First. and the battle has begun... (at least for the story since we have not seen any fights till now...)

There must be a good fighting music to this, something involving WWII warplanes...

Heh, the dog-fight of the skies, awesome as always.

Nice battle

468519. Iron maiden " Aces high" was the song that played in my head as I read this

Love this!!!! Keep em coming

I better see a Gatling Wing-Cannon on somepony, else I'll make one and put it into my story... somehow...

FOR CLOUDSDALE!!!

1040459FOR CLOUDSDALE!!!!!!!!!

1084328 FOR CLOUDSDALE!!!

Wow, this was an amazing chapter. This battle was a great read, my eyes loved it.

Why is there even a "battle" for Cloudsdale? It seems like it would be impractical and unnecessarily dangerous to slug it out in the streets. The 'enemy' just has the urge to kill things. Why not trick them chasing a relatively small number of Pegasi, and then engulf the majority of the swarm with a giant fire spell, or an explosion? Shadow-Mane is already familiar with this tactic, as he himself used it on the Afflicted Ponyville population. The only reason it didn't wipe them all out completely was that the shield came down, allowing some to run off, and there was nopony left behind to corral or misdirect them.

Why are the Afflicted even hunkering down in Cloudsdale? Their intellect seems to be somewhere between fast zombies and the Crossed, moreso the former, with no need for eating, sleeping or recreation, and only the urge to spread their disease. That's presumably why they were able to infect Equestria so quickly.

Also, if over 90% of the population were infected, then there's no way they all would have been infected inside the city itself. We're talking about an open-topped city in the sky, where all the natives can fly. They have an infinite number of directions to run, and I cannot believe the civilians would be stupid or placid enough to just sit around.

MY GOD THIS SERIES IS AMAZING!! I'm very worried though Cus the moment he mentioned the crystals all I can picture is them being destroyed and all the earth and pegasi ponies falling..............please don't say that happens. (Continues reading)

how about every non pegasus has a cable attached to a pegasus or stays on the ships?

5207414
Don't you mean all the earth and unicorn ponies falling?...