The city was under a self-maintained lockdown. General Carter’s voice was heard throughout, calmly requesting that expedition members comply to the best of their abilities, remaining in whatever rooms they may have been in. Hallways were to be kept clear of personnel and use of them was limited to specific teams and members, outside of emergencies. While part of the reasoning was to ensure the safety of expedition members, considering Hendrix's less than fortunate encounter, it was also to make the task of the control room technicians as easy as possible.
The city-wide lifesigns detector hadn't been activated yet, so while that project was unexpectedly bumped up the work queue, they were trying to determine alternate means of locating and hopefully getting a count of how many parasprites they were dealing with. Daniel and a few others were gathered in the large room he had claimed as his office and research space, including Thorne and his team, who were rolled out of bed for the task. Daniel had likely chosen the room due to the banks of shelves built into one wall, after poring over images of the city floor plans, debating the pros and cons of various rooms.
However, the team experiencing the most success would likely be the communications group. Composed of a mix of civilian military contractors and SG staff, their original mandate was to document and record most things, placing them more as a support team for the expedtion. An encounter that called for them to play a near primary role within a day of arrival certainly wasn't expected. As such, technicians were hustling around the room to get the interface between Earth technology and the Ancient systems running even as they searched for an appropriate beat to tempt the parasprites; Lyra joined them, as she was the closest thing to a resident expert they had.
"The 'Imperial March' would be weirdly fitting," Ronald Price, a military non-commissioned officer, commented as he flipped through his options. "But I doubt it's 'upbeat' enough for that, by what our unicorn friend described. Maybe some Weird Al... or Polish polka..."
"Well, Cadance said 'good rhythm,' not upbeat specifically..." Floyd muttered, going through his list. "Lavender Town?"
"Lavender Town?" Lyra asked, looking over his shoulder. "What kind of song is that?"
"Well…" Floyd hit play on his laptop, letting the old eight bit music fill the air. Lyra made a few uncomfortable faces. before letting out a cry, covering her ears.
"Make it stop!" she whimpered, shooting Floyd a pleading look. He quickly cut the audio, looking at Lyra in horror.
"Okay, make a note of that, ponies suffer from Lavender Town Syndrome." Floyd gulped, looking down at Lyra. "Y-you ok...?"
"Y-yeah I'm okay…" Lyra rubbed her ears, giving her head a shake. "I didn't think music could hurt so much... what horrible monster made that!?"
"Let's just move on…" Floyd turned back to his computer. "Any other ideas?"
"If I understand it right, these parasprites were attracted to the melody and beat of the song?" Krysiline Malaki asked, her stylus dancing between her fingers. The Filipino woman had the looks that placed her firmly in the 'exotic beauty' category.
"Uh huh," Lyra nodded, bouncing back quickly from her music-induced pain. "Pinkie Pie strapped a bunch of instruments to herself and led them out of town like a one-pony band.
"So what we really need is something with a solid underscore," she continued. "Something simple and catchy. The type of song that makes someone tap their feet and want to dance."
"Da Funk?" Floyd asked, looking over his shoulder. "I mostly have metal songs on here and I doubt that would end well."
"They might get overexcited or something," Jace Coleman, a seasoned military reporter who never quite grew up, agreed. "I can't believe they fed them. Did no one watch Star Trek? Gremlins? Placid Lake?"
"At least they didn't try to eat you," Floyd glared slightly. "We need to pick something quickly before we resort to the normal human way of solving a problem."
"Throwing wads of money at it?" Ronald quipped. "Oh, wait, that's the North American way. Okay... slow enough pace, chipper enough beat... this should not be this hard. Maybe a Disney song?"
Floyd paused, tapping his chin. "Moonlight Sonata?"
"Classical music, slow and steady beat with a distinct vigour." Malaski mulled it over.
"Classical?" Lyra asked
Jace started laughing, kicking his chair away from the shared table. "It's like Ride of the Valkyries and the military. Worth a shot." He swiveled in his chair, tapping on the taunt mesh rests. "How is that marriage thingie coming? Can we do a sound check?"
"The interface dock is almost ready," the strained voice of the technician, who had been on the wrong end of Jace's banter for too long, responded.
"Yeah; that marriage thingie," Jace repeated with a shameless smirk. "Five minutes sounds good?"
"This isn't exactly plugging an amplifier into a speaker," she said, popping up to fiddle with a few more cables, then slotting a crystal headed optic cable into the base. A green light blinked on the black bar set in the center of the table. "And it's ready…"
"Ah, the feeling of uselessness," Floyd joked. "Reminds me of breakfast with my parents."
She clipped a spare cable into the tablet she pulled from its velcro pouch on her back and checked a few things. "The interface dock is working fine, though it's not the permanent one for this station. You can plug all your stuff in regularly, it will do the necessary conversions, though there will be a slight lag. Rush job, and all that. Control will still have to patch you into which part of the coms you need." She gestured vaguely to the large Ancient console standing in the corner, its crystal keys lit but not active. "We didn't have nearly enough time to get your full access running."
"Okay..." Floyd got up, moving over to the console. He grabbed his laptop, swearing to himself in his native language. "Alright... I think I got it right..." He pulled his earpiece, an upgrade from his radio, out of his pocket, shoving it in his ear. "Uh, control, we're ready on our end."
"Good to hear. We are still having a bit of trouble tracking these things. They don't show up on scanners while hibernating, and they are too small to get a proper fix on with regular sensors."
"We are going to try a small scale test," General Carter took over. "We identified a small cluster of them on the sixty-seventh floor, so we will see how well our Pied Piper idea works."
"I have our song ready, a bit of classical to liven up the place. Just gotta hit play." Floyd smiled to himself. "Let's just hope it doesn't open any hidden passages."
There was a pause. As if in response to an unasked question, Dr. Jackson, who had apparently been patched into the connection, spoke up. "I'm reasonably sure Janus never visited this city. He was exactly the type of the person they disliked."
"Aha!" Luna's voice came through the library, getting Shining Armor's attention. He had in no way been falling asleep, no way at all. He got up, stretching his limbs out, trying to get his blood flowing again.
"Did you find something?" Celestia asked, having teleported to Luna's side, a desperate look in her eyes. Luna, who had been going through the oldest tomes in the library, the ones all the way in the back, just rolled her eyes.
"No, Celestia, I didn't find anything. I just shouted 'aha' because I was bored." She shook her head. "Yes I found something. A map!" She used her lap, spreading out said map. It was old, showing the Empire at the height of its power.
"Is that..." Shining Armor peered around Luna, a yawn half smothered behind a hoof even as his eyes widened, "is that our empire? What it used to be, I mean?"
"Yes it is, at its very peak... but... that is not why this is important, this is." She moved her hoof up and left. "Behold Shining Armor, we are the first ponies since the Great Exodus to view our homeland in any form."
Indeed, displayed prominently were the lands of the tribes, three nations clustered together. Next to them was what appeared to be a great inland sea... with a city floating on its waters.
"This doesn't make any sense, that... doesn't look like the," Shining paused and changed his wording. "Actually, that city in the water looks a lot like the Crystal Palace..."
"It should," Celestia murmured. Her expression was torn between horror and distraught. "This castle was made to honour that city, the home of the teachers. How... how could I have let myself forget the Teachers? Filly at the time or no..."
"I believe we have Discord to thank for that." Luna snorted, a look of anger on her face. "That cur stole our own history from us. But this does raise the question... why have they been quiet until now?"
Celestia had closed her eyes, in deep thought, thinking back to long forgotten years. Shining Armor looked between the two sisters in confusion. "Pri- ah, Luna, I'm lost. Who are the Teachers?"
"They, my dear nephew, are the most important race to ever walk the lands of our world. They came from the stars and found ponykind when we were barely more than animals. It was they who shaped us into what we are, and to think... they have been forgotten for so long...” Luna said, gazing at the city in lament.
"The Teachers were rare. Ponies knew of them; in truth, most of the races of our world did, but by the time I was old enough to warrant their tutelage, their numbers were... significantly diminished," Celestia recalled. Things were coming back to her from the haze of her long forgotten past. "I... Luna was one of the last ponies taught by the Teachers directly before they vanished, and..." Celestia looked down at the map and ran a hoof over the map, as if afraid to touch it. "The tensions between tribes began not many years after and the windigos started to consume the homeland."
"I... believe they called their city Shangri-La..." Luna looked up from the map. "It is extremely possible that they have dear Cadance."
Shining Armor switched to 'Captain of the Guard' mode. It was either that or have his head spin from the heavy 'prefounding of our nations' knowledge being tossed around. "Okay, so there is a city that predates the Hearth's Warming stories," he left the 'and our immortal princess' part unsaid but implied, "and you think Cadance might be there? Okay. But why?"
"Amore once told us that the Heart had been a gift from the Teachers, something to protect the city. The Heart took her and Shangri-La is the only possibility." Luna flexed her wings, shifting on her hooves. "Sister, do remind me why we never sent expeditions into the North to recover anything of value?"
"Before we took the throne, ponies feared the frozen lands and the possibility of the windigos still lurking." Celestia sighed, her wings drooping heavily. "When we did take the throne, we had too much on our hooves, and the ponies that did venture there? Past the Crystal Empire and into the frozen north? Too many died."
"I believe we have to change that." Luna gestured around them. "A piece of our history has returned to us. We cannot allow ourselves to live in ignorance. Once we reclaim Cadance I will personally lead an expedition. Maybe we can reclaim that which was lost to us..."
"We still need to discover how," Celestia sighed.
The first chords of the sonata's first movements echoed through the halls of the sixty-seventh floor. In the control room, all eyes were fixed on the screen, watching the simple two dimensional representation of the floor's layout and the cluster of dots that marked the parasprites. Everyone was waiting for any signs of movement, as were more seeing the same image down in the media office.
"So," Jace asked when the dots barely twitched. "How long should this take?"
"It worked pretty fast when Pinkie started playing," Lyra admitted.
"Mr. Hendrix, you're using Moonlight Sonata," General Carter spoke up. "Could you progress it to the 2nd movement?"
"You got it!" Floyd tapped at his laptop, skipping forward in the song. "That doin' anything?"
"I think it is," General Carter replied. Her next statement was to someone in the control room rather than to the media group. "Narrow the display to the room."
The display shifted as whoever was in control zoomed it in. The dots became more distinct, making it clear there was quite the number of them in the room. But more important was the fact that they were starting to respond, the entire mass starting to shift from side to side.
"It looks like it's working." There was a smile evident in General Carter's voice. "I think we actually got something on the first try. Hendrix, put this on a loop for me."
"You got it." He tapped away again. "We're good to go, General. Let us know when you need us for anything else." He turned back to the others. "So, anyone got any ideas how to pass the time? Stories maybe?"
"What kinda stories?" Lyra asked, sitting next to him, an eager look on her face.
"Well, I got a few uh... stories about questionable behavior." Floyd coughed, seeming to confuse Lyra. "Like uh... that time me and my cousin made moonshine…"
"Shouldn't we, you know, pay attention?" Roland asked, giving the younger man an annoyed look.
"There is no reason we can't have a conversation and be on alert," Floyd argued, looking back at his laptop. "Besides... the silence would kill me…"
"We did our job. Found a song that works," Jace reclined in his chair. "The rest is up to the ones in the control room. Right? Right."
"Hopefully." Floyd nodded, leaning back in his chair. "So. Stories? I know I got a few good ones… and Lyra has to know a good story or two."
"Oh, do I have stories!" Lyra grinned. "Like that time Pinkie Pie cloned herself or when Twilight went crazy and made the whole town fight over a doll!" Floyd blinked, giving the others a look.
"Those are more friends of yours, right?" Jace asked.
"Yup!" Lyra beamed. "Pinkie Pie is the town's party pony and Twilight is the librarian. We went to magic school together!"
"Magic School," Jace broke out in laughter. "The more I hear about this place the wilder it gets. Damn, I thought the Nox were bad!"
"You met the Nox?" Krisline remarked. "Only ever read the few mission reports on them."
"Hey!" Lyra snorted, looking a big indignant. "It took a lot of time and effort to get into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns! Do you know how hard it is for a foal to learn magic?"
"Hard, I take it?" Floyd asked, trying to soothe the mare.
"Well, yeah, it was hard, and I'm not even that good at it." Lyra nodded, taking a breath to calm herself.
"Still, it's something you choose to pursue?" Krisline asked.
"A unicorn's skill level is tied directly to their cutie mark. Some, like me, have finer control of their telekinesis while others, like Twilight have magic as their special talent! She's even Princess Celestia's personal student!"
"Gonna take more than just a one day gossip primer before I get what that means," Jace admitted. "But it still sounds impressive."
"They said Princess is your highest authority?" Ronald asked on the tail of Jace's comment. "She takes students? I'm trying to imagine the president having a student. It's an odd image."
"Well, Twilight did hatch a dragon egg and turn the baby into a giant," Lyra recounted, tapping her chin. "All I did was play a harp. Y'know… I wonder if Luna has a student..."
"Dragon?" Jace asked before bursting out in a fresh peal of laughter. "God! This place keeps getting better and better!"
"Hey! Spike's a friend of mine!" Lyra snorted, sounding much like a horse. "It's not nice to laugh at people!"
"Idiot," Floyd scolded, socking Jace in the arm. "Stop pissing off our guest!" Lyra huffed, turning away, looking rather offended.
"I've been in the SG program for a while. The boys and girls in communications don't see action much, but we hear about it a lot," Jace grinned on, unashamed and unabashed. "Most of it is some of the wildest stories you'll hear. But this place has been blowing everything out of the water. Talking ponies, magic, dragons...
"This is pretty much the only time all the weird stuff is actually the weird stuff, not just someone with enough tech and more than enough ego blowing it out their ass," Jace laughed again. "And to think I was going to stay at Homeworld Command for a shot at being part of the big one!"
"You'd think being in public relations would have made you better at dealing with people," Ronald muttered neutrally.
"I save it for official things," Jace smiled, watching the screens through the corner of his eye. "I'm off the PR clock."
"You do realize that she's like a princess's best friend right?" Floyd asked, giving Jace a bit of a glare.
"I've been part of details for diplomats, generals, liaisons and even one of the president's visits. Most of them appreciate the more casual and human approach when they aren't working." Jace leaned back again. "You get stiff playing the stiff all the time. Plus, I heard the princess insists on casual tones too."
"Still, apologize to the… mare…" Floyd insisted, gesturing to the still pouting Lyra. "Please? Ponies seem to take friendship very seriously."
"Seriously?" Lyra spoke, though it was easy to tell that she wasn't very happy. "Friendship is the most important thing ever!"
"See?" Floyd turned back to Jace. "You gonna be that guy who started an intergalactic incident?"
"I should apologize for finding this planet great?" Jace asked with a smug smirk.
"What?" Ronald questioned.
"Should I apologize for finding this planet great and thinking it's one of the best we've hit for a while?" Jace repeated with the same smug expression.
"So… you weren't laughing at my friend?" Lyra asked slowly, giving Jace a cautious look.
"God, no. I'd love to meet a dragon," Jace sighed. "The only one we, as in the SGC we, came across was another ancient hologram. A very realistic one that spat fire, caused a cave in and swallowed a few blocks of C4, according to the reports, on the other end of a literal time dilation maze, but still a hologram."
"Well then… I'm sorry I overreacted," Lyra moved over, giving Jace a hug. She pulled away with a bright smile, wagging her tail much like a dog.
"And… we got way off topic," Floyd coughed a bit. "So! Who wants to hear about that time and my cousin made moonshine and ended up burning a barn down? Or that time I saw a yee naaldlooshii…" Floyd shuddered a little, the memory sending a shiver down his spine.
Cadance took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She knew she could do this, crystallizing parasprites wasn't that hard… except… if something went wrong the swarm would most likely eat them.
Cadance and two human security officers were stationed on a balcony that overlooked the main space of the large chamber the humans had directed her to, several body lengths up. She tried not to let her nervousness for what was coming show. The plan was to direct the parasprites into the room through the larger entranceway on the far side where they would hopefully gather around the stand of loudspeakers they set up. That way, they would be in a large cluster to make it easy for her to target them en masse. There were a few grumbles about the risk of losing the speakers since they didn't have many of them, but those voices had been quickly hushed.
Her guards seemed at ease, their weapons, guns she reminded herself, held loosely before them and their expressions mostly detached. She tried to mimic them. Afterall, if anything went wrong, there was the door just a few hooves away they could duck out through.
"Nervous, Princess?" the human on the left asked, catching Cadance as she glanced at the door for any needed emergency retreat.
"Only a little," Cadance admitted as she tried to recall the name. Female with the short cut mane, narrow eyes and pale skin and an accent that reminded her of the neighponese... Kim! There were so many new and strange names in the short while they had been there. Of course, she noticed the name sewn on the uniform just after remembering it.
"You were the one to suggest the plan," Kim continued.
"Only a bit of jitters," Cadance insisted with a little laugh. She called on her best princess poise, burying her jitters as best she could. "I've faced worse than a few parasprites."
"I've faced off with replicators. These things sound close enough to creep me out," the male security officer commented casually. Bryson was his name. He adjusted his hold on his gun. "Considering the final count is well into the thousands, I think a little nervousness is called for. Are you sure you can handle this, princess? We are in a city ship. They could, I don't know, seal this room and pump out all the air or something."
"I'm sure." While she hadn't quite mastered the reassuring tone Aunt Celestia used, Cadance was still confident in her own. Even if her wings did tremble slightly.
"Princess Cadance, Sargent Bryson, Lieutenant Kim, are you ready?" General Carter called over the radio. "We are about to send them your way."
"We are!" Cadance reported without hesitation.
"Confirmed," Sergeant Bryson added as Lieutenant Kim pulled out a life signs detector instead. "We are already in position and ready."
"Fingers crossed then," the General said in a parting comment. Cadance took a deep breath, charging her horn up, the hallway becoming bathed in a light blue color. At the same time the loudspeakers came to life, chords of an instrumental piece pouring out from it as the doors opened.
Cadance waited for the parasprites to flitter out of the room before firing a beam of energy at them. As soon as it made contact, a wave of crystal started to spread over them, and in mere seconds, the swarm was encased in a shimmering indigo prison.
"Well, that worked out," Cadance smiled, letting the glow fade from her horn. "That was all of them, right?" she turned to her two companions, both sporting rather shocked looks on their faces. She couldn't help but giggle, shaking her head. "I'm going to get a lot of these reactions, aren't I?"
Bryson gave her a numb nod before he found his voice. "And you were nervous?"
"Hey, those may or may not be carnivorous parasprites. I'm immortal, not invincible." Cadance rolled her eyes, looking at the parasites, whose eyes were still moving, though they were unable to really move. "Those were all of them? I didn't miss away?" She carefully moved around the Crystal, peering into the room.
"That's all of them. At least, we're not detecting any more," Carter radioed in, allowing Cadance to fully relax.
"Only a few thousand more left to go!" Cadance chuckled, letting out a small groan. "At least it's not Sombra..." she grumbled, ruffling her wings.
”We're going to lead you to the other swarms," Carter spoke again, ”Whenever you're ready princess."
Cadance sighed, taking in a breath to prepare herself. "Lead the way."
"I do believe this is Shangri-La," Celestia muttered, unflinching as the ceaseless blizzard tried desperately to subdue her. Luckily, it was fairly easy for the dawnbringer to keep herself comfortably warm. Luna was less lucky.
"And I had hoped the city was still intact…" Luna frowned, looking across the tundra. To the untrained eye, the land before them was filled with nothing more than a collection of oddly shaped ice pillars. The sisters knew better of course, each of those pillars was a building, a building taller than anything Halla had at the moment.
"It might just be the outside," Celestia countered, her eyes moving up to the massive spire in the center of the city, "It's entirely possible that the interior remains habitable."
"Possible," Luna stressed, pulling her winter gear ever tighter around her. "Though, how exactly do you propose we get in?"
Celestia smirked. "I have an idea." Without further conversation, she spread her wings, flying over to the spire. She landed gracefully, tapping her hoof against the ice. It had to be several meters deep, which would make her plan slightly harder.
"You know I hate it when you don't tell me what you're planning." Luna frowned, quickly landing next to her.
"Luna, do you remember where the doors were?" Celestia asked, trotting around the area, poking at the ice every so often.
"As if I would remember such a detail," Luna rolled her eyes. "You might as well just melt the entire roof."
"Well then," Celestia smirked, her horn starting to light up. Her mane and tail changed from their normal colors to a deep red and orange. "Let's turn up the heat, shall we?" Luna just groaned, facehoofing.
"Whatever you say, sister." Luna spread her wings, migrating to one of the nearby buildings. It was going to get very hot very quickly. "I pray that Cadance is safe…" she whispered, watching as Celestia ignited herself, a lone flame against the endless cold.