Codex Ponera - Cliffside Eyrie

by Pepperbrony

Chapter Eleven

Applejack sprang from tree to tree, chasing after the southbound airship. When the vessel increased speed, Applejack tried to aim for taller trees where possible, intending to use their greater height to propel herself still faster.

Spotting a particularly tall tree more or less in her path, Applejack aimed for it, and reached it in a few catapulted jumps. She used this particular tree to launch herself higher and faster, aiming for the underside of the hull of the airship. With Winona’s help, she gripped onto the wooden underside of the ship.

Holding onto the hull, Applejack considered her options. While she was a competent woodcrafter, she held little doubt that the pirate crew would have several crafters of their own who could undo any woodcrafted sabotage she did. She knew next to nothing about airships anyway, and didn’t fancy learning by trial and error whilst surrounded by the hostile ponies she held responsible for Apple Bloom’s death. Then she remembered what Rainbow Dash had told her about the encounter earlier that day.

“Heh. If it worked for her then, it should work for me now,” she mused, crawling aftward and using Winona to craft hoofholds to help her.

It was slow going, but Applejack eventually reached the stern, where she started climbing upwards toward the gunwales. Looking up, she grinned at the sight of netlike rigging connecting the poop deck to the envelope. Suddenly, somepony started yelling about battlestations and the ship started to descend.

“Uh-oh.” Applejack quickly looked around, but nopony was poking their head out a window. “They ain’t spotted me then.” She frowned, a worrying thought occurring to her. “I hope it’s not Big Mac and the others they’re gettin’ all excited about.”

There came a few thumps and the unmistakable WOOMPHs of large bursts of fire breaking out, before Soaring Scavenger started climbing again.

“Sounds like Scoots’s work,” muttered Applejack, peering over the gunwale. She grinned at the sight of ponies running about, trying to deal with several fires that had somehow started on deck. “Definitely Scoots’s work.”

Applejack watched a large balding dark gray earth pony bark out orders, which were then clarified by a scrawny-looking blue-coated unicorn. After ensuring that everypony was too busy to look aft, Applejack began to scale the netting. Just before reaching the envelope itself, she felt the ship descend again. She looked forward to see what was going on before gasping in horror. On the ground ahead of the airship she saw three ponies, Big Macintosh, Rainbow Dash, and Scootaloo, surrounded on all sides - including above - by hostile looking ponies.

“Looks like they need a hoof,” Applejack said, cresting the rim of the envelope. She poked her muzzle into her saddlebag, before withdrawing it with a knife in her teeth. “I’ll shee uf I can giff it to ‘em.”

Lowering her head to the skin of the envelope, she dug the blade into the fabric and ran towards the forward end of the ship, slicing a huge gash in the fabric. She made it about halfway along before she stumbled. So many wind furies had escaped that the envelope could no longer support her weight, or even its own shape.

The airship came crashing down, tail-end first, before the rest of the hull violently slammed into the ground with a bone-shuddering BOOM. Applejack’s own fall was cushioned by the gently collapsing fabric of the deflating envelope, and so she ran the rest of the length of the vessel. She stood at the prow briefly, looking to see how she could best help her family. Dropping her knife back into her saddlebags, Applejack leaped down onto the back of one of the pirate ponies surrounding her family, flattening him before she rolled off of him and sprang up at the hooves of Big Mac.

“AJ,” greeted the stallion.

“Big Mac,” nodded Applejack.

Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo simply stood there, jaws hanging down.

Applejack whirled around, facing the shellshocked ponies from the pirate airship, and reared up in anger. “Who's next?” she cried.

The mercenary ponies glanced at one another, each apparently unwilling to be the first to attack the mare who had brought down their airship. Applejack heard Rainbow Dash whispering something about blades and metal, but before she could ask about it, a small and intense burst of fire shot out from behind her. The flare smashed into a metallic tube mounted behind a broken-open hatch in the hull of the crash-landed Soaring Scavenger. The flames cut deeply into the metal, before the tube exploded with concussive yet surprisingly silent force, blowing a gaping hole in the side of the ship.

The ponies surrounding them collapsed to the ground, holding their hooves to their ears. Applejack blinked in surprise. “What the hay just happened?” she asked, delivering a dual-hoofed buck to the side of a green-coated pegasus who had crash-landed at her hooves.

“Scootaloo blew up a furycannon, while I crafted up a sound barrier,” said Rainbow. “Now, run, before they snap out of it!”

The four ponies turned and gallop southwards, leaping over the cringing twins Flim and Flam. Rainbow took a moment to will her wind fury into a windstream aimed directly at Octavia, blowing her up and away, colliding with what was left of the mercenary forces just beginning to recover from the shocks of both the crash of the airship and the destruction of the furycannon.

Rainbow then flicked her wings and the four fleeing fugitives faded from view.

---

Octavia groaned came to and groaned in pain. Her head felt wet, but at least the pain was easing with every second. She saw Moondancer watercrafting at her, and tried to swat aside the watercrafter’s hooves, but had trouble aiming correctly.

Moondancer giggled as she continued her watercrafting. She said something, but Octavia could not hear it over the ringing in her ears. Moondancer pushed her back down, never stopping her crafting.

Octavia finally got the idea and lay back and let Moondancer continue healing her. After a few moments, the ringing sound subsided and the pain was gone.

“You’ll need to rest for a little while,” Moondancer said, moving on to the next injured mercenary. “Eat something, stay out of trouble.”

“Not likely,” replied Octavia, looking at the crash-landed Soaring Scavenger. She shook her head at the deflated envelope and the ripped-apart portion of the hull.

Growling, she left Moondancer to her ministrations and willed Evans to aid her in climbing up the wooden hull onto the deck, where she made her way to the aftcastle. Glancing at the scorched and burned areas of the airship, she called out to the vessel’s captain.

“How long will it take you to repair all this damage, Black Strap?”

Black Strap looked around, spotting his first mate struggling to free himself from under the canvas of the envelope. Digging the unicorn out, he repeated Octavia’s question to him.

Improper Place looked about and sighed. “We can fix the tear in the envelope quickly enough, but the trouble is going to be refilling it. With only our four windcrafters, it’ll take all night before we’re ready to fly again.”

“What about the furycannon?” demanded Black Strap.

“Furycannon? Oh, that’s what that explosion was,” Improper Place said. “We have a few spares we can replace the destroyed one with, since we didn’t have room to install all the cannons we stole, but I’d have to look at the damage to the hull to make an estimate on repair time.”

“You have until the envelope is filled to have the hull repaired and the cannon replaced,” said Black Strap.

“Captain, I don’t have that long to wait for you,” said Octavia. “Those ponies will make it to Cliffside Eyrie well before you can, and they’ll warn Coloratura about what we’re planning.”

“Then perhaps you should assist with the repairs,” snapped Black Strap.

“I hardly think so,” scoffed Octavia. “My skills are better used elsewhere. Give me one of your windcrafters. I need to get to the city before they do,” she finished, waving to indicate the ponies fleeing southward.

Black Strap and Improper Place exchanged glances.

“We won’t need windcrafters until the envelope is patched, sir,” said Improper Place. “We may as well let her go ahead and make sure the city is not forewarned of our intentions.”

Black Strap thought for a moment before spitting over the gunwale. “Fine. You have your windcrafter. Just send him back when you get there.” He turned to the quarterdeck before bellowing, “STRIKING VIPER! Front and center, now!”

A green pegasus with a cutie mark of a snake poised to strike blurred into motion and arrived on the poop deck. “Yes captain?” he said.

Black Strap simply pointed a hoof at Octavia.

“You will take me to Cliffside Eyrie momentarily,” she said. “I’ll need a moment to collect my identity papers.”

Octavia made her way below deck and Black Strap started ordering his crew to begin repairs. Flim and Flam finally made it to the deck, glancing around for Octavia. When she returned from her brief trip to her cabin, she spotted them and barked out her orders.

“You two! You stay with the Scavenger, see to it that the ship is repaired as quickly as possible. Then, direct them to conduct the attack as planned.”

“What about you?” asked Flim.

“Where are you going to be?” asked Flam.

“I’m going to Cliffside,” she said, walking to Striking Viper and allowing him to scoop her up. “I have to be there in time to meet a young friend of mine.”

---

“We should get off the road,” said Rainbow.

“Go right,” suggested Big Mac.

“Good idea. More woods, less canal that way,” Scootaloo agreed.

“Lead the way,” said Applejack.

Once they were in the woods, Applejack willed Winona to hide them all from sight. Combined with Rainbow’s invisibility windcrafting, Applejack thought they should be safe from discovery. They galloped onwards for several more minutes, before looking back to check for signs of pursuit.

“I think we’ll be fine,” said Rainbow. “Between the hole Scoots here put in their hull and the damage you did to the envelope, Applejack, they’ll be busy for several hours at least, maybe longer. Where the hay did you even come from?”

“Yeah. And where’s Apple Bloom?” asked Scootaloo. “Did you leave her back at the orchard? Because she heard everything I did, she should come with us to talk to Duchess Coloratura.”

Applejack closed her eyes, remaining silent.

“Applejack?” said Scootaloo.

Big Mac’s eyes widened and he stepped to Applejack and put a hoof on her shoulder.

“I found…” began Applejack, before taking a deep breath and starting again. “I found the griffons that’d been chasin’ AB. They’d lost her, and were trackin’ her. I followed ‘em, and they went into this little rainforest, in a tiny little valley. In the rainforest, there were these shape-changin’ monsters. They… they got… I’m sorry, Scoots. I was too late.”

Scootaloo’s ears drooped and her eyes filled with tears. “No…” she whispered.

“I’m sorry, Scoots,” said Applejack. “Apple Bloom is dead.”

Author's Note:

This chapter went up early because I'm gonna be away from home for Sunday, and might not be able to upload.