Cutie Mark Crusaders Fantasian City-State Historians, YAY!!!!!!

by Dragonborne Fox

First Day, Evening—Uncomfortable Revelations

The sound of papers being signed and stamped filled a room drowning in so much paperwork, there was scarcely anything else. To one side sat a paper shredder, and next to it a pony-sized wastebin already stuffed to capacity. In the center stood a desk, where a legless blue cat sat using his tail to stamp things as a blond-maned, black-and-white pinto unicorn stallion read documents while a cream-colored red-maned unicorn mare did the sorting. Of course, both did the stamping as well, but it wasn't at record speed considering the landmass of parchment threatening to collapse on them at any given moment.

So caught up were they in their frenzy, they didn't notice anyone entering until they felt something cold pulling their tails using its teeth. Both turned to find a wraithling and the Crusaders at their hooves, and sighed. "Alright, what is it?" the stallion asked.

"These three," Katie began, using a hoof to gesture to the Crusaders, "want some pictures of the Aerie. Can you take the pictures, Matt and Natalie?"

Matt frowned, and set the form he had been reading down. "What sort of pictures?" he grumbled.

"Well, mostly outside views," Scootaloo replied, wings twitching as she resisted the urge to buzz them, lest her wingbeats knock down some documents. "If we want the full grade, we gotta have… um…"

"Photographic proof the Aerie is, indeed, real?" Katie proffered.

Scootaloo nodded. "Yeah, that."

The cat meowed, and set the form he had been about to stamp down, looking at the two grownups on either side of him. The mare shrugged as she looked at the cat, then Matt. "Well, if it lets us get out of catching up on paperwork for a few minutes, I'm down," Natalie said.

Matt nodded. "Sounds good, Natz," he agreed. He looked to the Crusaders again. "So how many pictures do you want?"

They shared glances amongst themselves before Apple Bloom piped up, "All of 'em. We want as many as we can cram into the report."

Sweetie grinned, pronking in place, "And some really good inside shots, too! And maybe a Fantasian map picture, so we can mark it there too!"

Matt grinned, his shorter-than-normal white horn lighting up with a golden aura. From a flash of light he conjured a camera, similar to a Mythonian make and model with some tweaks here and there. For starters, its buttons and knobs were hewn of glimmering crystals that seemed to react to his levitation; the reds turned a fiery orange and the blues melded into a cool green to contrast the steel of the camera. For another, it had some runes etched on it here and there, mostly tiny but still legible if one squinted at them. "Some outside and inside shots," he muttered. "What else?"

"Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh!!" Sweetie jumped up and down, being careful to not kick aside some papers. "Some shots of the many military wings here! And some airships! And maybe the surrounding landscape!" she said, starting to get a little giddy.

The cat meowed, and Matt turned to him. "You on board, NoLegs?" NoLegs nodded with a purr, seeming to be happy to put the paperwork aside for now. "Any of the wings of the Aerie in particular you want to have for the photoshoot?" Matt asked, turning to the mare. "We have a medical wing, a mess hall, the slime ranches… what about you?"

"Yeah, Natalie, what about you?" Katie chirped. "We have a training wing here, too, don't we? And the hatchery I just found out about."

Natalie sighed, grinning now. "Well, there's the greenhouse, the farmlands that are being constructed…" she muttered.

Apple Bloom twitched her ears. "But why would y'all wanna have farmlands?" she asked.

Natalie turned to her, her smile turning patient. "Well, changelings are omnivorous when not eating love, and we kinda need to eat our greens too," she said. "And we have some new ponies who'd rather be farming than fighting in wars, so it's for them too."

"And what about the slime ranches?" Scootaloo asked.

Matt snickered. "Well, around here, slimes are a source of endless love for changelings, and that gooey stuff they make their cocoons with. Our slimes are harmless, and pretty cuddly," he said, grin widening. "We just gotta feed them every so often and they'll be just fine. They eat their greens, too."

"And we do need to check up on the farmland construction anyway… looks like we just found the perfect excuse to get out of this stuffy office," Natalie said, her grin broadening now. She got up, and so did Matt. "Alright girls, we'll take the pictures. NoLegs will give you the best photos of the bunch, but we probably won't be done until at least sunset considering we'll be taking a lot of photos for you, and the Aerie is a big place." She lifted a hoof to ruffle Scootaloo's mane. "We'll start with the outside shots, since those will be easiest."

With that, Matt and Natalie trotted around the desk, through the piles of paper, and were out the door in moments. NoLegs lingered a bit to check the form Matt was reading, scanned it, stamped it with his tail, and set it aside for later. He teleported out when he was done, leaving the group of four to trot out the office the old-fashioned way.

Outside in the hall stood Applejack, grinning in amusement. "So I see y'all wrangled them out of their work," she said.

Katie shrugged and rolled her orbs as far as they could go. "Eh, they've been looking for excuses to be outside," she said. She perked her long ears and turned to the left of the hall, snickering as she saw Anna on one side of it with her eyes spinning in her sockets, and a wingless, blue, male gryphon with the lower body of a snow leopard opposite of her with his back to the wall and his beak wide open as his eyes tried to leave his head by corkscrewing. He wore a cravat on his neck, but it was currently frazzled like the bowl cut of his head-feathers.

"I didn't think they were in that big a hurry," the gryphon said, somewhat dazed. "Did the papers eat them again?"

Anna was faster to recover, blinking back to awareness and standing up straight as she realized what had just happened. She turned around and galloped off in that direction, shouting, "Godcat-damnit, Matt and Natz! Are you leaving me to finish the paper hoard by myself here?!"

"Yeesh, it looks like none of them want anything to do with this office," Applejack said, grin widening at this turn of events.

"I wouldn't, either. It's liable to eat ponies in there," Katie agreed, still snickering. She turned to the wingless gryphon as he got his limbs back under him and managed to make the world stop spinning his eyes. "Say, let's see if he can answer some questions." She pranced right over, and tapped his shoulder to get his attention. The Crusaders followed with pencils and notepads ready, eager to get some more out of this hapless sap. Applejack opted to stay by the sidelines and watch, just in case the children went too far with their prodding.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there!" the gryphon called as the children gathered at his talons. He lifted one of them as if surrendering, eyes wide and beak slightly ajar. "What brought you here?"

"We just wanna ask some questions," Scootaloo asked. "Are you one of the wingless gryphons who defected during the Trials of Attrition?"

The gryphon sighed with a tired nod, head dropping in defeat. "And I thought the General didn't want us talking about that… note to self, find whoever shot their mouth off and wedge my paws up their rear…" he mumbled to himself before looking back at the Crusaders. "Yes, yes I am." He puffed his chest feathers as a genuine smile forced itself onto his face and his navy-grey eyes sparkled with warmth. "Blue Crow, at your service, young madams."

"So what do you do when you're not riding your magitek?" Apple Bloom asked. Blue Crow chuckled and patted her head. He noted, with some amusement, that the note-taking was already happening as they jotted down what he relayed to them, so he figured he could entertain them for a bit.

"Well, for instance, maintenance to keep things running smoothly, sometimes bugging the Lieutenant-Generals to no end to do their jobs, and other times acting as a scout. One of my tasks is to make sure that all magitek is up and running in the Aerie, but without wings it just takes me longer to get to where I need to be," he answered.

"So what do you use magitek for?" Sweetie Belle asked, grinning.

"Well, for cooking, flight, fighting, and even powering the Aerie." Blue Crow lifted a talon to gesture around them. "Practically for anything you can think of, really."

"And how do you power magitek?" Scootaloo pressed, wings buzzing. Blue Crow winced a little, and she asked, "What?"

"Well… it requires a lot of magic to power, and as much as we gryphons want to, we're… not the ones who charge it. Say…" He lifted his head, doing numbers in his brain before looking back at the Crusaders. "As much strength as I hear it takes your Princess to raise the sun, at least." He shrugged. "Fortunately, our Lieutenant-Generals and the General himself have enough to charge it and come out okay."

"Wait, they act as living batteries?" Sweetie Belle asked, tilting her head.

"Rechargeable ones, but yes," Blue Crow answered. "But the demonstration for that isn't pretty, so I'm afraid I can't ask them to show you how they do it. Besides, it's closely-guarded information anyway."

At that point, Applejack stepped in, using her hooves to round the four up. "Well, we got places to be and reports to finish. Thank ye for yer time, Blue Crow," she said, herding the four away before they could ask anymore questions. Blue Crow nodded and waved in a friendly manner as Applejack lead them elsewhere, waiting until he was alone in the hall before letting loose a string of expletives and running off to find whoever was stupid enough to shoot their mouth off.

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Lunch, dinner, and dessert came and went, and in a shared room the Crusaders were compiling all they had learned that day into something that Cheerilee would read once it was done. Katie was in the room with them, occasionally chipping in with her two bits, but mostly keeping to herself otherwise. As they were discussing what to write and what to leave out of the report, the door opened, and in strode NoLegs sporting a cheeky grin on his face and a swath of pictures levitating behind him.

Sweetie grinned at the cat, and petted his head as she lit her horn and took the pictures from him. "Thank you, NoLegs," she said. NoLegs meowed, licked her snout, purred and went on his way. When the cat closed the door behind himself, Sweetie turned to look at the pictures, finding them to be surprisingly fully-colored. One showed the Aerie from outside, from ground level. It showed off the wide ring of steel hewn outside of the mountain with airships touched down on its surface, angled so it was right next to one of the support beams that anchored it up. The second had a top-down view, probably accessible only by airship. The third, from on top of that ring, showing off a city carved into the peak and billowing with steam from a myriad of exhaust pipes.

The fourth picture showed off that same city, from a mile away. It didn't have any gates or the like installed, nor any ports for any smaller airships to dock. It didn't have the cloud infrastructure either, but still had streets visible nonetheless, albeit with a few soldiers doing routine patrols. Amusingly, it showed off four cutie marks adorned on flags as well, hanging from rafters to act as a makeshift gate all its own. Perhaps it was done that way because the whole Fantasian military could fly, although the design choice still perplexed Sweetie nonetheless. This one, she passed around to her fellow Crusaders.

Apple Bloom tilted her head. "So they won't tell us how they got their marks, but they're willing to flash 'em in the city?" she asked, frowning in befuddlement. Scootaloo leaned over her shoulder and pointed to a red-white missile adorned with a manji.

"I think I saw that when we went to Cloudsdale with Lance using Cherry Berry's balloon," Scootaloo said, ears twitching. She turned to the wraithling, who presently idled about not too far away. "Do you know what his mark means?"

Katie turned her head and shrugged. "He said something about preferring peace, but preparing for war during the whole shebang in Greenwood. Couldn't wrangle much out of him beyond that, because we had more pressing matters at the time," she said. "Trust me, it was bad over there."

"So you can't tell us about that mess, either?" Sweetie Belle asked, frowning.

Katie nodded. "I would assume so, but I wasn't given any official orders to not say anything about it yet. Besides," she said, gesturing to herself, "if children die on Fantasia, and become undead like I did, what's that say about the rest of the planet?" The Crusaders shared looks, then looked back to the wraithling with slightly open mouths that shut as they considered the question. "Have you ever met any undead children back on Mythos?"

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo shook their heads, but Katie's brow slowly rose up her forehead as Apple Bloom somberly nodded. "You, hallway. We need to talk," she said. Apple Bloom obeyed, and the other two Crusaders watched her trot out the door.

"How long are you gonna keep her outside?" Sweetie asked, turning back to Katie.

Katie's brow furrowed. "Long enough to have her answer some questions. Should only be a few minutes, and whatever she has to share should not be going into the ears of you two," she answered, trotting out the door and elongating her tongue to grab the knob and close that door behind her.

Outside, a gryphon soldier with a crow's upper half mixed with a black jaguar's lower half did patrols. Katie turned to him and said, "Private chat between me and a guest here, Jeremy. You might want to be elsewhere." Jeremy nodded, grumbled to himself, but entered a random room and went out of sight. Once he was dealt with, Katie turned to Apple Bloom. "'Splain," she ordered.

Apple Bloom wilted, but figured now was the time to be honest. "Well, after the Nightmare Moon fiasco and Zecora moved in, me and Twi were heading out to the Everfree Forest to get some books from Zecora," she began. "Sun was setting, and Zecora warned us not to stay in the Everfree for too long. Well…" She looked around for a moment, then turned back to Katie unsuredly.

Katie lifted a bony hoof and gently patted Apple Bloom's withers with it. It was cold to the touch, but not in a way that felt menacing or anything of the sort. Rather, it was trying to pass off as warm and inviting, but simply missed the memo. "If you swear like I do, I won't tell Applejack on you," she said seriously. "I'm getting the feeling that whatever you saw may have given you the right to do so."

"Well, like a bucking idiot, I didn't stick close to Twi because I saw something weird. We tried leaving the forest, but a buncha fallen trees that weren't there before blocked the road, and… at first, I wasn't sure if my eyes was working right," Apple Bloom went on, ears twitching for any hint of a door creaking open. When she was met with silence, she paused, the oddly consoling cold hoof moving to stay on her withers.

"What did you see?" Katie asked, trying to keep her brow from furrowing more than it already had.

"Um… it was a filly. She looked normal enough when I saw 'er; she had a grey coat and an orange-yellow mane and tail with a magnifying glass cutie mark, but I couldn't see her eyes too good," Apple Bloom explained. "But like I said, I was a bucking idiot, so I followed her into a dark part of the forest. When I thought I was lost, I found a town in a clearing."

A town? In the Everfree? Last time Katie checked, it was full of timberbeasts and the magic that kept them animate, and ectoplasms that controlled its weather and liked to stray into Ponyville from time to time. And that could have been Fantasian bias and cynicism taking the wheel and doing the talking, but that sounded awfully suspicious already.

"It had ponies and houses kinda like Ponyville, 'cept smaller, but…" Apple Bloom sucked in a breath to steel herself as the memory came into focus. "But everypony in it was blank flanks. There was a party going on, too, but I didn't pay it a lot of attention."

"Blank flanks…" Katie muttered, unable to stop her brow from furrowing even deeper. "Did they not know what cutie marks were?"

"That's what I thought when I asked about it, too. And when I seen him, this one stallion gave me the chills, and I didn't know why. Come to think of it, everypony 'cept one was like that," Apple Bloom said, ears flopping down as she shuddered. "This stallion said his name was Grey Hoof, and he made the party happen. He told me not to wander off from the town."

"Did he give you a name for this hamlet?" Katie asked, ears twitching and wings snapping open. She stayed her hoof for the time being, but something told her that the hamlet was nothing but bad news.

Apple Bloom sighed. "Sunnytown. Which… is weird since the trees' leaves basically blocked the sun and moon," she said, eyes turning distant. "So I do some stuff at the party, find another pony's lost present for his fiance, and so far nothing's wrong. But that pony was in front of a house, and I had to check it out. Inside I find a crying mare." Apple Bloom turned to the wraithling. "Besides yer boniness and blue eyes and being a small changeling… ya look just like her."

Katie's wings buzzed and she couldn't keep a scowl from forming on her face any longer. Now alarm bells were ringing in her head. "Crying? At a party?" she asked, voice tinged with disbelief. Apple Bloom noticed that her hollow voice was echoing now, almost as if another copy of her had spoken in tandem.

Apple Bloom feverishly nodded. "She weren't much bigger than Applejack, I reckon. But she gave me a crank and told me something about everypony in Sunnytown deserving some kind of punishment. I didn't right know what she meant at the time, so I went to the back of the town to see if anything was there. There was a rickety house with a key tossed in a well, which I used the crank to get out. I opened the door, and there was no light…" Her eyes turned even more distant and haunted, as though she bore witness to horror.

Katie rubbed Apple Bloom's back wordlessly to prompt her to talk again. She didn't like what she heard next. "When I could see in the shadows, I saw it." Her voice grew more quiet with every word spoken, and trembled as she went on, "There was… a skeleton in the fireplace. It was burnt and… and… I thought I was seeing things. But when I touched the skeleton, I figured out I wasn't." She was shuddering as she took another breath to steel herself for what came next. "So I ran back into Sunnytown, 'cept… now, it was ruined, and dark. The houses fell apart, and at first I thought nopony was around."

"Then I hear a voice: 'she had the mark, she had to go.' And then… coming up outta the ground was a zombie. But it didn't look like any zombie I heard about: red lights came out the rib cage and skull, and… it looked evil. Before I know it, I'm hauling my tail outta there, and more and more zombies come to try and stop me. But that crying mare from before stopped half of them by herself, and told me to run."

"I get lost again, and see glowing hoof prints. I followed them to find the filly from before, except I see her eyes: all orange, and glowing. She said her name was Ruby, that she got her cutie mark because she was good at finding things, and she promised to find a way out for me before the zombies could get to me. I get sent back near the road that was blocked, and Twi finds me, and we head home," Apple Bloom concluded.

Katie's stomach churned, and a feeling that there was more to this story settled in it. "Did you try telling anyone else what happened?" she asked.

Apple Bloom turned to the wraithling again, eyes widening. "I did, but nopony 'cept Zecora believed me," she replied, lifting her hooves to put them on her military escort's shoulders. "Which is why I freaked when I saw ya; I thought you were one of them."

Katie shook her head. "Those Sunnytowners sound vile on a level I wouldn't approach," she said, her voice echoing more as anger leaked into it. "Something tells me their whole town is rotten." Before she could speak further, a door a few paces down opened, and out stepped a zebra with golden earrings and a tribal iteration of a sun on her flank. Katie turned to the zebra, then back to Apple Bloom. "Work on your project some more; I need to ask Zecora some questions," she said.

Apple Bloom nodded again, broke from the wraithling's grip, opened the door, and went into the room. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were as she left them, though both were looking worriedly at her as she returned to the group. "So, we kinda heard everything…" Scootaloo muttered, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly. "And we won't tell Applejack you swore, either."

"Yeah, but… zombies," Sweetie said, ears flopping down. "Until today, I wouldn't have taken it seriously either." She and Scootaloo moved to give Apple Bloom a group hug, which she immediately reciprocated. "I'm sorry I didn't take you seriously when you tried telling us that story."

"Same," Scootaloo added with a sigh. "I shouldn't have thought you were crazy when you were telling us, Apple Bloom."

"It's okay, girls," Apple Bloom said, squeezing her friends. "I thought I was going crazy when I remembered it was real." They broke apart with a unanimous sigh. "But it sounds like the wraith's fixing to do something about it."

Scootaloo frowned. "How can she? She's just one changeling, even if she is undead," she pointed out.

Apple Bloom shrugged. "Maybe she might have the rest of the military here back her up, or she could just go to Celestia or something," she replied. "Anyway, what have you two decided to leave out the report so far?"

"Well… we haven't gotten to that part yet," Scootaloo answered, wings buzzing as she spoke. "We're still writing everything down."

Apple Bloom nodded with a sigh. "Alright, let's finish that first and then figure out what we need to leave out," she said. She grabbed a picture from the stack and grinned. "Hey girls, check this out." She passed the picture around, garnering grins from her fellow Crusaders.

"Is that the slime ranch?" Scootaloo asked, seeing a photo of a gate that was taken deep in the Aerie, looking a little old-fashioned and out of place. In fact, it had bricks and mortar and wood forming its body, like something that would come out of the Acres or Appleloosa. Written on the arc of the gate were the words "Ye Olde Slime Ranch," complete with a changeling in a farmer's garb posing next to the gate with a rake in hoof.

Sweetie levitated the stack of photos and sifted through them, grin widening. "Oh sweet, we got good shots of the slimes!" she said, passing more photos around. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo took a hoofful of three pictures each, and giggled. There were enclosures, and some housed vegetables. Others housed small and large slimes of varying types, and amusingly enough some of them looked like they'd been crossbred with tabby cats. The larger slimes had smaller orbiting slimes surrounding them, and all had adorably goofy faces. There were several types of enclosures for varying types, and one shot even had a slime with vegetables composing half its body eating a whole platter of more greenery.

The Crusaders looked at each other, grinning in unison. "So wanna hit the slime ranch tomorrow, see if we can get our slime rancher cutie marks?" Scootaloo asked.

"Yeah, I do!" Sweetie answered.

The three lifted their free hooves and clapped them together with a cry of "Cutie Mark Crusaders Slime Ranchers, yay!"

Comments

[Comickook]

Excellent nod to the "Story of the Blanks" story as well as the Crusaders' Fantasian contacts' reactions to the stuff the Crusaders will need for a really good grade.

Anyway, these chapters were really wonderfully done and I'm DEFINITELY going to be looking forward to more of this.

[Mocha Star]

"Blank flanks…" Katie muttered, unable to stop her brow from furrowing even deeper. "Did they not know what cutie marks were?"

Sound like a story I read and an editing called Battle of the Blanks.
Lol

[Dragonborne Fox]

11439987 Aaaay~ :D