Agent Con Mane in Nightfeather (to be rewritten)

by Fairytail

Chapter 14: For the Last Time

The constant salutes were uncomfortable. Any member of the Lunar Guard or LIA that Joe came anywhere near the past two days would immediately stop and salute. He never could stand military regulation. After a whole day of being treated like royalty, Joe was more than ready to leave Cloudsdale. He yearned to have his hooves touching solid ground and take off those damn wings. (They were retrieved by the LIA from Nightfeather’s Manor but they were unable to repair the flight mechanism). He also yearned to see the light of day. He yearned for the sun so much he found himself actually close to praying to Celestia.

So when the day came that Joe’s magic finally returned to him and he was allowed to leave the city, he couldn't wait to get the day over with. He was escorted by Sky and several Lunar Guards to the airfield. The strip was lined with what might have been every pony in the service on both sides, all saluting Joe as he trotted past. Joe studied every face of the soldiers and secret agents. He then craned his neck and kept his eyes on the sky but no matter where he looked he didn't see Spitfire. He hadn't seen her since Operation: Moonfall and nopony, not even Sky, would tell him what happened to her.

Joe and his entourage finally approached the massive, specialty hangar for housing the Nightstalker. The gigantic warship was already taxied onto the runway. Joe stopped in his tracks when he saw all the Pegasi engineers preparing the airship for take off. The thought of stepping hoof on that ship again was far from tantalizing.

“Come on, Joe,” said Sky, “just get aboard the ship already. We can’t keep Princess Luna waiting.”

“She has already thanked me personally.” Joe complained, “I don’t see why I have to attend this stupid banquet at the castle.”

“The Princess wants to hold a formal ceremony.” The hatch of the ship opened and the staircase folded out.

“But she’s the one who ultimately saved the tree. I didn't do anything.”

Sky laughed and placed a hoof on his shaking head. “would you just allow yourself to be called a hero for once?”

Joe sighed. “I take it I’ll be able to get a bite to eat on this hunk of junk? Can’t get a moments peace around here and I missed breakfast.”

“I told the stewardess donuts for three.”

Joe stopped partway up the staircase and looked at Sky with a raised eyebrow. “Who are the other two?”

“Oh there are no other two.” Sky lifted his sunglasses and winked at Joe.

“Goodbye, Sky.” Joe laughed as he made his way into the battleship.

“So long, Joe. Good Luck.”

Joe melted into the plush, comfortable chair that he remembered waking up in before. He remembered opening his eyes and staring straight into Spitfire's amber eyes. He opened and closed his eyes in a bizarre attempt to recreate the moment. Joe swiveled the chair and stared out the porthole window. In the distance he could see a sliver of sunrise, a sure sign that he was near the edge of the NLR barrier. He reached over, grabbed a powdered donut and gobbled it down with a hard swallow. Joe never had the chance to truly appreciate how well furnished the interior of the Nightstalker was before. It was easily as opulent as the guest rooms of Canterlot Castle. Joe wondered if Luna had similar tastes in her decoration. He would be finding out soon enough, he supposed.

Joe straightened his back and stretched out his legs until he heard his joints pop. He closed his eyes again and smiled to himself pleasantly as he swirled around in the chair. Flying on a deluxe battleship wasn't so bad when there wasn't a Wing Cannon pointed at one’s head.

This thought was punctuated by the feeling of cold metal pressing against the side of his ear. He sat still as stone. Joe’s mind awakened and his training switched on.

“I’m glad to have you on board, Mr. Mane.” spoke the familiar baritone.

Joe cautiously swirled his chair around and saw Stellar Nightfeather standing in front of him, although if not for the voice and coat color, Joe would not have recognized him. His normally quaffed mane and tail were in shambles. Three days worth of an ungroomed, black beard covered his muzzle. He no longer wore any sort of military attire. Instead he was naked except for a shoddy brown cloak wrapped around him. In one wing he held a Wing Cannon, but the grip was sloppy and the barrel lopsided. Nightfeather’s other wing was bandaged up.

“Captain Nightfeather.” Joe continued to sit and stare into the barrel of the Wing Cannon, though he kept his face resolute. “Or I guess it’s Mister Nightfeather now, eh? Are you having lunch with the Princess too?”

Nightfeather grimaced. Joe could smell the rank of his unbrushed teeth. “In two hours I shall be granted asylum within the Griffon Kingdom. And you have interfered with my plans for the last time, Con Mane.”

Joe focused his eyes on the Wing Cannon. He could see it shaking. “What’s the matter, Nightfeather? Can’t keep it up?”

“An unfortunate injury while I made do with my escape from the castle. But even still it is hard to miss when you’re this close.”

Joe kept his breathing steady and his muscles tight. He readied himself to move at any moment. “You know it’s very dangerous to fire Wing Cannons in airships. I even had to warn Spitfire about it. By the way, where is she?”

“I shall deal with her later.” Nightfeather’s yellow smiled pierced through his ragged beard. “Right now she is where she ought to be: at the controls.” Nightfeather punctuated his point by slyly tilting his head towards the cockpit door. “And once again I have you exactly where I want you.”

“Except this time there is one major difference.”

Joe’s face remained stoic as he surrounded his horn with emerald light. Nightfeather’s smile disappeared immediately. Before Nightfeather had a chance to think, Joe surrounded the Wing Cannon with his magic and forcefully ripped it from Nightfeather’s wing.

Nightfeather screamed in agony as he clutched his wing tight. Joe took the opportunity and punched Nightfeather square in the jaw. Nightfeather tumbled in a daze and Joe jumped on top of him. They tumbled across the floor in an attempt to catch the other in a choke hold. Joe wrapped his hooves around Nightfeather’s body so that had both of his wings and then squeezed tightly. Nightfeather’s screams were blood curdling. In painful desperation, the Pegasus grabbed hold of Joe’s jacket and ripped it apart, revealing the mechanical wings that were hidden underneath.

Nightfeather got his hooves underneath Joe and bucked him off. He scrambled to his Wing Cannon and attempted to fasten it back to his wing. However, his wing was so badly damaged, he couldn't unfurl it. In anger, Nightfeather threw the weapon across the room and it landed near Joe. Joe’s eyes widened with inspiration. Joe couldn't unfold his mechanical wings, so he unstrapped the wing harness and took them off. He fastened the Wing Cannon to one of the wings and pried it open by force with his hoof. Nightfeather stood in terror as the Wing Cannon was pointed directly at him.

With a scowl, Joe triggered the cannon and sent a powerful shot sailing across the cabin. The sound was amplified by the closed, pressurized space. Nightfeather leaped out of the way just before Joe fired, landing on one of his broken wings. The projectile zoomed passed Nightfeather and collided with the cabin wall.

The entire ship rattled with the fiery explosion. The porthole windows shattered and the integrity of the fuselage collapsed. The pressurized air rushed out of the gaping hole in the ship with hurricane ferocity. Joe’s plate of donuts were sucked out of the cabin along with anything that wasn't bolted down. The swivel chairs spun in all directions as the air whizzed passed them.

Joe was pulled in by the depressurization as well, but thankfully hit a chair along his way which held onto for dear life. He was able to force his eyes open against the powerful wind and saw that Nightfeather was barely holding onto a table between Joe and the exposed sky. Joe’s hoof was still wrapped around the wing harness.

“Hey, Nightfeather! You want some wings!?”

Nightfeather looked up in confusion. Joe let go of the harness and allowed it to soar right towards Nightfeather. The wings and Nightfeather collided and Nightfeather lost his grip. He desperately flailed his hooves but there was nothing else to hold on to except the wing harness itself. In the blink of an eye, Nightfeather was sucked out of the Nightstalker.

Joe held onto his chair until all the excess air was sucked out of the cabin. The Nightstalker lost its stability and turned nose first towards the ground. With the vacuum no longer as intense, Joe let go of the chair and allowed gravity to slide him down to the cockpit door. He forced the door open with his magic to find Spitfire, strapped into the pilot’s seat trying with all her might to pull up the airship. But no matter how hard she pulled, the stick would not budge. The largest airship in the world wasn't going to give in so easily.

Joe reached in in front of Spitfire and added both his own strength as well as his magic to the struggle. Spitfire looked up at Joe with surprised amazement.

“What happened!? Where’s Nightfeather!?”

“Having a nice, long sleep!” he said through gritted teeth.

Together they continued to try and pull on the lever but even their combined strengths did nothing. Spitfire let go and leaned back in the seat with eyes closed.

“Spitfire! Don’t give up! We’re not dead yet!”

“It’s no good! She’s spiraling out of control!”

Joe grabbed her face with his hooves and forced her to look at him. “Is that how a Wonderbolt talks, Lieutenant!?”

Spitfire blinked at him with those amber eyes. Joe could see the fire within being stoked. With a new blaze of determination, Spitfire looked ahead out of the windshield. The ground was spiraling closer and closer.

Spitfire took a deep breath and unfastened herself from the pilot’s seat.

“What are you doing?” Joe asked

“Break that window!” she commanded with her military force.

Joe hesitated as he was taken aback by the order, but the ever-magnifying ground emboldened him. Joe pointed his watch at the glass and focused the laser on the center until the whole thing cracked and then shattered. Joe and Spitfire shielded their eyes from the onrush of wind and glass. In his blindness, Joe felt something wrap around his waist.

The Nightstalker crashed into the mountainous forests near Coltlumbia. Reports claimed that the fireball produced from the wreckage could be seen by every resident of the capital city. The noise rattled even the castle and the flames were so bright, the residents of the NLR saw their first glimpse of daylight since the nation’s founding. It took several hours for the Lunar Guard First Response to quell the flames and proclaim the area safe. No bodies were found in the wreckage although the mutilated corpse of Nightfeather was discovered several hundred hooves away. Sky Blazer led the LIA in aerial recon above the forest.

“No sign of them yet, Your Majesty.” he answered the radio in his ear gloomily as he peered through his binoculars, “Yes, I’ll keep looking. Over and out.”

Far below, out of Sky Blazer’s sight, two ponies sat in a branch of a tree, hidden by the thick foliage, cradled in each other’s arms,.

“Pretty good flying, Lieutenant,” Joe said, “you got us out of their just in time.”

Spitfire nuzzled herself against Joe. “Yeah, well what can I say? I've grown to like you, Stallion.” She gave him a loving lick that turned into a kiss. Spitfire looked up into the sky through the leaves and branches and the silhouette of a Pegasus flying against the moon eternal. “Sky is looking for us.”I’ll fly up and--”

Spitfire barely had a chance to lift herself into the air before Joe yanked her back down by the tail. “Oh, no you don't! This is no time to be rescued.”

Joe held the beautiful mare in his hooves and gazed longingly into her amber eyes. Her eyes were ignited with a fiery passion, and Joe was longing to be burned. He bent down and kissed her passionately while he rubbed his hooves against her thick, soft wings.

Con Mane will return
in
Undercurrent

Joe wandered through the empty void. All around him were a myriad of stars shining in every color. The air was milky and soothing. He continued forward, reveling in the beautiful surroundings. But then he stopped when he saw the silhouette of a Unicorn Stallion standing before him. Joe swallowed hard as his muscles tensed and tingled. The shadowy Unicorn then began to slowly trot towards Joe. In turn, Joe backed away from the encroaching threat. “No, please. Stop. Stay back.” he warned the shadow, but still it inched his way silently forward.

Joe kept pleading with the figure, “Please. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault!”

The shadow then spoke in a soothing melodic voice, “What you are truly afraid of, is yourself.”
The shadow then laughed. It was a slithering, maniacal laugh that wormed its way into every corner of Joe’s brain. As the shadow, laughed it grew larger. The milky white void was soon swallow by the Unicorn’s shadow. The darkness then engulfed Joe and the tormenting laughs grew louder.

“no! Stay back! Stay back! CADANCE!!”

As Joe screamed that last word, he sat up straight in his bed. The sheets had been kicked off and every inch of Joe’s body was drenched in sweat. Joe sighed, and buried his face in his hooves.