Into the Black

by somatic

2: Under Siege

A squadron of pegasi descended from the airship, gray flak jackets making them almost ghostly in the moonlight.

Twilight was too stunned to speak, but Applejack raised her voice. “Now, what’s going on here? Hey! Treat the princess with some respect!” Her shouts went unanswered as the soldiers slipped a magic-restraining ring on Twilight’s horn.

From atop Pinkie’s back, Twilight could see the farm pony’s muscles tensing, preparing to buck. “No, Applejack. Let them. I’ll be fine.”

“Fine? These highfalutin ponies with their magic whatsits and their…”

“It’ll be okay, Applejack.” She nuzzled Pinkie’s neck, and the party pony let her slide off her. “I suppose it’s time for me to deal with… what I did.”

She started toward the armed pegasi, but a claw on her hind leg held her back.

“Spike, I’ll be fine.” She tried to comfort him with her voice, but she knew he had been doing most of the comforting recently.

“You keep saying that, Twilight. I’m not sure I believe it.”

“Don’t worry, Spike…” She caught herself before she said I’ll be fine again.

Fluttershy’s quiet voice broke in. “Um, I don’t mean to interrupt, but who are these ponies?”

Twilight and Spike answered at the same time. “Equestrian Royal…” Spike apologized. “Oops, sorry.”

Twilight continued. “The Royal Armada, Equestria’s sky navy. They weren’t around at the time you… departed.”

A sable pegasus stepped forward. “Well, if you girls are done with the chit-chat, the captain would like a word with you.” He wasn’t as professional as the guards Twilight was used to.

At once, the other soldiers flew closer and wrapped their hooves around the girls, one of them grabbing Spike. Another magic restrainer went on Rarity.

“Why, I never! Don’t you know who we are?” The white unicorn shouted as burly forelegs hoisted her into the sky.

“Can’t say I do, ma’am. Only one I recognize is the Lost Princess.”

Rarity opened her mouth for a question, but the sudden burst of speed stole her words.

The flight up to the airship was brief, though the thunderhead cannon trained on them made it somewhat disconcerting. As they flew, the guards wrapped some sort of copper coil around their captives’ hooves.

“I don’t have wings, you know. I can’t walk on… clouds!” Rarity yelped as the pegasus dropped her onto the airship. Reflexively, she kicked her legs back and forth, trying to stay aloft.

As she discovered when she smashed her knee disgracefully into the cloud, she did not need to try.

“Huh?” Rarity felt a faint tingle around her hooves, and looked down to see the copper coil glowing faintly.

“You’re not the only groundpounders aboard. We’ve got earth pony mechanics, unicorns manning the shields—’course we got cloudwalking charms for you.” Rarity looked up to see a guard giggling at her predicament. A scowl silenced him.

“Well.” She picked herself up, brushed away the cloud dust with her mane, and tried to pretend that never happened. Around Rarity, Applejack and the others touched down as well, their landings notably less dramatic than hers.

Rainbow threw off the guard’s forelegs as soon as she could. “You know, I could have flown here myself.”

“Yes, I’m sure you could have, ma'am.”

“Well, I’m flying now, and there’s nothing you can do…”

“Ma’am, there are three crossbolters aimed at your current location. As we speak, the gunners are bringing that number up to six. If you do not settle down, a thunderhead might find itself pointing in your direction, as well.”

Rainbow Dash settled down.

The sable guard suppressed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know who these ponies were, but anyone who traveled with the Lost Princess was certain to be dangerous. If not for Celestia’s direct orders, he’d had bombarded them all from above before sending marines to pick up the ashes.

Trotting in on gangly legs, a mottled gray pegasus with a too-large helmet disrupted his destructive fantasy. She tried to hide it, but she couldn’t mask the squeak in her voice as she spoke. “Captain says he’ll see them now, sir.”

A nod of the head later, the guards and the captives marched down the path to the command bunker.

The corridor was as bleak as the rest of the fortress, all gray and concrete and joyless. A few posters peeled from the walls, printed propaganda pieces made by the millions. Twilight read the slogans as she passed.

Your Home, Your Duty: Fly High in the Royal Armada.

Bravery: It’s the Equestrian Way.

Every Pony Plays Their Part.

The washed-out colors of that last poster showed young fillies and colts—little older than children—working in some vast factory, assembling what could only be war machines. Twilight shuddered, half from the poster, half from blood loss.

Spike would have done anything to be by her side, but he and the girls had been separated from each other, a guard dividing each pony from one another. He could see stick grenades in their chest pouches, wooden handles jutting out close to their mouths for ease of throwing.

“I liked the shiny ones better.” Pinkie’s voice threw a wrench into the military precision of the affair. “You know, the shiny uniforms that you could see your face in?”

Pinkie took a close look at her guard’s steel-gray helmet—a bit too close of a look, if the hoof pushed her away was any indication.

“Haven’t worn those for ages, ma’am. I take it you’ve been away for a long time?”

Twilight cut in. “You have no idea.”

Rarity’s eyes widened as an idea struck her. “Oh, my! We have been gone for ages! Whatever does that mean for fashion! Is my mane in style? Quickly, guard, do you have the latest couture magazines on hoof?”

“Only magazines we have around here are the ammo mags in the arsenal, ma’am.”

The mottled pegasus spoke up, her voice bright as a firefly compared to the other guard’s growl. “Sir, I think Grape Shot has some—”

The guard blushed. “We do not talk about those magazines in mixed company, Windlass.”

Windlass’s ears flattened to her skull. Something seemed off about her, but Twilight couldn’t quite say what.

Other than the flak jacket and the grenades, of course. Twilight hadn’t been very concerned with military affairs while she was trying to cure Spike—could a mobilization as major as this really have slipped beneath her nose? This airship dwarfed anything the Armada had, at least that she could remember.

“The captain’s through there, ma’am.”

Twilight noticed a grimace on Windlass’s face as she walked through the door. Two guards followed her.

She waited for the others to come, but the door slammed shut behind her, making her jump with a start. She felt something pop as her wing wounds reopened, and a little gasp escaped her lips.

If the captain noticed, he didn’t care. The black-furred pegasus stood hunched over a map, his forelegs on the table. Graying locks of auburn mane flowed from under his captain’s hat, joined by a short but bushy beard on his jaw. Behind him, the three windows showed nothing but thick slabs of armor covering the glass.

Twilight’s gaze darted through the room, hoping to find something to explain what was going on. A few model ships, a dartboard, a voicepipe—

“So, the Lost Princess finally comes home. Welcome to the HMS Thunderchild.” The captain’s voice could only be called a rumble. Twilight wondered if he had swallowed a storm cloud as a colt.

“You keep calling me that. What does it mean?”

Muzzle Flash took a moment to mark a course correction on his map, then turned to face Twilight. “Ms. Sparkle, do you know what year it is?”

“Of course. 4977 of Luna’s Return.” She hadn’t been in the Everfree that long, had she?

He shook his head. “That’s the date of your disappearance, Twilight. The year we lost you, and all this madness began.” He paused to shout orders through the voicepipe. Apparently, the bilge needed pumping.

“Twilight, it’s 5000 LR. You’ve been gone twenty-three years.”

Discord did something, skipped ahead to get to the stellar alignment. In the confusion, the storm—she could be forgiven for a lapse in memory.

“Things have not gone entirely well in your absence.” The captain gestured to a guard. A pull of a lever later, the blast shields over the windows folded away.

Twilight trotted over to him, careful not to strain her wounds any more.

Before them stretched acres of black earth, a few more airships visible in the distance. Twisted trees sprawled all around.

“I don’t understand.”

“Look closer.”

Twilight started to cast a magnification spell, until she remembered the magic restrainer. She squinted instead.

“There’s something on the ground, something dark. The trees look scraggly, I guess, but I don’t see how that’s unusual. Is it—”

Her eyes widened. The ground wasn’t just black. It was breathing.

Clumps of earth rose and fell in the unmistakable rhythm of a living thing, sending quivers through the thorny grass.

The trees weren’t blowing in the wind. Judging from the rising smoke from the airships, there was no wind. Yet the branches waved nonetheless, reaching out for her.

Suddenly, Twilight was very glad she was in the air.

Muzzle Flash’s voice reverberated next to her. “We’ve been keeping it contained from up here, but we can’t stop the spreading. It’s eating our villages, scorching trails through our farms… Frankly, I have no idea how you even got out of the forest alive.”

Twilight looked dazed, as if she had just learned she had to take a test she never studied for.

“Ms. Sparkle, Equestria is under siege, and Princess Celestia believes you’re to blame.”

Author's Note:

Yes, I know that in America, "soldier" only refers to someone in the Army. However, this is the Equestrian Royal Armada, which works a bit differently. Since the living earth (the Wilder) restricts ground travel, airships became essential to all branches of the armed forces; hence, the Armada eventually became the dominant branch, enveloping the Army. "Soldiers" are those members of the Armada that specialize in close combat, whereas "skycolts/skymares" are the pegasi tasked with running the ship, manning the guns, etc.

Comments

[Outis]

Oh Twilight what madness have you wrought
Also

Welcome to the HMS Thunderchild