The Equestria Diaries

by Istaran

Chapter 19: Lunar perspective

"Thank you for seeing us, your majesty," Zeke greeted with a bow, as he and Robert entered the halls of the night court, strolling toward the front where Luna awaited.

She had a cell phone in front of her, with the player locator app running. Her eyes were closed, and she had a look of concentration on her face that no one else had dared to interrupt. Zeke merely failed at interrupting.

When she finally opened her eyes, she frowned and commented more to herself than anything else. "The ocean is taking on such an unnatural hue.. what new threat is this?.. Oh! More humans have arrived?" she glanced at the app before frowning. "So which of you is a simulacrum?"

"Simulacrum?" Zeke asked, puzzled.

"Not a simulacrum," Robert said as he pulled out his cracked phone to show her. "Just eliminated. I was '<Player 3>'."

Luna nodded, relaxing a bit. "Thou art Robert, then. And thou wouldst be Zeke? We were expecting your presence. We apologize for not greeting you promptly, but we were looking at a troubling new phenomena."

"Does it have something to do with one of us?" Robert inquired, nodding at the phone before the lunar diarch.

"Verily. The strangeness seems to be occurring near the one labelled 'Player 1'."

"Daniel," Robert clarified, a look of concern on his face.

"It is King Daniel's doing? Should we be putting a stop to him?" It was Luna's turn to look concerned.

"King?" Robert shook his head. "We don't really have any kings.." Robert simplified, "where did you hear that title?"

"Our newfound ally, Queen All Heart, said he was a king. That she had heard such from one of her scouts before she lost contact with him. You are saying she was mistaken?"

Zeke shrugged, "He might have lied to her scout or something. Our country hasn't had a king in over two hundred years. He certainly isn't our king. I guess he could be making some kind of dramatic pseudonym for himself. 'King of the Spiders' or something like that."

"In any event, we think he must be stopped from further breaking the ocean," Luna said. "Should I send you two do deal with him? Or a contingent of my own?"

Robert shook his head. "He's in Gryphonia, right? I think Zeke and I need to go up to Vanhoover to find one of our wayward lady-folk and bring her into the fold. There should be another down in Appleoosa, but perhaps you could bring her here as part of evacuating. It's much too close to the badlands, and it won't be safe from trouble for long."

"You suggest we flee our homes? Even now we are preparing our forces for a counterattack."

"Do what you can, but you should get the civilians out as safely as you can. Not all of your people are warriors. Though, speaking of which.. would you introduce me to Captain Shining Armor? I have a fair bit of intelligence about the enemy's capabilities that he's going to need to know. He has.. a fairly extensive bag of tricks, but it is limited. Unlike Daniel, who comes up with new surprises all the time.. like breaking the ocean. I don't think I even want to know.."

"Mind if I sit in on that meeting, Rob? I'd like to know what you know, or at least as much as you can warn me. I might need to tune my deck, after all."

"We will have our guards arrange quarters for you for the night, and arrange a meeting when the captain awakens," Luna stated, waving over a lunar pegasus to take on the task. "In the meantime, we shall arrange a contingent to find Daniel so-called King and put a stop to him before he breaks any more of the world!"

---

Teleporting was rather a new experience for Frank. He was ultimately quite glad he hadn't had breakfast yet. It was almost alarming how quickly it was done, and suddenly he and his two guards were in a marina just outside of a massive city, with a skyline more reminiscent of New York City than anything that had any place in this world. Luna supplied one of his guards with a bag of bits, and the other with a royally sealed missive before looking southward with a bit of alarm and excusing herself with a flash of deep blue magic.

The three of them looked expectantly at each other for a moment before one of the guards looked up at him and said, "it's your mission now, lead the way."

"Umm, sure thing, Black Rose," Frank said after a quick check of her cutie mark. The mare was easy to remember, as her cutie mark matched her name. Apparently her talent was cultivating unusual flora. The other guard, a stallion, bore a pair of crossed rapiers on his flank which apparently spoke of a talent at repelling danger. He had nicknamed him 'parry' in his mind, but remembered his name was 'Cross Guard'. Frank thought the name ironic, as he had never seen that particular guard get cross with anyone.

Searching for a boat for immediate rent at night was not the easiest. There were a few options that Frank set aside as the boats were too big or otherwise looked unsuitable, but with limited options available at this hour he might have to compromise. But then he spotted a nice, small, fast looking boat up ahead. It looked a bit luxurious, like a yacht, and even had what looked to be a pair of motors on the back, rare in this world but not quite unique in the harbor. There was even signs of movement from within the cabin, promising at least a chance to speak with the captain.

Frank hailed the ship as he strolled up the pier it was docked to. His call was answered by a loud thump as the ship's occupant apparently tried to stand in a too-short space, followed by a string of curses that, ironically, seemed much too tame to be coming from a sailor. Finally, a man in a nicely tailored business suit stepped out of the cabin, still rubbing his sore head as he locked eyes with Frank.

When she got tired of the silence, Black Rose spoke up. "We are looking to charter a boat to go to Gryphonia. Are you available for hire?"

"Sure thing. Come on board. But don't try anything stupid," he said, looking Frank in the eyes, "or my well-hidden associate will buck you into the sea faster than you can blink."

"I don't see any associate.." Cross Guard began before the others shut him up with their looks. "Oh, right.. 'well-hidden'."

"We don't want any trouble," Frank said, "but we need to go find and talk to someone. Another human, like you and I. Specifically, 'Player 1'. Or Daniel, if you've met him." Frank climbed onto the boat. "Oh, almost forgot. I'm Frank. Frank Cobbler, and my escorts here are Black Rose and Cross Guard."

There was a cardboard box on the deck of the ship. It looked decidedly like the boxes from the Metal Gear series, even down to having a hand-hold hole that Frank thought he saw eyes looking out from. 'Well-hidden', huh? Frank stood near the box, pretending to ignore it for now.

"I'm Joshua Swift. And this is my boat, the Mighty Minotaur. No, I didn't name it, and haven't had time to rechristen it. I was just planning to head out toward Gryphonia myself or you would be out of luck. But it turns out it's my lucky day. A hundred bits for each of you, payable up front, and each dawn and dusk until you're off my ship. I promise not to putter around or waste your time, but you're going to pay me if you want me wasting mine."

"What? That's outrageous! And how'd you even get a hold of a ship like this? You can't have been here that long," Cross Guard objected, while Black Rose idly surveyed the marina for other possible ships and Frank started to poke at the box.

"Day trading!" shouted a voice from the one spot directly behind Frank and both of his escorts, startling them so much that they all ended up sprawled on the deck. The pink pony with a red mane that had startled them, giggled with infuriating cuteness at them. On her flank was a cutie mark depicting what looked to be the back of a pony's head with an exclamation mark over it.

"What my associate, miss Sudden Surprise, says is correct." Josh grabbed a briefcase and pulled out the deed to the boat, clearly signed over to him. "She was kind enough to lend me a hundred bits, which I have repaid ten fold in addition to purchase of this vessel and the supplies for our journey. Supplies which, I should add, did not account for three extra travelling companions or a longer journey. If you'll be so kind as to hand over the initial down payment, we'll get enough food to ensure a safe crossing and then be on our way."

Black Rose quietly handed over the coins, which Sudden Surprise then absconded with. In an entirely unreasonably short time, she returned with a second cardboard box and placed it next to the first, and they set off out onto the ocean.

---

The lunar perspective didn't always make it easy to make out fine details. She could, if she tried, focus down onto anything the moon's light touched, but she had to be aware of the need to focus before she could do so. One pony, or a few, could generally move without her noticing. An army, however, could not.

Luna returned to Canterlot in a hurry, and quickly began mustering as many of her forces as she could. She left a few guards, ones she knew she could trust with a simple task but were not her best in a fight, to tell Celestia and the day guard what was going on if she did not return in a timely fashion. The bulk of her forces took wing, along with a contingent of changeling volunteers disguised to appear as her own lunar pegasi, to the south, toward the fortress known as the Alamare.

A smaller contingent of her best elites converged on her and were included in her teleport. The jaunt was exhausting, but her soldiers were at least fresh when they arrived, and immediately took to the sky. Each bore a magically-augmented repeating crossbow, which they shouldered, sighting the oncoming enemy forces. Meanwhile, Luna began rousing the forts' own contingent, warning them of what was coming.

The first waves approached; human soldiers bearing some kind of black device. From their bearing, she guessed them to be similar to crossbows, but they lacked the arms on the sides that were part of a crossbow's function. There were a half dozen variations among them, each cloned a hundred times over, differing mostly in terms of their uniforms. The soldiers marched toward the fortress obliviously as bolts rained down on them, ignoring the flying adversaries as they were cut down, row by row.

The next wave was tight on their heels, however, a mix of heavy, metallic vehicles. Some small, boxy ones seemed to move in starts and stops, clearly faster than the others around them but unwilling to get out ahead of their heavier brethren. The heaviest were massive, walking, mechanical monstrosities, resembling gigantic ponies whose backs bristled with weaponry. Large boxy contraptions on treads matched pace with them, each with a pair of tubes that pointed steadfastly at the fortress while protrusions on the side of their turrets fired out missiles that arced up into the sky to strike down the airborne defenders.

By the time the shelling of the fortress began, Luna had recovered from her trip and reached out with her magic. Picking up one of the mammoth treaded monstrosities, she wielded it like a hammer, pounding the pony-shaped walkers into oblivion. Her makeshift hammer only survived a few such assaults before she had to pick another, but that suited her just fine. Other unicorns joined her defense, some projecting shields to block the incoming fire, others blasting the oncoming forces with fire, lightning, or just pure blasts of magic.

While the heavy armor were absorbing the blunt of the ponies' reprisal, the smaller, boxy vehicles opened their back doors, letting out a variety of new soldiers onto the battlefield. Some pointed large round tubes into the air, causing black clouds to erupt among the lunar pegasi, quickly mounting casualties among them. Others vanished from sight in an instant, and were soon spotted fading back in within the fortress. The more melee oriented earth pony guards quickly set to work on them, taking some out even before they could finish materializing.

A voice rang out in Luna's head, suggesting she buck the unicorn next to her to death. She shrugged it off, but a quick glance showed that some of her allies were succumbing to similar suggestions. Looking back onto the field she saw the source. "Kill the bald ones, qui-!" she shouted to her remaining night guards. But her order was cut off as a beam of blue energy from one of the materialized soldiers struck her, and she began to fade out of existence even as he had faded in.

A quick thinking sergeant rushed to buck the enemy out of commission, only to get second thoughts a moment later, and buck one of his subordinates instead. The younger soldier was not as cool-headed, and succumbed to the chaos of the battle, counterattacking against his own commanding officer rather than carry out his mission. A unicorn spotted what was happening, and started to assault the offending soldier, only to be distracted for a moment by a bright red light shining into his eyes before suddenly dropping dead.

A spinning cone of metal emerged from the ground inside the fortress, the tube behind it leveling off before opening and releasing several more of the teleporting soldiers. As one, they struck Luna's fading form with more beams, before the first soldier finally succumbed to a volley of crossbow bolts. Shouts echoing across the battlefield drew a volley of fireballs and other large area attacks down onto this latest incursion, finally eliminating the soldiers even as the tube burrowed back down into the ground.

Unfortunately, Luna was nowhere to be found.

Comments

[Star Flank]

"So which of you is a simulcrum?"

"Simulcrum?" Zeke asked, puzzled.

"Not a simulcrum," Robert said as he pulled out his cracked phone to show her. "Just eliminated. I was '<Player 3>'."

This should be simulacrum.