5.1 Excellency
Excellency 5-1
Darkness had fallen upon Ponyvile, swallowing the faint starlight into an inky void of utter blankness. No, no mere shadow menacing the former hamlet, but a creeping blackness that slithered and squirmed as it cast itself forth from the shining city upon the high mountain; a pretentious shadow wallowing in its edgy formlessness as it swept from the forests to cover the town. Sweeping from house to house in search, it silenced even the faint noises remaining in Ponyvile’s witching hour. Under the eaves and awnings it gathered, bubbling up into pools as dark as the intergalactic void. The bewitchment broke for just a moment at each house, revealing catlike eyes that shone with moonlight blue eldritch energies. Just for a moment, and then they were gone, gone again as their owner swept from perch to perch inexorably towards the Bubble household, and its patriarch within.
No creak of the door gave away the intruder as the mystic blackness crept through the gap between the door and its frame, oozing inwards like the waters of a flood to pool in eddies and tiny whirlpools of darkness made manifest. Within the somewhat barren foyer formed the ethereal form of a regal specter, one that twisted and writhed as the inky blackness formed behind it into a shapeless thing that blocked out any remaining moonlight from the tiny window in the door. The eyes flicked open again, their gaze casting the faintest of glows upon the contents of the room; tracing, seeking, drifting across the few picture frames upon the wall and the knick-knacks set up in the first attempts to make the dwelling a proper home. Drifting, their gaze set upon the broad stairway to the upper two floors, upon the lazily laid carpet covering the stairways, up--up to the third floor landing and the door to the master bedroom. Unearthly fog drifted about where a normal pony might have hooves as the specter glided, roiling up the stairs in a silent cascade to the master bedroom.
The gaze of moonlight flickered down to the door-handle, growing stronger as the dark outline of a horn loomed forth from the formless void. Sparks slowly fizzled into existence around the door-handle and lock, delicately manipulating the mechanism until the reluctant portal opened with all the silence of the grave. Shapes uneasily shivered beneath the silken covers of the bed as the sinister gaze rested upon them for a moment. Muzzle to muzzle did the couple lay, unaware of the ghostly presence lurching inwards from the door. Or so the presence thought as it moved with cat-like grace to the bedside unheeding of the subtle tell-tale signs of the husband's tail uncoiling from about his wife with baited patience. Not long, now. Waiting, hoof wrapping about the dispenser of holy water taken from the pools of the tree of harmony. Waiting, tense with the need to strike; heart building up to a great race of anticipation as the half-coiled figure felt the interloper close with himself.
The specter thought itself so clever, so cunning to have snuck within his sanctum. It knew not what it had brought down upon itself as the last of the roiling fog gathered up into the form once more. Swirling tendrils of darkest darkness reformed, the outline of an armored hoof pushing forth from the void to touch the shoulder of the waiting ambush so that he could be drawn down into the black night from which the specter had come.
Not to be.
Not to be, for with the ancient war-cry of the ponies of the mountains Berry Bubble--Hero of the Marelantian Expedition, Slayer of the Fiends of Crop-alyous, Knight of the Realm--sprung his trap. His coiled form struck with all the swiftness of a springing cobra; the discordant magic coursing through his blood pierced the ancient magicks with which his foe concealed herself; the fierceness of his swinging hooves and springing strike disorienting his prey before she had even the chance to register the covers flung from the bed! Water as holy and pure as the crystal tree itself squirted from the sprayer as he drove the dark alicorn back behind his weight, forcing her to the floor and making her gargle the precious fluid.
Glurgkle! "Ack! Cease! DESIST! Not the face!"
Marble slowly rose with grim wishes of vengeance upon whatever fool had disturbed her sleep. She flicked her glance over the flailing pair as Luna's thickly-shod hooves flailed like the twitching legs of a dying insect whilst her wings thumped against the floor and bed helplessly under the watery assault. "Honey?" She sleepily asked, her voice rumbling with the weight of a thousand angry mountains. "Why are you wrapped around Princess Luna at the foot of our bed while shooting her in the face with a super soaker in our bedroom? Is there something you have been forgetting to tell me?"
Marble's sleepy questionnaires gave Berry just enough pause to allow Luna to wrest the tip of the squirt gun away from her face. Gargling the water that had been squirted into her mouth amidst the assault, she spit it out in a pitiful squirt of a half-drowned pony. Water dripped from her nose and horn, trickling down her face and soaking down her poor, sodden shortened mane. A snort painfully cleared her nose in a breath reminiscent of a sneeze, spraying Berry lightly with the drops. Berry eyed her with suspicion, giving the princess a final blast of water to the base of her horn and oddly shortened mane.
Rather than retaliate, Luna grumbled deeply, letting her irritation churn in her chest as she glared at Berry through the sodden short forelock of her mane. "Give us that!" Wresting the squirt gun entirely from his grasp took a bit more work, but holding the dripping water pistol away from him gave her the reward of a rather amusing pout upon his face. "Aye, tell us. Why did you attack your sovereign with a--'super soaker'--and flailing limbs?" Luna leaned up, propping herself somewhat awkwardly with the elbow of a foreleg.
"Why are ye' in me bedroom sneakin' round like some fiend from tartarus!?!" Berry shot back as he was pushed off of Luna by the diarch's spare forehoof and left wriggling as his short forelegs couldn't quite reach her.
"I asked you first!"
"How do Ah know ye ain't still under some illusion spell and plannin' on takin' me wee free wife!?"
"Of all the absur-ow-ow-OWOWOWOWOW!"
"Aye, serves ye-ow-ow-not the ear, sweetie bug!"
Marble slowly pulled her husband and Princess Luna apart by the ears with the hoof-clips she used for perfectly straightening her sheets. Whining with pain as they were tugged by the delicate velvety membranes until well-separated, the two dangled in place as Marble pointedly glared at them with the fury of a thousand Pinkie Pies until they yelped into silence. Beneath her death glare of eternal agony, they slowly shut their mouths rather than risk being shook by their ears to silence them. Marble's breath slowly whistled in and out of her nose as she considered the one, no two questions she had for the bickering fools who had made such a mess of her bedroom and potentially had awoken the children. "Why are the two of you bickering in our bedroom? Berry, I love you but you're rather stupid some days. But you, Princess? Why? Do you both understand that normal ponies don't sneak into each other's bedrooms and ambush each other at--," Luna meekly moved the moon just enough for a moonbeam to shine through the glass-paned doors and illuminate the wind-up alarm clock, "--One in the morning?"
"No." Luna whimpered, having come on business that had been much-delayed by court nonsense.
"Yes.” Berry quickly agreed, knowing how fierce his wife could be.
Glare.
Luna and Berry both nodded politely to Marble.
“First question.”
Fiddling her hooves as she found herself surprisingly cowed in a way she hadn’t felt since her own mother had vanished into the annals of history, Luna tried to buy time until Marble tugged gently on her ear once again. “Ow-ow-OW! I came to discuss an urgent posting with your husband!” She squeaked.
“One. In the Morning.” Marble grumbled stoically.
“First chance I had?” Luna apologized meekly as Marble let go of their ears. As she rubbed the sensitive flesh, she ducked her head a little and shimmied back. “I am the Princess of the Night, and I have been up all night and day trying to get through my work? I was hoping to borrow him quietly and take him downstairs?”
Berry flopped limply atop Luna’s prone form as Marble drop-kicked her sometimes aggravating husband out onto the third floor landing and slammed the door behind him. He sighed into the unruly tufts of Luna’s cropped mane as the adrenaline of his defense slowly dripped from his system like the first thaws of spring. Rising to rub his ear, he didn’t get the chance to make it all the way up as Marble opened the door just far enough ajar to toss his heavy work-grade metal prosthetic leg pair onto his back and squash him flat to Luna again. “Put your leggy-pants on, goofus.”
“Honey bunches snuggle bug…” He whined, putting up a pitiful front compared to his earlier defiant stand.
“Drink coffee.” Marble moaned from the other side of the door, shaking it as she slumped against it to likely fall asleep where she laid.
“Don’t the fumes wake you up, snuggle-bug?”
“Cold. Like my namesake. I didn’t say brew it.”
Luna rose with a stagger, catching the ‘leggy-pants’ before they could fall to the floor with a clatter. Slowly wobbling back and forth in the grasp of her own tired need for sleep while still suffering from the disorientation of being sprayed with holy harmony water, she bumped her rump and slid Berry to the center of her back where her half-unfurled wings could keep him in place. They descended back down the stairs like the normal ponies they most certainly were not, limping about the ground floor until they located the kitchen.
Berry moaned again, rubbing his ear as he pondered where he had gone wrong. He was pretty sure that kicking the cutie marks off of what he thought was a demon-fiend from Tartarus at one in the morning to save his wife would make her cranky? Okay, maybe making sure it was a demon-fiend first was probably in order, but still, his situation sucked. He’d buy her chocolate, and donuts, with the special cinni-sprinkle mix her sister made in the morning. That’d cheer her up.
Luna tossed her head to get his attention, trying to get him to lead her to the coffee. Wobbling back and forth wasted only a half a minute until they reached the refrigerator. Fumbling with a hoof was easy enough, Berry discovering the back-up coffee pot filled with coffee with ice cubes floating in it blocking the light inside up against the vent from the freezer.
Pouring the stuff into cups did little to improve its composition after Luna carefully tap-kicked the door shut and called over small mugs to drink from. As Berry opened the pot, the release of pressure allowed the super-cooled fluid to flash-freeze into a suspicious black-brown slurry of eternally sleepy sadness. Yick. Poking it with a hoof didn’t help, as the substance just sloshed like a half-frozen jello mold.
Lick. Stick sort of coffee-flavored, though. The sheer strength of the concentrated brew did little to convince Berry of its drinkability as his tastebuds withered under the assault of the bitter flavor. He and Luna watched the pouring of the drink with great sadness--great and terrible sadness—coffee sludge did not magically transform back into coffee when transferred from a pot into a mug. Trying to help made it worse as Luna poured sugar onto the slurry, sticking her tongue out along with Berry as it merely congealed into a sticky mess soaking up the remaining coffee-juice from the ice slurry. Fed up with even trying, she poured her cup into Berry’s mug so that she could sip sadly the cold and plain consolation prize of tap water.
Berry licked up a scoop of his ‘coffee’ as he slowly tried to put his mind into a business frame of thought. “So, did Fluttershy decide to press charges?”
Water squirted up into Luna’s nose as she lost control of her magic, not from inhalation but from jamming her cup into her face. “What?” She spluttered as she felt the pain of water burning nasal passages for the second time that night.
“For disruption of habitat and technically hunting an ‘endangered’ animal.” Berry feebly mimed air quotes, sloshing the soft ice of his coffee. Remembering that he had it, he took a deep sip of the fluid that was squeezing out of the ice sludge; a bad idea if there ever was one—his tail curled in on itself until it more resembled that of a sea horse after a thousand day caffeine regimen. “I will maintain in my defense that it was self-defense, the little bugger bit me first.”
A faint thought rattled in Luna’s mind, asking her rhetorically if an open-mouthed grimace of bewilderment could get stuck like Celestia had always said it could. “What. No! Princess Sparkle… ugh, nay, Twilight wishes to know if you would be willing to station yourself here on a permanent basis.” Moonlight seeped through the window on the south wall of the kitchen, forming into a ball of light that exploded away from a neat(ish) stack of paperwork upon the corner of the kitchen island, messily adorned with vague proposals and concepts from the community. “For the purpose of helping her teach young Sweetie Belle and for fellowship with thy family and foals.”
Taking another sip of the thrice-brewed coffee did little to help Berry’s mental state. Despite the concentrated fluid having originally had what was likely the LD50 concentration of caffeine for ponies at its outset, the cold seemed to have decomposed any good thing within it. Bleagh. So tired. “Ugh. Kind of expecting this. Did your sister put you up to this so she could keep an eye on me? I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s going to be all sorts of problems for me, since she forgot that Marble was my wife and moved into our annex while I was-“
PTOOOOIE!
Drip. Drip. Drip. “Well, that was rude.” Drip.
Coughing and wheezing like a drowning pony, Luna thumped her chest as she squeezed breaths down a windpipe that objected most strenuously to her repeated attempts to fill her lungs with water and other fluids. Why, if she wasn’t going to drink properly, she might as well get intravenous injections instead of subjecting it to pain continually. Berry continued to slowly drip from the spray of fluid that had soaked his face, too tired to clean it off as he waited for her to stop coughing so hard.
“She is here?” Luna finally hissed; looking about for the tell-tale sherbet mane of her sister.
“Aye. She’s asleep.”
“Art thou certain?” Luna’s magic pulled him in close, touching nose to nose.
“She apparently started soundproofing her room and sealed it tight after my little Surprise started surprising her in the mornings. Ever take up opera? I’d bet that you belt out some epic about your return from the moon with silly trumpets and she still wouldn’t wake up.” Berry mumbled through his explanation, slowly losing his grasp on his coffee-like ice slurry abomination so that it dripped on the counter. “What?” He asked sleepily as Luna took it away from him. Glancing at his empty hooves, he pressed his forelegs together, setting his head down. “I have no coffee, and must sleep.”
Papers found themselves shuffled as far away as possible from any potential spill. “And thoust would know of her—how exactly?”
“Sea pony, mate.” Berry tiredly mumbled as his eyes shut. His fore-hoof slowly flopped and fumbled about for the lost cup of coffee-sludge.
“Not. Your. Wife.”
Sigh. “Pirate talk. Never mind.” He let his foreleg go limp and fall from the counter. “I can sense water, like all sea ponies?” Luna’s full-body shake dimly registered in his head to prompt him further. “She tried her ‘Not Celestia, I’mma Sunbeam’ trick. Saw right through her, literally.”
“Oh.” Luna yawned herself, having been working long hours for a week and a half to force the ‘nobles’ and the other government bodies to do things her way and to stop expecting her to handle things like her sister. All the plotting and scheming had slowly opened up a yawning engulphing sea of sleep within her as well. She still had a bit left to go before everything ran her way on the mountain-side city of dawn and dusk. “Well, if you know, then you have all the more reason to accept the position. My sister needs some-pony who knows her true self to center her.”
Mngph. “Not the only one. Crusaders know.” Berry sleepily mumbled as he started slowly slipping from Luna’s back.
“What-how?”
“Caught her being stupid. No-pony believes them. Could tell the whole town without proof and no-pony would investigate. Think it’s Discordant Truth Syndrome.” Letting his head flop over to use Luna’s fluffy wing as a pillow didn’t help his sleepy situation as he started to become wedged between Luna and the cold surfaces of the countertop.
“So, Twilight-“
“Buys Celestia’s story hook, line, and sucker.”
Sigh. “Really?”
“I’d tell her myself, but miss big, white, and tubby convinced Pinkie that I Pinkie Promised not to tell Twilight.” Berry groaned, writhing as he tried to pull Luna’s wing around him like a blanket. The motion spilled him fully from Luna’s back in a slinky mess until he was a wretched pile of puddled pony sprawled on the floor. “So, the Crusaders bring the truth to Twilight, then she won’t make with the screaming and the ouchies. They’re making big crazy flying shippy-thingies to hover invisible-like around the town. Ngh. Catch her.”
“Well, the position is officially for heading up the engineering and reconstruction of Ponyvile to match the grandeur of the—uh, giant purple-blue crystal tree-palace.” Luna rationalized for Berry, letting his sleep-addled mind process and mull over the option. “Adding in responsibilities to take off certain week days and week-ends to oversee the secret research into advanced magic and technology would be trivial. ‘For safety’ sake,’ of course.”
“Don’t wanna change Ponyvile.” Berry mumbled on the last remnants of the spoiled caffeine high. “S’quaint.”
“Yes. Yes it is. It has been a wondrous reminder of my past packaged up with modern amenities. That is why I wish to see its coming growth carefully managed instead of exploding into a horrible urban sprawl.” Luna retorted quietly as she slowly and carefully levitated the dangling and limp sea pony back up to her back. “Its chances of remaining a cheerful backwater died when the purple tree-castle arose.”
“Fortress of Friendship.”
“Whatever.” Luna grumbled. She wanted one. It was probably made of adamantite and diamonds, with blackjack and—err, ‘male entertainers’ inside.
”Fine.” Berry finally grumbled as he curled up into a tight ball on her back, shivering with the cold of the air. “I’ll take it.”
Luna’s soothing hums of pity and power rose beneath him, tickling his mind and transitioning it downwards into the darkness of sleep as she covered him carefully with her wings to warm the poor guard. Bumping her rump once more, she slid him forward until his snout snorted against the base of her unruly curled and twisting mane.
Ngh. “So short.” He batted at it, sniffing the strange otherworldly scents coming from within.
“Yes. I actually rather like it so short, it does seem to convey my activeness and relentless charge for change. T’was not by choice.” Luna tip-hooved through the kitchen and dining room, taking care not to disturb Berry further or bump his head on the annoyingly low archways she was forced to duck through. “A most curious zap apple fell from the skies at great speeds. It actually knocked me out cold and swept me from my hooves with its force. The magical pulp interacted with my mane and ruined most of it, forcing me to cut it to my current style.”
Berry snapped awake again as the implications triggered a fresh surge of adrenaline. The crusaders had been trying a way to force air through enchanted rings to produce thrust. They had found a way to permanently change the rings through pegasus magic and were trying to see how much power they could get from multiple sets. When he had left, they had about 15 rings enchanted and had stuck them together for more thrust. Normal apples were just turning into applesauce from the force of the acceleration, but they had pointed the unholy array at Mt. Canter for targeting purposes. “Must have been a birdy.” He mumbled, hoping Luna wasn’t seeking retribution.
“Yes, so they tell me.” She grumbled, not buying it for a second.
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I think that, if the Crusaders were to stop and realise what they've achieved in a few short years of fillyhood, they'd realise just what their True Talents are.
This was a hillarious slap-stick chapter with Luna trying and failing to be majestic in a circumstance that seriously doesn't alllow for it. We also learnt that one annoys an Earth Pony wife and mother at one's own peril, even if you are an immortal demigod/aspect with power enough to take out significant chunks of the planet with a gesture.
Now... If I were Luna, I'd go looking for the Crusader's shipyard. After all, one can never had enough stealth air frigates...
Short mane Luna... Unf.
5590914 Their true talents?
So they'd all three have the eight pointed star of Chaos (either Moorcock style or Warhammer styles), each one with it putting Discord into a different painful and uncomfortable position, as cutie marks?
I now FEAR the CMC, for they have created a engine that should be able to maintain mach 17.
MOAR
5590985 They may or may not be discovering the techniques that will eventually be used to pioneer Father than Light Teleportation in the mid-range future.
I love this guy.
The CMC made a magical RAILGUN!? Oh hell!
Not the right word choice. 'Are, tell us' isn't gramnatically accurate
.
_______________
don't sneak
____________________
Cap.
[Side note:Just what in the shiny tartaruses is DTS?]
___________
whined
_____________
The bolded part in the fic has massive spacing on it. Can you fix that bit up?
__________________
5590999
Father?
_________________
So yeah, the CMC's Railgun definitely has potential. Especially if it can take out an Alicorn with an apple, Ican't wait for them to shoot Celestia with a creme pie at Mach Speeds.
5591779
Discordant Truth Syndrome
5592013
Ah, thank you.
So... the Crusaders managed to knock out an alicorn. From one city over. With an, admittedly magical, apple...
And you're giving them access to a trained military engineer... They basically managed to almost assassinate half the diarchy, while trying to reveal the other half of the diarchy. Who very well might be near-assassinated by the end of the reveal with their current track record.
5590972 Maybe a six pointed chaos star, since it's chaos through friendship.
5592441
*whistles innocently.* Dunno what you're talking about. Saw nuthin.
5591261
I think it's technically closer to a Gauss gun... but at the point where you're accelerating Zap Apples enough to bean an alicorn from what looks like (low balling this) at least 50 miles, it hardly matters.
I personally like the idea of the CMC earning their cutie marks about 30 times over, but never getting it because they have too much Chaos in them. I mean, freeing Dischord has to have some effect on their astral state or something equally technobabble filled.
5593780 Properly, I think it'd be a mass driver, since it doesn't use electromagnetism like coilguns and railguns do. Though, of the latter two it's definitely closer to a coilgun.
And oh geeze, that thing is all kinds of impressive. What I really want to know is how they got the pegasus magic to keep the apple pulp coherent enough to splatter Luna. Normally I'd expect it to have the same kind of problems that high-powered lasers have with bloom.
If Sweetie Belle's magic didn't have a limited range(?)... can you conceptualize, malevolent masses of magical mashed apples, aimed unerringly by intelligence and falling from fifty furlongs or farther away? The Crusader Cannon is cool.
Then again - "Cutie Mark Crusaders Fire Support, YAY!!"
*shiver*
5593998
Nonsense. It's not a gun. While they are misusing it out of curiosity, it's more of an engine than a proper weapon. It just so happens that there is nothing in the way to prevent them from using the thrust to launch things at... amusing... velocities.
Less this, more THIS!
ALL SHALL TREMBLE AND DESPAIR! *Cue Fluttercackle.*
5594072
So, basically, Apple Bloom is taking them off the extreme end of magitech. Yeah, I've got a feeling that they're going to end up as the Princesses' Personal Students, if only to stop them from accidentally destroying the world.
This could easily feed into a kind of weird scenario where an elderly Apple Bloom laments to her friends: "I built all this to use in peace but they are going to force me to use it to hurt people!"
5594718
"End up as the Princess's personal students."
You know, isn't doing that secretly the whole reason Celestia went undercover?
Just saying.
This story has been and is continuing to be amazing.
And THE REFERENCES IN THIS CHAPTER!
I only caught one from Pirates of the Caribbean and Futurama, but I'm sure there were others.
5596620
Gurkhas and the training scene from Monsters Inc.
Loved the update!
5600471
*Grizzled old veteran.* Maidens are Coming.
We open with sepulchural creeping and close with magical railguns. This is one heck of a chapter.
Also, I love that design for Luna's mane, with the roots taking a few inches to transition from physical hair to spacestuff. Celestia's is similarly awesome.
Definitely looking forward to more. Especially if Luna decides to leave a souvenir for Celestia.
5590914
I'm convinced that realization is the only step they have left to take. Of course, if they were capable of self-reflection, they would have probably gotten their marks a long time ago.
5607367
Imagine Magical Mystery Cure.
Imagine it happening three times over.
Also, less 'presents', more 'Celestia forgot to tell Luna about some more funtimes she left behind'
5592698
When I think about the CMC, I'm only surprised that this gag hasn't been pulled with them yet...
I like short mane Luna! Very cute.
Cutie Mark Crusaders are best Artillery Engineers.