Archive Nine
"The biggest issue, as I see it, is getting to the Guiding Wing before our absence is noticed, because once it is, they'll undoubtedly have a company of guards surrounding it. Us pegasi could make the flight in five, maybe six hours, but there's no way Crystal could follow."
"No, and that doesn't even account for the time we'd need in order to reach the Endeavor and get the remaining ponies into orbit to meet up." Top Notch paused, frowning. "I may have an idea, but it's unorthodox."
"I believe we're well past conventional at this point," Thatch pointed out. "What are you thinking?"
"It's hardly a secret you stole your ship's propulsion technology from us, but I-"
"I don't-"
"But I," Notch continued, ignoring the interruption, "was lead engineer on that project; the energy-siphoning point-to-point matrix was based a spell of my own design; if we get enough gems, I should be able to keep pace with you pegasi. It will require some concessions on your part, though..."
Five pegasi flew past the sleeping hamlet of Ponyville just as fast as they could. The wind and the chilled night air kept them from sweating, but all of them were beginning to feel the fatigue of the long flight. It was made slightly easier by the periodic breaks they took to check for anypony following or to avoid passing too close to other fliers. The only one among them who was not similarly tired was Top Notch, who was teleporting gracefully along the ground below while draining energy from the crate of gemstones he carried.
Calling out over the noise of the wind, Patch asked, "Noise, how you holding up?"
Before their departure from Canterlot, the unicorn below had cast a spell to see through White Noise's eyes. This was the only way that Notch would be able to find new places to teleport quickly enough to keep up with the group, but it had the unfortunate effect of dimming the other pony's sight significantly and causing a powerful headache.
White Noise, who had been elected for the role due to his frequent work with high-power magical transmission equipment, was regretting some of his career choices at the moment, but grunted reassuringly. "I'll make it, don't worry about me."
"Then that much is settled. And you'll be able to teleport the whole rest of the group along with you?"
Top Notch snorted back a bout of laughter. "Buck, no. It gets exponentially more difficult to process the jumps with the more mass that you add. That's why we had to design a whole integrated-logic chassis for most ponies, since they can't even handle teleporting themselves." He sighed. "No, we'll still need to figure out what to do for everypony else."
By the time their next step in the plan was ready, Amethyst Pear, Florence Flask, Focus, and Crystal Clear had fully settled into their rooms in one of the seedier hotels located in the Canterlot Underside. After paying for their access, silently by necessity, they had quickly retired to the privacy of closed doors and simply needed to wait.
This had been the easiest part of the plan, at least in the abstract, but being required to sit idly while their crewmates were speeding across a foreign world towards a destination they only hoped was unguarded did little to make them less nervous. Matters were made mercifully easier, and significantly more bizarre, when Florence Flask went rifling through the nightstands and produced a box of playing cards virtually identical to the ones everyone knew from home. The following hours had passed in a breeze, as banter was exchanged and imaginary money changed hooves.
Finally, right on time, their game halted as each of the four ponies set their cards down and winced in unison as low-grade headaches took hold. Crystal thought she had an idea of what to expect, having been right next to the Guiding Wing's transmitter last time it was turned on, but after months of acclimating to this world's immense magical field, her perception was much more fine-tuned.
Whereas before, standing next to it did nothing more than make her mane itch a bit, she now felt the signal at a fundamental level, that could almost be likened to a pony whispering in her mind with hushed, incomprehensible tones. She strained to hear the whispers, and made out the familiar harmonics beneath of a 'debug spell'; a common construction when working with encoded thaumic scripting, used to relay detailed identifying information about the source of the magic. It was a spell she had used countless times in crafting spell matrices, normally tethered to enchanted paper or some other means of making the information accessible. Actually experiencing the spell was disconcerting to say the least.
Using the information carried on the signal and drawing on the power of the several gemstones that Top Notch had not carried with him, Crystal was able to conjure a small pony-sized orb of inky-black darkness in the center of the room. Straining from the effort, she grunted, "Who's first?"
With a shrug and a 'geroneighmo!', Florence jumped into the orb and disappeared. Moments later, Focus and Amethyst followed. After they were clear, Crystal stepped forward. Her magic self-negated as she entered, causing the spell to collapse and the orb to dispel, leaving an empty room behind.
The collected crews of the Guiding Wing and Endeavor watched as Crystal stepped into the clearing next to the large magical transmitter originally meant to serve as a beacon for Discord. The aforementioned ship stood a short distance away, undisturbed.
"That was fast," Patch remarked.
Crystal grimaced. "Yeah, that thing was way worse than I imagined, but it sure got the job done. You threading your debug spell into the transmitter worked like a dream. You can turn it off now." She paused, looking around the area. "No trouble getting here?"
"Smooth soaring," Thatch confirmed. "And not a single pony out here. Airlock doesn't look tampered with, either. You still up for teleporting inside and opening it up?"
"Yeah, I might not feel great but with the ambient field this strong, I've got magic to burn. Honestly, I'm gonna miss it a bit when we get home. These ponies are spoiled." With a flash, she was inside the Guiding Wing, just outside the interior airlock door. Looking through the glass at the outer door, she could see the power conduit rigged to the handle, intended to discharge on anyone who tried opening the ship up. She levitated it away and plugged it back into its original housing, then entered the airlock and opened the exterior, providing a clear path in and out of the ship. "All clear. Let's get started."
//ALERT 151
CLANDESTINE STORAGE ACCESSED - EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ACTIVE
Five minutes into the process of readying the ship for takeoff, things stopped going smoothly. With most everypony occupied with disassembling the various tools scattering the landing site and storing them aboard the ship, Thatch Roof and Amethyst were left to stand by the box of gems as scanned the horizon and waited for the others to finish loading. This afforded them plenty of advance warning when a pegasus from the nearby linguist camp took flight and began heading straight toward them. With everything going on, though, and with no clue of his intentions, the two of them still had no plan by the time he arrived several minutes later.
The newcomer came fully into view as he approached and flew to a stop. He was a fairly large, orange pegasus, and wore armored plates over his barrel and a helmet through which showed his black mane and dopey grin. Thatch recognized him as Buzz, one of the guardponies that often accompanied the linguists to and from the ship.
"How do?" the guard asked in broken Erisian, grinning proudly at the chance to show off what he had evidently been picking up during his time with the linguists.
Thatch relaxed, the tension slipping away as he laughed in relief. "I'm doing good, Buzz. It's good to see you, but its awfully late tonight. We were just about to turn in."
Buzz nodded. "Saw pony go to ship. Had need check pony is you." He paused, glancing at Amethyst, who was hoping to be mistaken for a statue if her stillness was any indication. "New friend?" he asked Thatch in Erisian, then addressed Amethyst in a string of incomprehensible Equestrian.
She just stared back blankly for a long moment, unsure how to respond. Thatch intervened, "Yeah, new friend! She's a mute." Buzz only seemed to be half-listening though, staring past the two of them at the ship where the pegasus crew he knew was working with several other new ponies to load things aboard. "...Several new friends."
"You leave?" Buzz asked as he turned back to Thatch.
"Uh... No. We're just getting this stuff in from out of the rain, and these nice ponies offered to help," he hastily supplied.
"No rain tonight."
"You never can be too careful though, can you?"
"Rain lots of times before. Never pack before."
Thatch facehoofed. "Yes, right. But, you see..." He trailed off, both for lack of any response and upon realization that Buzz was looking at the open crate of charged gemstones, marked in various Equestrian labels Thatch could only hope weren't incriminating.
Buzz turned from the box to look at Thatch, to Amethyst, and back to Thatch. "I get. All okay. I go home now. Good sleeps." Before Thatch could think to say anything, Buzz had turned and taken to the air, flying back toward the camp in his bobbing, leisurely manner. He just watched him go in silence for a while, then turned to Amethyst just as her horn lit up and she pulled one of the harness-mounted rifles from its place of concealment behind the crate, quickly lined up a shot, and pulled the bit with a resounding explosive crack that dropped the departing pegasus from the sky instantly.
"What the buck?!" Thatch roared, starting to leap aggressively toward the mare before halting, turning in the direction Buzz had fallen, getting three hooves off the ground, and then halting again. He turned back to her, glaring.
"He could have been going back to warn his superiors, and even if he wasn't, he might have tipped somepony off without knowing it. We couldn't risk it."
The stallion's glare didn't soften, but he couldn't argue with her reasoning. He'd been frozen in debate over doing the exact same, after all. A moment later, he turned back to face the rest of his crew and Amethyst's, who had all gathered at the sound of the gunshot. He gave a small nod, and spoke. "New plan. Forget the rest of the equipment; we're off the ground in five. Get these gems inside and tell Stem to make sure the engines are clear. Amethyst and I will be the last ones in."
As the others began hastily getting inside, Thatch picked up his own battle-harness with a sigh and slipped it on. "So much for the quiet approach."
//ALERT 008
ENGINE IGNITION WITHOUT APPROPRIATE SAFETY LOGS SUBMITTED
Fifty minutes and one very expensive orbital burn later, the Guiding Wing had rendezvoused with its jump drive. With the docking maneuver complete, Thatch queued up a sequence of jumps to take them directly home using the wealth of magical power provided by their crate of borrowed gemstones. With the navigation data locked in and the auto-pilot on standby, he unstrapped from his harness, stretched, and left the cockpit for the main crew area where most of the ponies were gathered.
"Alright, looks like we're in the clear, and I've got everything ready to go up front. Any word from Stem?"
"Yeah," Lime Cliff answered. "He says he and Florence Flask were able to feed the new power supply into the drive using a chemical bath, but they're back there now making sure the rigging is secure."
"Smart," Thatch intoned solemnly. "Last thing we want is a bunch of goo and rocks spraying all over the place first time we jump."
Notch glanced over curiously, pausing his inspection of a wall panel with exposed spell circuitry. "That's something I was wondering about too. You said we'll only need a couple jumps to get back to Eris?"
"Yes, we're using a series of long-range jumps instead of your rapid-fire acceleration method."
"I'll be the first to admit that's more effective given a large power reserve like what we have now, but how did you manage the trip here without it?"
Crystal chimed in, looking eager to talk shop. "There's actually a very interesting answer to that! We kept charging on the way over, drawing magic from the system itself between jumps. The ambient field is so strong that you can basically just point a dish at it and get free energy. I mean, it's not as easy as that, exactly, but-"
Her speech halted abruptly as a flash of light and quiet rush of air came from the hallway toward the aft of the ship. "Stem? Everyth-..." White Noise's call trailed off just as fast when he saw who was there.
The mare who entered was Princess Celestia, but not as any of them had ever seen her. Her mane, normally a rainbow blowing pleasantly on an ethereal breeze, now flickered shades of red and swirled with fiery anger. She seemed taller, despite the cramped quarters of the ship forcing her to incline her head to keep her horn from scraping the ceiling—her horn, which now glowed a brilliant white that had everypony sensing the temperature in the room had just climbed several degrees.
"YOU DARE?!" She boomed in a voice that proved near-deafening in the metal chambers, sweeping up every pony present in her magic and lifting them into the air. "You come to our world, we welcome you to our home, and you DARE attack our ponies?"
Stem Bolt came running in from the engine room with a wrench upraised, swinging at the princess. An instant before the blow landed, her head snapped back and she caught him in her magic, then hurled him against the bulkhead. She grabbed him again and flung him as though across the length of the room, but her horn flared before he hit the other wall and he vanished in a flash of light.
The distraction had proven enough that Celestia had released a couple of the others for a moment. Amethyst and Lime Cliff scrambled for anything they could use to fight back, while Thatch rushed for the cockpit. Lime picked up a book, and Amethyst settled for a plastic spork. They exchanged a glance in the moment before Stem's disappearing act, then rushed toward their assailant. The alicorn caught Lime Cliff mid-leap, but the Amethyst was able to close the distance and actually get a jab in with her improvised weapon before she too was grabbed and held at bay in a telekinetic grip.
By the time Stem was gone, Thatch had already made it to the control panel and hit 'execute' on the readied jump command. A faint whirring sound began as the drive charged up, and he turned just in time to see Lime and Amethyst blinking away in a flash of light. Celestia, her horn now aflame and radiating staggering amounts of heat, turned and seized Thatch and Focus, the latter of whom had previously been attempting to diffuse things but began an attack when Amethyst was lost. "YOU! You command these wretches! How is it that you decided murder a fit answer to hospitality? WHAT EXCUSE DO YOU OFFER?"
By virtue of some combination of shock, fear, and heatstroke, neither one answered immediately. A knocking sound to her right drew the princess's gaze. Through the cockpit window she saw a familiar draconequus wearing a fish-bowl on his head, complete with goldfish. He pointed toward her—no, past her—and she turned around to see Discord, now standing inside the ship and wearing a cheap suit. "Your honor," he began, "My clients-"
"Enabler," Celestia growled over the building hum of the engines. "You will explain yourself too, but now is not the time." With a flash of her horn, he disappeared. Then reappeared in the same spot a moment later, now wearing a tropical shirt. "Today is not the day to test me, Discord." Her horn flared again, and this time he did not reappear. She turned back to the remaining ponies, all of whom now stared at her in absolute confusion, and cast a final spell to teleport them all away.
Now in an empty room, she fluffed her wings a bit and looked around as the hum seemed to take on a pulsating, throbbing rhythm. "Do not make me seek you out. I will be further displeased."
Florence Flask poked her head out of the engine room and was instantly blinked away.
"Anypony el-"
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Oh man, shit just got real, tbey straight up killed that pony D:
And worse now they know it was for no reason at all., I can't see how this will end well.
I would like to know how celestia knew they killed the guard
... Did the ship just return to their home planet with Celestia on it but none of the other crew?
Celestia what did you just do!!! I know they killed a pony by mistake but you shouldn’t have teleported into their ship to upper hand them because what you did was a sign of war.
But mostly this was all a misunderstanding since they believe your ponies killed Discord and had to live fast but man you just cause a huge problem now with another world seeing this as a act of war.
What's this? An update?!
I've been curious at to where this story would have gone.
9170155
Where was the mistake? One of them just straight up murdered a friendly guard, shooting him from. The. Back no less. Heck, the guard trusted them! At that point, as far as the poor dead body of Buzz and what family he has is concerned, that was an act of betrayal. While I'd have loved for a completely peaceful resolution, now I'm perfectly fine with a slightly more defensive stance on Equestria's part.
I do have this to say: while the other crew members didn't do anything wrong (as you say, they fled because of a simple misunderstanding), I don't particularly care if Amethyst is thrown into Tartarus and left there. One can argue that she was acting in a situation akin to being stuck in hostile territory, but that will only go so far.
Also, about the act of war thing. Amethyst killed the guard, and if boarding a ship for a good reason (i.e. harboring a murderer) is an act of war, then killing a guard is definitely one; guess which came first. If war starts, the aggressor would be the other world and not Princess Celestia.
P.S. Sorry if I sound aggressive, I'm just frustrated and irritated and peeved that Amethyst just had to go trash the chances of a friendly meeting. I understand the need for drama now and then, but I've just seen so much first-contact scenarios with this particular cliché.
P.S.S My opinion may change when I cool off more (yes, more, at first I thought that Amethyst might as well be executed), but for now...
9170461
From the story so far I think Unicorns are pretty much believe they are superior like it was back then but a lot worse that they probably are train from foul hood to take out the enemy without a second thought.
Your right she did strike first so Celestia has the right to action quickly but it would be tough to actually declare war since she World doesn’t have the tech to travel from planet to planet but I bet they’ll use magic to get over there...
I have to wonder how each tribe sees Discord? Like does one believe in Chaos & another Harmony... Would be cool to see what their beliefs are of him and how each one is different making them who they are because as the saying goes. “What you believe in is what you become.”
But yea the others weren’t really in falt except running away to probably almost call him that this planet has killed Discord
It'll be interesting to see where this goes if it continues again someday.
9170155 A sign of war? THEY started the war! They stole stuff that would probably have been given them freely as a gift, if they'd just asked, then murdered somepony on the mere chance that he might tell somepony what they'd done. All because of their frigging paranoia.
At this point, by their rules, Celestia would be quite justified in teleporting to their soalr system and dropping both of their moons on the planet. After all, they've proven themselves hostile, rather than just being potentially hostile, and the only way to prevent them form becoming actively hostile is to erase them from the universe.
As for Discord, it's all fun and games until somepony gets murdered by your paranoid creations.
Please continue, I want to see what kind of slapping these morons get.