//------------------------------//
// I Siege What You Did There 
// Story: Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1) 
// by Barrobroadcaster 
//------------------------------//

The griffons pretty much had the run of the town at that point. They flew to and from their hovering airships carrying sags, chests and claw-fulls of loot stolen from the ponies. Gold, jewels, fabrics and clothes- Ponyville had an abundance of rich swag since Blueblood's elitists moved in. But the griffons were pirates and while they did go after the most shiny and valuable things, they weren't that picky and most stole anything that wasn't nailed down. The things that were nailed down, they marked for later when they could come back to remove the nails. So, Blueblood's actions had at the very least made Ponyville a more appealing target for the griffons.

Gust Grasp monitored all of this from the bridge of his flagship.

"All Your Base reports they've emptied out the museum!"

"The I Don't Even and the Mind=Blown are finished looting the bank!"

"Challenge Accepted and Confound These Ponies have collected everything from the art galleries!"

"Art gallery," Gust repeated, scratching the arm of his command chair. "Nick anything good?"

His comm officer turned around. "Nahh, just the usual DeviantArt commissions."

"Eh," Gust sat back. "Still might be valuable to hold onto. Even if it's just the regular pony garbage, they might pay to get it back."

The communications guy smiled. "Aye, sir!" Griffons had an innate lust for shiny objects like gems and gold. But the griffons of the First Expeditionary Armada were very, very experienced; they knew that just because something wasn't valuable to them didn't mean it wasn't valuable to others. When they were done looting, they could ransom things back to the ponies before offloading it to the black market.

"Have we gotten any sign of defenses? Any resistance whatsoever?"

"None, Sky Marshal," his sensor officer said, delighted. "Sky's clear and we've had almost no contact with the locals. The few squads that have report they're running scared into the woods."

Gust Grasp was pleased to hear that as well but it made him uneasy. Countless pirate raids had made him cautious, the loss of his vanguard even more so. He rubbed his beak, knowing he smelled a trap. But being the first pirate to pillage Ponyville was too good of an opportunity to just leave halfway. So the question was, what was the trap and how could he spring it? He knew the town had air defenses… but where were they?

"Send a couple of the fully-loaded transports to fallback positions, two squadrons each to escort. Helm, engage cloak and pull us back to the edge of town."

"Aye, Sky Marshal."

The U Mad Bro vanished into thin air once again.

Back on the ground, the griffons were happily pillaging Ponyville. They ate the ponies' food, drank Berry Punch's vintage fruit punches and stole pastries and baked goods from Sugar Cube Corner. The buildings they already robbed, they destroyed or desecrated in any number of ways, throwing bricks through the windows or graffitiing them. Ponyville was beginning to look like modern Detrot very quickly.

But none of the griffons paid much attention to the Golden Oaks Library, mostly because books held very little value to them in any form. Apart from burning, Gust Grasp's fleet knew that books were easily replaced so they couldn't be used for extortion and just about every book could be downloaded from the internet so there wasn't a point trying to sell them. So almost none of them noticed the massive ion cannon raising up from the library's roof and the few that did mistook it for an observatory.

And that was exactly how Dan had planned it.





"Dan…," Twilight turned around in her seat, "I know I haven't asked this in… well, at least a day but did you install anything new in the house?"

Dan pressed a button on the fifth control station and a periscope extended. "Yeah, we got a new toaster. This one has four bread slots and you can do bagels, too!"

"Mmmm bagels," Chrys licked her lips. She scratched her ear. "Does anybody else hear that? Sounds like the cicadas are back again."

"Not really what I was referring to," Twilight commented. "You're saying this ion cannon-thingy isn't new?"

Dan turned around and held up a blueprint. "Been here this whole time. Remember when I told you I wanted to do some remodeling?"

She levitated the schematic over to her. Apart from all the other modifications on the treehouse, in the corner was a crude drawing of the library vaporizing a Star Destroyer. Twilight then realized this was the same blueprint from episode four. "You actually installed an ion cannon on top of the treehouse?!!"

"I know, right?" Dan said gleefully. "It's crazy what they sell at Pone Depot."

"Yeah, crazy."

The human turned back to the periscope. "All right, now let's see what's out there." There were hundreds of griffon ships in various sizes at various altitudes. The larger ones were metal, a few of them resembled trains instead of boats. One of them looked like a giant inner tube with four pool cues stuck through its sides from bow to stern. A few others resembled the galleons seen before and even one was actually the Team Plasma Frigate from Pokemon: Black 2 and White 2. Colress probably loaned it to the griffons to test their ideals versus Dan's or some other BS. "Ah, there's a nice looking one," Dan said, selecting a target. "Full-power to the ion cannon!!"

Alarm klaxons blared. An automated female voice announced, "Warning: all safeties disengaged. Ion defenses online."

Dan grinned. "Let's say hello to the guests."

"Thppppppppp-p!" Fluffle Puff slid up next to him. "Thbb-thpp! Thbb-thpp!" I wanna shoot it! I wanna shoot it!

"Haha, I think she wants to press the fire button, Dan," Twilight said.

"Awww," Dan said, petting her. "Does Fluffle want to be the first one to engage the enemy?"

"Thpp-thpp!" the fluffy mare nodded happily. Yes, please! *squee*

"All right," Dan got up. "Grip the controls carefully, now! This baby's got quite a kick to it!"

Fluffle Puff's fluff filled up the entire control station but she was able to grip the controls of the periscope. Tongue at one side of the mouth, she closed in on the target. "Thoom." Boom.





"Sky Marshal, sir?" the sensor officer turned around. "I'm getting something on the scanners."

"What is it?" Gust asked, standing.

"I'm… I'm not sure, sir. It's a power reading coming from the north-east corner of town."

Gust Grasp walked over to the sensor suite. He pointed to his comm officer, "It must be coming from the power plant. Tell the My Face When to take it out."

"Aye, sir. MFW, proceed to quadrant-three and neutralize target," the communications griffon said.

Instantly, the voice of the My Face When's captain responded. "MFW engaging. Consider it dust, Gust."

Gust smirked. The My Face When was a heavy cruiser, one of the toughest and most well-armed ships in the fleet. It looked like a locomotive with two halves of a soup can wrapped around the top and bottom and a bundle of flashlights sticking out of the back for its engines. It was a long, bulky metal vessel with guns on the sides and two huge turrets on the sides of the front. The captain was one of Gust's more capable subordinates, a bloodthirsty female griffon named Clutch. She was a small, lithe and pink bird that liked to blow things up if she couldn't carry them and had both looks and personality that her crew and even Gust found attractive. What's not to love about a woman with five-thousand tons of steel bristling with four-hundred millimeter cannons?

"Sir?" The sensor officer said, a trill of fear in his voice. "This reading… I've never seen anything like it before. It's coming from the library."

Gust looked over his shoulder. "Contact the MFW. Tell them to blow that library, now!"





*BzzzrrrrrrRRRRRR-BLAAAAAAAAAAM!* The ion cannon fired.

The entire library shook with the force of the blast, the ground around it shook, the mailbox outside of the house shook. A blue bolt of concentrated ion energy shot into the sky leaving an electric trail behind it that sparked in the air before dissipating. It struck the side of the train-shaped cruiser, exploding in a burst of blue lightning.

Dan patted Fluffle on the back. "Nice job. My turn."

"We're next! We're next!" The Blast Sisters said, bouncing.





"My Face When's been hit!" the sensor officer screamed. But Gust Grasp didn't need the scanners to tell him that- he could see out the front viewport. Blue lightning sparked all over the ship, crackling and exploding across its hull. The mighty ship was listing off course, dipping down.

Gust hovered over to the sensor suite. "What the hell was that?! What's the damage to the Face?"

The sensor griffon shook his head in disbelief at his console. "This can't be right," he shook his head. "Sir, I'm not reading any damage to My Face When."

"What?" Gust looked back up at the screen. The ship's engines were flaring and she started to spin. "Hail them now!"





The bridge of the My Face When was another story. 

"Engines are failing!! We can't maintain altitude!!"

"Structural integrity compromised on decks three-through-thirteen!"

"Primary power is out! Emergency power is out!"

"Systems failing! All systems are failing!!"

"Is this a bad time to mention the vending machine is out of order?"

"It's not out of order; it just needs to be restocked."

"But that means it's out of order. If it's not working, it's out of order."

"It's not out of order, Chelsea! If we said it's out of order, people would think it was broken!"

The ion damage to the ship was causing every electronic system on the ship to overload. Captain Clutch fought to shout orders over the screams of her own crew and the blare of alarm klaxons. Power conduits all throughout the vessel ruptured in explosions of lightning, frying griffons unlucky enough to be near them. Coolant pipes exploded, several on the bridge of the ship, spilling icy mist onto the deck. Griffons fought for the controls of their ship, desperate to contain the damage. All in vain. Ion energy, electromagnetic radiation and raw electricity surged through the vessel, arcing off of every surface and destroying everything in its path.

Several smaller vessels were ripped apart by the ion wash engulfing the My Face When. Several frigates and destroyers were drawn to the larger vessel's magnetized hull and clung to it, weighing the vessel down. A few griffons that were close by, their feathers adorned with stolen jewelry, also found themselves drawn to the hull. They stuck to it, entire squadrons that had been overladen with heavy necklaces and bracelets, clinging to the outside of the vessel and each other helplessly.

The entire ship pulsed blue with ion energy, listing and tumbling into other ships in the fleet.





"She's not answering hails, sir!"

"Tell all ships to back off from her! All ships, now!!" Gust ordered.

"But, Sky Marshal-"

"Do it!"

"Aye, sir…," the comms officer said mournfully. He knew what they were being ordered to do. None of them liked it.





The My Face When continued its slow, helpless tumble through the air. The engines were not electrical themselves, only controlled by it. As the ion damage disrupted the electronic systems, the engines flared, propelling the ship along its uncontrolled course. It began to near one of Blueblood's skyscrapers.

On the inside of the skyscraper, Blueblood's holograms were having holographic tea and congratulating each other on being awesome when they noticed the massive hunk of metal spiraling towards them. The lead hologram raised his cup and said, "Well, shit," before taking a final sip.

Now spinning, the My Face When was attracted to Blueblood's gaudy skyscraper like a magnet. There was nothing anyriffon onboard could do about it.

"If it's not working, then you put an out of order sign on it!"

"It IS WORKING, you DOLT! It just needs to be restocked!"

"IF IT NEEDS TO BE RESTOCKED, THAT MEANS IT'S NOT IN ORDER! THAT MEANS IT'S OUT OF ORDER!"

"SCREW YOU, BECKY!"

"SCREW YOU TOO, CHELSEA!"

"Ladies?"

"WHAT?!"

"We might want to abandon ship now."

"WHY?!"

"Ship's out of order."

"…"

"WELL DOES THAT MEAN IT'S NOT WORKING OR DOES IT JUST NEED TO BE RE-"

The My Face When smashed into Blueblood's tacky skyscraper and exploded. The strange, heptagonal structure of the building, while unsound, engulfed the explosion even as the ship plunged into its side. The building erupted into flames as the ship detonated inside it, containing the explosion and ensuring only Blueblood's property and no other part of Ponyville would be harmed. The My Face When went down with all hands.