• Published 22nd Aug 2012
  • 963 Views, 2 Comments

Project Harmony: Alpha Squad - wubwave



The untold story of the first bearers of the elements of harmony

  • ...
 2
 963

Project: Harmony, chapter one

Project: Alicorn
By: Hal (Wubwave) Holiday
Editing help by: Dthomash

“Hey Twilight wait up!” Rainbow Dash cried out as she flew around trying to find her friend.

“We know yall are excited about looking around the princess’ old castle now, but maybe ya can slow down for a moment?” Applejack asked as she exited the abandoned castle and entered a courtyard of overgrown Everfree plants.

“I’m sorry girls, but it’s just so much! Look at this place, the castle Luna and Celestia shared! She never told me anything about when she was young,’ the purple unicorn said, verbally jumping around with excitement, ‘I just wish she would have stayed to show us some of this stuff.”

“Well she has her hooves full taking her sister back…speak’n of which, shouldn’t you be resting after your fight with Nightmare Moon?” Applejack said while making a slow lap around the open atrium.

“Shouldn’t we all get some rest?’ Rarity began to complain, taping her hoof on the large rusted set of metal doors set into the ground, ‘not that this place isn’t lovely…or at least once was.”

“Oooh what’s this?” pinky yelled out as she had her nose deep into a large overgrown tangle of vines.

Twilight broke away from her bemusement and began to magically remove the vines, “I don’t know, it looks like a memorial,’ she stared before reading the plaque aloud, ‘To my little ponies that call this land home. For a long time, far too long, we have known only tyrants, and war, deceit and inequality. I vow, no longer shall we be divided; I am a living testament to the coexistence of pony kind, not simply in body, but in birth. It is for that reason that Equestria will be watched over by a princess, not because I desire to become another tyrant, but because I only answer to the kings and queens of Equestria, the pegasi, the unicorns, and the earth ponies. And it is through the sacrifice of many that I can declare us a free and peaceful race. Thank you for your sacrifice, your faithful subject Princess Celestia.”

Twilight gaped at the plaque and looked down at the bobbles of Equestrian past that ringed the memorial. After examining them closely she floated up one in particular, a helmet painted a drab grey/green. The plastic that would cover the eyes of a rather large pony had a deep spider web of cracks that ran through it. As twilight turned it over a splash of color caught her attention, a small representation of Celestia’s cutiemark decorated the side and below had Celestia’s name printed along the side.

-------

“The council will come to order!” yelled the purple unicorn mare from her place at the center of the meeting hall. “I will not have this senate become a bar room brawl, you are all ponies, stallions and mares, not colts and fillies, now act like it!”
The shouting match between the unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi was smothered under the mare’s chastising orders. The purple mare looked them over and continued in a calm tone, “Commander Hurricane please continue.”

The blue pegasus pony flew from her chair and landed sternly in the center of the seats that lined the walls of the room. “As I was saying,” she said, trailing off and glaring at a white earth pony across from her, “the earth pony trade unions have been smuggling goods to the countryside rebels that have revolted outside of Hoofington.”

The white stallion returned the pegasus’ hateful gaze and ground his hooves on wooden banister separating the two ponies. The blue pegasus continued, “the rebels were quickly put down by our crack military fliers,” she said half bragging, “but not before destroying several government buildings, and killing a handful of earth pony police,” she said, losing all emotion in her voice at the last sentence.

“Minister Clover if I may,” the white earth pony said, no longer able to keep quiet, but still able to keep civil.
The purple unicorn nodded, “please take your seat Commander; I don’t need you and Heart Swan on the same floor today, not after that foalish display.” The blue mare returned to her seat among her other pegasus comrades, and Heart Swan left his earth pony allies behind to approach the no pony’s land at the center of the triangle shaped room.

Heart Swan threw his golden mane back and stuck his nose in the air, “Commander Hurricane seems dead set on portraying my trade union, the foundation for earth pony, unicorn, and even pegasus commerce, as a terrorist group hell-bent on overthrowing what you, Ms. Clover, and the other council members have worked so hard for.” The white unicorn next to Minister Clover rolled her eyes at the lame attempt at flattery. “The truth is,’ Heart Swan continued, ‘that these “weapons of war” included low caliber rifles, common for any earth pony farmer, fertilizer, which has been used to nurture crops many times more than it has been used to make homemade explosives, and a collection of hand tools. The trade unions deal with all types of commerce, some of which I admit are hazardous when used by the right set of evil minded hooves, but none the less necessary for the growing cities of Equestria.”

The white colored unicorn spoke up, “despite Hurricane’s accusations, this is not a trial Heart Swan. We are more concerned with the growing number of rebel factions, and the future stability of Equestria. You may take your seat councilor.”

Heart Swan nodded, “of course Princess Platinum. I would like to add, both Councilor Smart Cookie and Chancellor Pudding Head have been dealing with the domestic issues of rural rebellions with the utmost importance,” he finished proudly as he walked to his designated section of the hall where a pair of pink and orange earth pony mares nodded in agreement.

“Minister, Princess, if I may?” the quite third unicorn mare said, looking to her purple and white companions.

“Yes councilor Daisy, we shouldn’t keep out guest waiting, she is a very busy mare,” the purple minister unicorn said to a room of questioning ponies who were not informed of outside company.

“Why were we not informed that there was someone here for our top secret meeting?” a green pegasus stallion questioned.

“Relax General, I gave them the go ahead,” Commander Hurricane said still annoyed at her encounter with the earth pony.

Councilor Daisy walked to the door and disappeared into the next room, only to return moments later with another unicorn mare in tow. Daisy nodded to the nervous mare and urged her to approach the center room. The young light blue unicorn mare floated out a pair of glasses and a stack of papers and began reading her prepared speech, “Hello councilors, I am Shining Star, um, Doctor Shining Star, a researcher at the Unicorn Military Research Academy.” Both the earth ponies and pegasi shared an opinion, and gave doubtful looks to the unicorn pony occupying their time. Shining Star continued, her face buried in her own speech, “I have been conducting research on augmentation spells for increased performance of ponies-“

The grey pegasus stallion interrupted, “please, our pegasus soldiers attempted your spells before without measurable success, do not waste our time and ponies further.”

Shining Star looked up and gave a slight condescending smile, “no Admiral White Cloud this is something much different-“

Shining Star was interrupted once again, this time by Princess Platinum, “what you are about to hear is top secret military research that we were developing during the Great Pony civil war, be glad we found peace in that cave together Hurricane.” The princess added with a smile before turning back to Doctor Star ‘I’m sorry go on dear,” she finished waving a hoof at her to continue.

“Oh well, yes,” Shining Star continued, “a few years ago we discovered a transmutation process that creates, in essence, a super soldier. Now, we previously attempted the process on adult unicorns, but…it proved ineffective at best. However, after a few tests on foals-“

The pink earth pony known as Chancellor Pudding Head interrupted, “Foals?”

Shining Star stumbled over her reply, “oh, uh, we created them specifically for the tests. They biologically were foals, but didn’t have brains or souls…”

The Pegasi joined in on the questioning, “This is the kind of science you unicorns are performing?” asked the green General pegasus.

“Please let her continue,” Councilor Daisy said brushing her coat-matching yellow mane out of her face.

Shining Star quickened her presentation to avoid further chastising, “yes, and we were able to successfully fuse the traits of all three pony races into one subject.”

The room fell silent in awe at those last sets of words. “We have come to call this new hybrid an ‘Alicorn’. It...They, have the strength and size of earth ponies, even surpassing earth pony muscle mass and stature at times. They also possess a powerful level of magic beyond unicorns, as well as a large set of wings that enable flight.”

The room continued to stay silent until the orange earth pony mare spoke up, “but, why, why do we need them?”

Admiral White Cloud answered for the group, “I’ve been told by our pegasus weather researchers, that the average temperature of Equestria is dropping. You councilor Smart Cookie, Princess, Commander, Chancellor, and Minister know what this means.”

They all nodded in agreement, and Minister Clover responded, “The windingos, all of us including Private Pansy-“

Commander Hurricane interrupted peacefully, “I made her Sergeant before she was killed in action,” she concluded sorrowfully.

“Yes,’ Clover continued, ‘and unless we want another blizzard like the one that destroyed our last homes we need solutions. The pegasi military has done a fine job, but to keep hatred out of our new home, we need a smaller force to conduct operations silently, which is why I brought you here today. These creatures combine the elements of all of us, and will require the help of all of us.”

Commander Hurricane was the first to respond, “when can you begin, and how long until we have these soldiers?”

Shining Star took center stage again, “we can begin looking for candidates as soon as possible, searching schools and flight camps. They will be partially operational by 10 years old, and fully operational by the age of 16.”

Councilor Smart Cookie shook her head, “have mercy on us, 10 years old and fighting? That’s barely old enough for a cutie mark. Is there anything else we can do? Griffon mercenaries?”

Admiral White Cloud responded, “Griffons have their uses, but they’re unreliable.”

Minister Clover shook her head, “and we would still face the threat of windingos, when the climate information reached us, we could only think of one option.”

Chancellor Pudding Head interjected, “you knew? Why weren’t the earth ponies informed of this before today?”

Shining Star left as the senate room broke out into argument once again. Doctor Star felt sick to her stomach with nerves as she waited for the senate to reach a decision. She wasn’t sure if she was afraid of rejection or acceptance of her plan. On one hoof, she would be ensuring safety for the new pony homeland, and the millions who now lived here. But, she would still be a monster, a necessary one, but a monster none the less. If the public ever found the truth of the Alicorns, not only would it be a political nightmare, but Shining would go down in history among the “good intentioned, but crazy geniuses” that history all too often remembers unkindly. Damn it! I’m being so selfish! Shining Star thought as her eyes teared up a little as she thought of taking young fillies and colts from their homes and making them into soldiers to eventually die in combat one day. I’m not the one going to be hurt by this, they are.

As the hours passed the yellow unicorn stepped out of the council hall. “What did they say councilor?” Doctor Star asked. Daisy gave a slight smile, “They’ve agreed to begin the project, congratulations.” A stone of guilt hit Shining Star’s stomach at those words, but she swallowed and simply replied, “I’ll begin right away.

------------

Shining Star was startled awake by the sound of the blaring claxon. An amplified voice rang out in the halls beyond Shining Star’s state room, “morning shift has begun sailors, if you want shore leave tomorrow you best not be late to your shifts.” Shining Star looked at the clock on the other side of her small private room, “yep, 5:00am like always.” Shining Star didn’t find the irony of pegasi beds all that amusing, even the bunks aboard a military skyship like this one felt like sleeping on a cloud, because you were. However, each day at the crack of dawn, the pegasi, and one unicorn, were thrown into the day of work, barely able to experience the comfortable embrace of sleep. Shining Star got ready for the big day ahead of her, and began to dread the task she would face. Doctor Star shoved the thoughts out of her head as she concentrated on renewing the weightlessness spell that kept her from falling through the floor and bulkhead made of pure clouds. She rolled out of bed and examined her unkempt mane before tying it back into a bun at the top of her head.

Shining found her way to the bridge of the relatively small floating craft. As she entered the room crammed with ponies in uniform, her gaze was drawn from the miscellaneous consoles and screens to the pony standing in the middle of the chaos. Shining Star caught a glimpse of the jet black stallion that had been accompanying her throughout the trip, and she tried the best she could to muffle a giggle. The stern, upright military pony she came to know was standing on the bridge, giving orders like he always did, but the itchy looking pegasus Sky Navy uniform Shining Star was still convinced he slept in, was replaced by a colorful button up shirt and a floppy hat covering his trimmed down red mane. “Lieutenant Commander, Ironwing sir, stealth drives are operating perfectly, the new onboard weather device has matched cloud hull’s water saturation perfectly with the surrounding storm clouds,” proclaimed a pegasus mare muzzle deep into her work console. Shining Star looked past the hilarious sight of Ironwing to view the grey sky in front of her that was turning orange in the rising sun, and from what she could tell the mare was right, she couldn’t tell where the grey hull of the ship ended and the clouds around it began.

“Are you preparing yourself for shore leave Lieutenant Commander?” asked Shining Star trying to sound as professional as possible while holding back laughter.

The black pegasus just now noticed her and sighed, “not a word of this to anyone,” returning an ever so slight grin, “you will have to get dressed up too, I personally asked the captain to pick out something as tacky as possible.”

Shining Star gave a playfully challenging look, “won’t be necessary, I planned ahead and brought my own thank you.”

Ironwing raised an eyebrow, and returned to work, “knew I should have made you cut your mane like the other mares aboard.”

The civilian sky chariot escaped from the floating ship carrying it’s two passengers. Rain from the storm hammered the windows of the enclosed vehicle. Shining Star continued to put on her disguise by applying a lady-like level of makeup to match her tasteful sun dress, and was eternally grateful she didn’t have to brave the storm, the pilot however pulling the chariot was not so lucky.

Ironwing scoffed at her attention to personal beauty, and continued the mission brief, “what should our child be named?”

Doctor Star looked up from the mirror she was floating in front of her and thought a moment, “Sun Sparkle.”
Ironwing twisted his face in disgust, “if anyone will believe we’re a unicorn/pegasus couple, we need to have a proper pegasus name for our child.”

Shining Star returned to her task of applying fake eyelashes, “What’s a proper Pegasus name? Steel Mane the Destroyer?”

Ironwing glared at her, “no, what about Storm Flash?”

Doctor Star accepted, “good enough, we just need the principal to buy it. You’ll do most of the talking to her. I on the other hoof will find the subject.” Her heart sank as she realized she just called an innocent filly a, “subject,” like some biological specimen they scrapped from the bottom of a pond.

---------

“Ah, yes, my wife and I are planning on moving here later this year; it’s hard to raise a mixed family in Cloudsdale…” Ironwing continued laxly. Shining Star had excused herself from the meeting with the head of the school and began to trot around the small foal’s school. It must have been recess, which in a foal school was most of the day. Shining looked out at the yard full of fillies and colts galloping back and forth letting off energy they had being cooped up during the storm. Shining’s eyes caught a glimpse of the white filly that stood a head above everypony else, gracefully striding like little royalty. As Shining Star exited the building to approach the white unicorn, a scream let out over the school yard gabbing everypony’s attention.

“NO! She’s mine!” howled a dark blue unicorn on the other side of the playground as she fought a colt who was holding a ragged looking doll in his mouth, out of reach of the panicked filly, sobbing and trying to jump up to grab her stolen toy. The white unicorn galloped to help the small the foal in distress, her horn flaring and telekinetically pulling the doll from the attacker. The earth pony colt turned and stared at the large unicorn running up to him, but before he could react, a pair of hooves hit him from behind. The surprisingly powerful buck from the little timid filly echoed a loud thud that made even Shining Star’s head hurt from across the school yard. The white unicorn slowed to a stride as she looked at the blue filly, who just delivered such a powerful kick to the large colt, who was surprisingly still able to stand.

The brown earth pony staggered away crying, leaving the pair of fillies alone for Doctor Star to approach. “Quite a kick,” Shining said without judgment, “and quite a spell, I didn’t learn telekinesis until I had my cutie mark.” The pair of young ponies looked at her, fear in their eyes that they were going to be in trouble for their actions. “What are your names?” the adult unicorn asked.

“I’m Luna!” the blue filly shouted.

“And I’m Celestia,” added the white filly with the tri colored mane, “are we going to be trouble?”

Shining Star smiled, “I’m not your teacher, and I won’t tell on you.” They both smiled ear to ear as Doctor Star continued, “those are very pretty names.”

They both nodded in unison, “our parents are ast…ast…what’s the word?” asked the blue unicorn.

“They look at stars,” the white one answered avoiding the question, “that’s why I’m named Celestia, after the stars.”

“And I’m named Luna after the stars too,” the blue maned and coated younger one added.

"The moon isn’t a star,”

“Uh huh, it’s in the sky,”

“No it’s not-“

Shining Star broke up the argument with the wave of a hoof, “girls, girls,” they both stopped but continued to glare at each other. Shining focused her attention on Celestia, “I hear you can do other spells too.”

The white filly looked down at her hooves in shame, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that before…”

“What happened?” Shining asked feigning ignorance of the powerful magical event on the filly’s record.

The younger one answered for her sister, “I was there, her eyes glowed and she floated in the air and turned the class into- well not me, but everypony else into plants, and other stuff.”

Celestia began to tear up, “I’m sorry…” she whimpered.
Shining smiled, “it happened weeks ago, and it is very rare, it shows you have a lot of magical potential. Plus I heard everyone is ok now,” she said consoling the little filly.

“I have a game to show you, do you want to see it?” The two looked at each other and smiled, Celestia wiped the small tears from her face. “It’s a very simple game,” Shining Star pulled out with her magic two coins, “Luna, you get the silver one, Celestia, you get the gold one.” Both smiled at the opportunity for the coins, “but, you only get them if you guess right. I’m going to flip them, and you have to guess heads or tails for your coin before it lands, got it?”

Both of the fillies nodded and looked at each other, “bet I’ll guess right before you,” the white one challenged her younger sister.

“Nu uh!” she shouted back.

“Alright, ready? Go,” Doctor Star flipped the coins up in the air with the glow of her horn. “Heads!” the two foals shouted in unison as the coins came down, both landing sure enough on heads.
Shining Star smiled, “very good, I’ll leave you two to play,” she finished walking away from the pair.

Ironwing was standing at the door to the school waiting for her, “what was that supposed to accomplish?”
Shining Star frowned and blinked, “it proved that they think alike, we came here for Celestia, but…the sister should come too,” Shining Star wasn’t sure if her logic was sound, or if she just couldn’t find it in herself to separate two sisters for the rest of their lives.

“Are you sure?” Ironwing questioned, “We know what the white one can do, but the other one seems pretty ordinary.”
Shining nodded, “we should get back, and we still have a few more cities to go.”