Can you maybe let me down now?”
“Right, sorry.” He did so, then stuck his hoof in a nearby pastry crater. With narrowed eyes, he lifted the glaze to his mouth and licked it. His expression melted into despair. “Griffons,” he breathed, tears forming in his eyes. “No one else would be crazy enough to use coconut flavoring. To turn my own love against me….”
The great zeppelin fired another volley, filling the air with dangerous confections.
“Cover!”
Flitter was struck in the cutie mark and fell to the standard-issue megacloud screaming.
Bumble flew in over Soarin and Applejack. “Sir! Soarin, ma’am-sir! The air cannons—they won’t work!”
Soarin gaped. “What? Did you try pushing the big, red, only button labeled ‘On’?”
“Yessir-ma’am! Nothing happened!”
“We’ve been betrayed!”
Rainbow Dash dove in, using the cloud to brake. Her eyes were wide as dinner plates.
“Soarin, ma’amsir, the armory! It…!”
“What, Private Rainbow Dash? What is it? Tell me what it is!”
“The spears and wingblades have been sabotaged!”
Soarin clutched at his cheeks. “How can this be!?”
“Every single one had a sticky-note on them saying, ‘do not use, sabotaged’!”
“A double treachery!” Soarin cried, folding over himself. “We’re doomed!”
Again, the blimp fired. Star Screamer shrieked and writhed on the cloud, a danish splattered against her mane.
“What are we gonna do?” Rainbow cried. “Soarin, ma’amsir, what do we do?”
But he could only gibber, “There’s nothing we can do!”
Applejack stomped her hoof. “This is ridiculous! Land-sakes, pull yourselves together! You got wings, don’cha? You got hooves, don’cha? Take the fight to’em!”
“We… We can do that?” Soarin peered up through a veil of tears.
“A’course you can! Rainbow, think you can do that barn-busting thing of yours on a balloon?”
“Can I!”
“…Can you?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Right then. All y’all, fly a distraction. Rainbow, you’ll—”
“Incoming!” Soarin hollered, as once more the air was filled with flying projectiles.
Rainbow Dash screamed, her voice piercing Applejack’s heart.
“Rainbow! Rainbow, are y’all okay?” Applejack rushed over, picking her up in her legs.
“My wing!” Rainbow cried. “Ahhh, my wing, my wing! Nooooooo, my life is ruined!”
Applejack looked. Between the feathers, a white corner and slick red poked between the feathers. “Rainbow!”
“It stings!” Rainbow shook her wing, dislodging the danish chunks and filling from her wing. “It really, really stings, Bic Mac!”
“Applejack,” Applejack corrected. “Can you fly?”
“I…” Rainbow tested her wing cautiously. “Maybe? I think so, but there’s no way I can do a Rainbomb now. I’m useless….”
“But we’ve got you, Applefly!” Bumble ran over. “Applefly, you can stop the dirigible! You can do anything!”
Applejack whirled around, nearly dropping the moaning Rainbow Dash. “Horseapples, I ain’t done nothing my little sister can’t do, and she only got her cutie mark last season! Y’all are crazy!”
“But, you’re Applefly!” Bumble protested.
“But you’re Granny Smith!” Rainbow Dash added.
“It’s Applejack!”
“You can do it!” Bumble said. “I believe in you!”
“I believe in my sexy-awesome marefriend! You fly up there and show that zeppelin who’s boss!”
Soarin crawled near. “Private Applefly, fly up there and apple that terrible machine!”
“I know this’ll be hard for y’all to take in, but I can’t fly!”
“Yes you—”
The zeppelin fired. Applejack felt a strange tug at her back, and for a moment she thought the screams she heard might be her own.
“Cream cheese!” Bumble shrieked. “I’m lactose intolerant!” She contorted herself on the cloud, desperately scraping the pastry filling from her coat.
Rainbow Dash gasped, pointing at Applejack aghast. “Gala, your wings!”
“Applejack! And what wings?”
“They’re gone!”
Applejack looked over her shoulder and, sure enough, a rogue danish had stripped the crudely-painted, not-too-symmetrical, cardboard cut-out pegasus wings that had been taped to her even-more-crudely-painted coveralls.
She fixed her gaze back on Rainbow and laid down the law. “Rainbow, I ain’t a pegasus. I ain’t never been a pegasus. I can’t fly, I never could, and Celestia willing I never will. The things were made outta cardboard!”
“Wait wait wait,” Soarin said. “If your wings were cardboard, I think somepony would’ve noticed.”
“That’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask about…. But now ain’t the time. Rainbow. If anypony’s gonna fix this mess, it’s you, not me.”
Rainbow looked down at her wing, then back up at Applejack. “No, Honeycrisp. It’s you. You gotta do this.”
“Applejack. And what part of ‘earth pony can’t fly’ ain’t getting through?”
“Being a pegasus isn’t about having wings!”
“It isn’t?” Soarin asked.
“It isn’t?” Applejack echoed.
“It’s about heart! And lungs! …And also a surprisingly differentiated pancreas, but I don’t think that’s important right now. You’re awesome! I know in my heart and lungs and pancreas that you’ve got what it takes. You can do it! You have to do it!”
“I… Rainbow, I—”
“For me.”
How could she deny those eyes? Applejack nodded, gave a final loving look filled with resolve, and turned to face the zeppelin. Rainbow Dash believed in her—she could do this. She unzipped her shoddy, painted coveralls, slipped from the raggedy fabric, and planted her hooves wide in the cloud.
“Y’hear me, Grey Pastry-Flingin’ Not-Cloud? Private Applefly’s coming for you! This rodeo ends now!”
Her legs fired, she charged forward, and leapt from the cloud rim…
And fell. Like a brick.
“Zat pony juzt jumped vrom ze cloud…. Zeer morale has been broken! Viktory ees at claw! Keep viring! Keep viring!”
“Erste Luftgeneral, look!”
“Vat?”
“There! I mean, zere!”
Glowing a pale blue, Applejack bust through the standard-issue megacloud and hovered level with the zeppelin.
“What in Equestria?” Soarin gaped, awestruck. “I think I’m in love!”
“Hey, that’s my marefriend, bub. Redstreak, you’re doing it!” Rainbow cheered. “You’re really flying! I knew you—Bwah!” She spun to see another glowing pony floating beside her. “Ghost! Ghost!”
“Starlight Glimmer,” the pony deadpanned. “We’ve met. And I just saved Captain Suicide over there, so apparently you’re welcome.”
“But…. How are you flying!”
Starlight’s expression hardened, progressing past corundum. “Magic.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever. What are you doing here, anyway?”
Starlight awoke with a shudder. “Guh!”
“Finally!” Twilight sagged, distraught, capping the half-dozen vials of smelling salts in her magic. “I am so, so sorry!”
Starlight winced, looking around from her position on a blanket on the floor. “What happened?”
“I mean,” Twilight continued as if she hadn’t heard, “I knew you weren’t dead, with you breathing and your mark and everything, but you wouldn’t wake up and I’m so sorry I didn’t mean it honest I didn’t, you just got me so angry, but then the map and your mark and you wouldn’t wake—”
Starlight finally looked down at herself; specifically the flashing cutie mark on her flank. “What was that about my mark?”
“—huh?” Twilight blinked and refocused on Starlight. “What? Right, your mark…” She made a pained face. “Well, um, It turns out that Equestria needs you to save it.”
“Me.”
“That’s how it works! The map summons ponies to a place to solve a friendship problem that has direct ramifications for the well-being of Equestria. I tried to wake you up… well, I did at first, but then I got the letter and I may have gotten side-tracked, but it didn’t work so I asked Spike to find—”
“Twilight. Why is my ass blinking?”
“Griffons!” Twilight bawled, waving parchment in her magic. “If this letter that fell in through my window and has no way to trace to who sent it is any indication, there are griffons attacking the Wonderbolts training facility as we speak! And the map wants you to be there! You, not me! I can’t even use magic on the map to change it, I tried… believe me, I tried. It isn’t fair! First I don’t get to see the griffons—” she buried her head in her hooves “—and now I don’t get to friendship the griffons!”
Starlight shook her head slowly, as if swimming in molasses. “What did you hit me with?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? Griffons, Starlight!”
“The stupid griffons can wait until you slow down and tell me what’s going on!”
“That’s not how friendship works!” Twilight’s horn flared as tears streamed down her face. “You charge in and face the problem horn-first, because your first impressions are always wrong! You do what has to be done even when you have no idea what to expect! You go because it’s what friends do!”
Starlight was promptly hurled through the window towards the north as the sun broke over the horizon.
Spike waddled in, a sour look on his face. He set a box of mixed chocolates and a roll of tissues next to a sobbing Twilight, patted her on the shoulder, and left without a single word. Back in his basket, Spike pulled out the piece of slate that had been used as a scoreboard. Down near the bottom, he wrote the name Spike. To nopony but himself, he muttered, “Ad Misericordiam….” and added a mark.
Starlight looked Rainbow fully in the eyes, face completely level. “It’s what friends do.”
“Starlight?” Applejack yelled. “What are you—”
“It’s what friends do, okay? Now do you want help getting rid of the griffons or not?” She turned back to Rainbow Dash. “That blimp is piloted by griffons, right? And not some other invaders, like the Great Danes or Yakyakistan or anyone else?”
Rainbow shrugged. “If Soarin knows his pastries, then yeah.”
“His pastries?”
The zeppelin fired again, and Starlight threw up a magical shield on instinct. Several danishes broke against the glowing surface before tumbling the long way down.
“His pastries,” Starlight repeated. “That is really, unbelievably dumb.” She levitated herself over Applejack. “Okay, so as fun as it would be to just blast that thing into smithereens, I think our Princess Autocratic Head Trauma would prefer it if I could say that friendship was somehow involved. Applejack, I’m gonna need you to use your true power to bring this thing down once and for all.”
Applejack blinked, surprised. “You mean, flying?”
“No! Not even slightly! I’m levitating you, and you’re welcome by the way. Try again.”
“Uh, lying?”
Starlight grunted. “If you’re talking about fooling all these ponies into thinking you’re a pegasus, think again. Turns out that pegasus magic doesn’t do anything to stop oxygen deprivation, and with all the time they spend in the clouds, these pegasi are all loopier than rollercoasters. It’s probably affecting you too.”
“So it is lying!” Applejack hoof-pumped.
“I don’t know why I said ‘probably’. No, Applejack, you are not a good liar.”
“Loving, then?”
From the cloud ring: “Yes!”
“No!” Starlight yelled, repeating it for good measure. “No! It’s bucking!”
“Same thing, isn’t it?”
“I meant kicking—ugh, I did not need that, Rainbow Dash—it’s kicking, Applejack! Kicking the thing in the face! Or, in this case, balloon!”
“Oh.” Applejack chuckled. “I guess that makes sense. So what do I do?”
“Extend your rear legs,” Starlight explained, as if to a toddler.
“Like this?”
Starlight rotated Applejack’s body to point the right way, then nodded. “All the way straight. And remember: don’t bend your knees.”
With zero warning, Applejack was hurled at the zeppelin. At that range, there was no chance to miss.
Alarms sounded on the Überkompensation’s bridge. “Luftgeneral!” screamed one of the griffons. “Zere’s somezing coming right at us, and it’s moving fast enough to puncture ze envelope! Ve’re going to explode!”
General Bekloppte crossed the room in three swift steps and smacked the panicking griffon upside the head. “Dummkopf! Mere impact alone ees not enough to detonate hydrogen! Zere vould haff to be unt source of ignition in ze envelope—vat a laughable idea!”
He laughed loudly, gesturing with his talons to encourage his underlings to join in, and they all did. Two such underlings laughed especially hard, wrenched the door open, and, still venting hysterics, ran for their feathery lives.
Applejack tore into the envelope rear hooves first, reducing it to shreds in her wake. Inside, she passed through heavier fabrics one after another, bursting the bubbles that contained the hydrogen that kept the zeppelin aloft. Even the out-of-place Thundersteel-brand box lodged amongst the cables of the envelope—Soarin’s magical oven—caved beneath her hooves and ruptured wide. The thousand-degree temperatures inside immediately ignited the hydrogen flooding the air.
The zeppelin blossomed into a tremendous conflagration. Its eruption propelled Applejack up on a plume of roiling red flame.
“You did it!” Rainbow cheered.
“She did it!” Star Screamer cheered.
“Great shot, Applefly—that was one in a million!” Soarin cheered.
Rainbow Dash leapt up and caught Applejack from her inevitable fall. Soarin, Star Screamer, a recently-returned Lightning Dust, and the other cadets who’d gathered around them turned that two-person hug into a group number full of cheering..
“I knew you could do it!” Rainbow Dash planted a kiss on Applejack’s lips. “You didn’t need wings, the magic was in you all along!”
“No it wasn’t!” Starlight shrieked, off to the side. “I was me! It was literally all me!”
In the center of Camp Hiyassekyte, the boiling wreck of the Überkompensation finally crashed down onto the Thundersteel-brand runway, crunching like a sick coyote chewing on chicken bones. Griffons scrambled from the gondola, wings in varying states of singed. A cadet swooped down from the safety of the armory and began pummeling the largest, most ruffled of the lot.
“Three cheers for Applefly! Hip-hip—”
“Hooray!”
“I could have thrown a rock!” Starlight screamed. “Not even a big rock! ANY rock!”
“That was awesome, Pinkie Pie!”
“Apple—”
“—Apple Bloom, right! Er, Applejack!”
Rainbow’s lips found Applejack’s again, and then her hooves got lost all over Applejack’s body. As Applejack reciprocated, the realization of what was going on moved through the group like nauseating ripples on a lake, and the group hug broke up with little fanfare and much awkward muttering.
“You brain-addled witless wingheads!” Starlight screamed. “It had nothing to do with any of you! It was all me! It was all….”
She sighed. “Oh, forget it. I’m setting up another utopia.” She drifted away, letting her magic carry her idly as she pondered. “I was on R-Town last time, wasn’t I? Or am I misremembering—”
A small pop came from behind her—the sound of air magically displaced to make room for an incoming teleportee—and she heard her least favorite pony in the world right then say, “Starlight, wait! Don’t do it!”
“Do what?” Starlight yelled, looking back at Princess Twilight. “You don’t know that I’m about to establish yet another microstate ruled by myself in the name of peace and order!”
“Actually, I was going to say you shouldn’t—” Twilight glanced to her left, where the last griffons were crawling out of the wreckage, their plumage burned away. Her jaw dropped. “Resort to violence… to solve this issue….” She shook her head rapidly to refocus. “But you also shouldn’t do the thing you said!”
“Why not?” If Starlight had had a ground to stamp her hoof on, she’d have done it. “I put all this effort into saving Equestria and I don’t get any credit, because these friends have the combined intelligence of a paper plate! Why shouldn’t I do things my own way?”
“I know it’s frustrating!” Twilight flew a little closer, hoof outstretched. “I know what it’s like not to be recognized for—”
“You do not! Everyone you know is a national hero!”
“Okay, maybe not, but still!” Twilight sighed. “Look, I know things didn’t turn out like either of us expected, but they went okay anyway, didn’t they? Equestria is saved, most of those griffons don’t look… too dead….” She smiled. “Can’t we just go with it?”
Starlight growled. “Really?” As Twilight kept smiling, Starlight finally grumbled, “Okay. I guess it doesn’t matter too much, as long as Equestria is safe.”
She managed a smile of her own, but it quickly turned to a confused frown at a curious sensation on her flank. She looked down to see her cutie mark lighting up and buzzing. “Why is my ass blinking again?”
“It means your work here is done. The friendship problem is solved!” Twilight beamed, but then she too fell into confusion and tapped her lip. “But why now? Why not as soon as you stopped the invasion….”
Her eyes suddenly grew wide. “Of course! The griffons weren’t the friendship problem!”
Starlight’s eye twitched. “Huh.”
“The map didn’t bring you here to stop some silly little belligerent force!” Twilight rushed forward and hugged Starlight. “It brought you here to learn humility!”
Starlight’s other eye twitched. “Huh.”
“You’ve grown so much over these past few weeks,” Twilight said, squeezing her tighter. “And I am so proud of—”
Starlight magically grabbed a piece of the wreckage and smashed it against Twilight’s head. Twilight’s grip loosened, and she dropped like a stone.
“S-Town it is, then,” Starlight mumbled, turning a hundred and eighty degrees and floating away at speed. “This one’s going to be—objectively—perfect.”
Captain Spitfire had not enjoyed her mandatory three-day leave to the Crystal Kingdom Diplomatic Hideaway Ice Cream Parlor and Spa… not one bit. She had been pampered, preened, well-fed, not told what to do (beyond keep her voice down, please—the only orders here are one scoop or two!), and the entire experience had been patently wretched. At least she had introduced the idea of a sauna, however indirectly, and took a tiny measure of relief in having a place where she could go to sweat.
It hadn’t hardly been enough, though, and at the earliest possible moment according to regulation, she had taken wing and left it all behind.
“Worst state-mandated vacation ever,” Spitfire grumbled as she approached the last cloudbank before Mount Pinocchio. She squirmed with discomfort—or rather, with comfort but in a bad way—at the lack of either familiar knots in her back or skull-splitting migraines.
She dove into the cloudbank and, within seconds, had burst through it with a loud call of, “Hello, cadets! How did you get by without….”
There appeared to be a burning zeppelin crumpled on her Thundersteel-brand tarmac, an entirely unauthorized two-person celebration was taking place in the wreckage’s very shadow, and the whole camp bore evidence of what had to be the world’s least diabetic-friendly food fight. Also, there seemed to be a Princess of Friendship buried head-first in a low-lying cloud. Clearly, they hadn’t been able to manage half a week without her.
She wouldn’t have had it any other way. “Soarin!” she yelled. “What in Tartarus happened here?”
Soarin, who was watching the revelry with mild interest and a camera, looked up and flew her way. “Captain, we won! That cadet saved all of Equestria! Can we keep her?”
“And I helped!” yelled another pony whom Spitfire recognized as Lightning Dust. “I am so glad I chickened out and sent that letter to the princess, I could just—”
She grabbed Soarin’s face and pulled him close for very sloppy kiss. She then turned to Spitfire—
Who, channeling a weekend of pent-up aggression, punched her in the temple to knock her out cold. “Celestia, I needed that.”