Part One Hundred & Seven
Flurry Heart bit her lip. “Should I say something?”
“No,” Gilda responded. She tugged on her flight goggles and poked them with a knuckle. Her brown cap pressed down her white feathers, masking the purple accents around her eyes with the black frame of standard-issue goggles. The griffoness actually looked professional in her brown flight jacket.
Flurry shuffled her hooves in her black jumpsuit. It was near enough to a flight suit that it would be fine to fly in. Her own cap hung around her neck by its string. It was an awkward fit not suited for a horn, but Flurry cared more about the radio than the comfort. The alicorn flapped her wings and landed next to the cockpit of the borrowed fighter plane.
It was a standard issue Reichsarmee fighter with heavy machine guns. She felt the metal bounce a bit under her landing, and Flurry tapped her hoof against the gray paint. The glass on the canopy was crystal-clear. The seat inside was red leather; it would have been too long for most ponies, but Flurry slid in and braced her hooves against the back pedals.
Her eyes skipped through the control board. All the instruments were in Herzlander. She expected it and it wasn’t a problem. Flurry tested the stick with a hoof, looking over a wing to see the rudder and the ailerons flex. A griffon mechanic in a stained gray jumpsuit emerged from under the left wing. He ducked under the metal, giving the alicorn a long, slow stare from one golden eye. Flurry stared down her muzzle back.
She knew this plane. She’d shot down enough of them. They were better made than Nova Griffonian fighters; Nova skimped on aluminum and substituted wood when available. But the Reichsarmee flew heavy with extra fuel tanks, and that slowed them down from local interceptors.
Flurry eyed a switch. “Drop tanks?” she called down. Gilda slapped one of the bulbous canisters under a wing.
“We’ll signal to drop.” Gilda tugged on a glove. “You ready?”
Flurry scanned over the controls in the cockpit. Near enough to Nova. And the Luftwaffe’s older fighters. She bumped the switch for the fuel gauge with the tip of her hoof. A wingtip bent forward to tap the ammo counter.
Both were full. “Yeah,” Flurry snorted. “Let’s hit it. Sure I shouldn’t say something?”
“What?” Gilda squawked. “Like you’re sorry?”
“I guess.”
She rolled her eyes behind the goggles. “Are you?”
Flurry did not respond.
Gilda sighed with a low purr. “Look, Princess: Dash is good. There’s respect there. You get shot down by the Element of Loyalty with one wing, that’s fair.” She waved a claw up at the plane while her other claw slapped the wing again.
Flurry knew she was gesturing to her horn. “I’ve never been in a fair fight,” she said with a frown. “You’d teleport your plane around if you could.”
“Damn right,” Gilda agreed. Her wings fluttered. “But I can’t. No griff can. Never saw a pony do it either. You cheat.”
“Don’t tell me this is some noble ‘Knights of the Sky’ crap,” Flurry snorted.
Gilda laughed harshly. “Nah. Stings to get clipped by a cheating wonderhorse. We don’t get paid enough to fight that.” Her eyes shifted around to the other planes. “They aren’t gonna try and kill you. Kaiser said you’re…friends.”
Flurry smacked her lips. “Yep.”
The griffoness coughed awkwardly and flared her wings. “Radio comms are in Herzlander!” Gilda called out as she flapped to her own plane ahead of Flurry Heart. The griffoness was technically in charge of an air wing, but Flurry suspected that was mostly on-paper. Felix seemed to actually do more with the ground crews. She spotted the speckled griffon pointing to ground crews and screeching them off the tarmac.
The alicorn looked to her right. Rainbow Dash had her head down in her own plane; her mouth moved rapidly as she shuffled through papers, then glanced back up to the controls. Flurry grimaced.
Fuck, this was a mistake. The Princess had no idea how exactly Rainbow managed to know Gilda for years and fight the Changeling Hegemony without learning Herzlander. But she seemingly achieved that. The pegasus had spent the last three days flying around with notecards, insisting that was how she actually learned languages.
Rainbow saw Flurry’s grimace and mistook it for a smile. She smirked back and pumped her hoof. “We got this, Princess!”
Flurry forced a smile. Rainbow shouted in the worst Herzlander she’d ever heard, and somehow mangled ‘Princess’ into ‘jelly donut’ with her muzzle. That shouldn’t even be possible. It sounds exactly the same.
The alicorn slid the canopy forward and locked it into place. Her horn dimmed. She tugged the cap into place by hoof and poked the earpiece into her folded ear. Ahead of her, flight crews began waving flags along the line. The griffon directly in front of her plane stared flatly through the unmoving propellers. He kept the flags by his side.
The other propellers started along the line of fighters as engines roared to life. Flurry waited for the signal, testing the stick and eyes drifting over the controls with forced nonchalance. She glanced up like she had not noticed the hard glare.
The white griffon kept glaring.
Flurry sighed and her horn sparked. The griffon squawked as his arm was seized in her telekinetic grip. It raised up and waved the flag; he tugged against his own arm for a moment before Flurry released him. He tumbled back over his paws with an open beak, then rolled across the tarmac and away from the plane.
The propeller spun to life ahead a roaring engine. Flurry Heart leaned down in the seat, gripping the stick between her forelegs. She flicked the last few switches into position.
“All right,” Gilda’s voice crackled in her ear. “Little cubs, we’re on intercept while air support takes out the bugs’ escape route. We got ships making a break for Olenia; RADAR picked up some light screens moving to escort them back home. Our job is to make sure they don’t make it.”
The planes began to taxi onto the runway in groups of three. Flurry took a deep breath and pushed it out with a foreleg as best she could. I should’ve practiced…then again, where could I have practiced? Buzz around Canterlot? Her jeweled crown rested around the bottom of the stick. It rattled in time with the vibrations from the engine.
Flurry averted her eyes from the six colored jewels. They were just bits of crystal, but they meant everything to her ponies. The Elements of Harmony that made the bedrock of Equestria, what Celestia built upon for a thousand years.
And the current Princess of Equestria jammed it around the stick of a fighter plane. She couldn’t wear it and the flight cap. Flurry closed her eyes. I miss my gold crown. It was simple. The scraps the medical staff peeled off her head and eyelid were still in the Crystal City. Spike decided to keep them. “Just in case,” he had said.
“Little cubs, we have two guests flying with us,” Gilda said in Herzlander. “Spectrum-Seven and Demon-One are on my tail for this flight.”
“Ja, Kommandant,” Rainbow’s voice broke in.
“Ancestors above.” Gilda’s growl was audible through the static. “You sound like one of the bugs.”
“Maybe you should’ve taught me your turkey language,” Rainbow replied in Equestrian.
Gilda ignored her. “Demon-One, how copy?”
Flurry nosed the plane forward onto the tarmac, following the gray fighter with gold streaks of paint on the wings. Gilda tallied her kills with gold crosses along the chassis. She had moved onto the rudder on one side, and Flurry was forced to guess. More than a hundred.
“Solid copy,” the alicorn said into her headset. She leaned her muzzle to one side to keep the earpiece in place against her folded ear.
“Spectrum-Seven, you’re my wingmate since you replaced Eagle-Two. Demon-One…” There was a long beat as the trio of planes took formation on the strip. “Maar’s Hell. Demon-One, just do the fucking work.”
“Copy,” Flurry acknowledged. She looked around the plane, then laid a hoof on the console just below the compass. She exhaled and her horn flickered. Who are you? Who do you belong to?
It was a new model, assembled for a half-dozen places that flickered just beyond her eyes. But only one pilot, a young griffoness from Vedina sitting back at the air base. She wrote letters in the cockpit to kill the time, writing to an engineer that she met in training. They had been assigned to different areas of Equestria, and she missed him terribly. She hadn’t killed anyone, too nervous to fire. She doesn't want to be here.
Flurry snapped her focus back to the tarmac and rammed the stick forward to follow Gilda’s fighter. Rainbow was slightly ahead, easing into a perfect takeoff. Flurry’s fighter wobbled as she left the ground. She stuck her tongue out and tried to get a feel for the plane.
The ascent was smooth, but Flurry felt the hairs on her neck prickle at multiple eyes watching her fighter. It was as plain as could be, no kill tallies and no special paintjob. Just like my old one.
The air wing slowly bunched into formation and headed west, following a setting sun to the ocean. They banked north to skirt Las Pegasus and the wide cloud of black smoke choking the air to its east. Flurry stared out the side of the cockpit regardless.
They were too far away to see the dragons hit the road. The radio chatter hadn’t been positive that the alicorn overheard. There was no coordination in the assault, just an animalistic mauling behind an inferno. Without any mobile anti-air guns or armor piercing rounds, the scattered remnants of the Changeling Heer were truly defenseless. Dragons thrice the size of a heavy tank simply flew over the road and glassed it, soaking heavy machine gun fire like mosquito bites.
Mudbeak’s Army Group South was surrounding Las Pegasus on both sides of the closing gap. Light Narrative and part of the Moonspeaker Conclave had moved up to Appleloosa to coordinate search lines behind the frontline. Deserters had fled into the dry plains as the frontline collapsed, and there were fears they would use some of the abandoned homesteads to launch raiding parties.
Las Pegasus was visible from the sky. The top half of the city was clouds bolstered by enchanted metal. Unlike Cloudsdale, there was enough investment into the resort capital of Equestria to keep the city together. While Appleloosa was the so-called capital of the Appleloosan Protectorate, Rockfeller and the magnates that worked with Chrysalis’ extraction efforts were based in Las Pegasus.
It was half a port city and half an airbase. It was bright flashing lights for casinos tied to the Love Tax and miserable factories underneath the clouds besides crowded dockyards. Before the war, there were constant fears from the pegasi and earth pony industrialists that the underclass was being funded by Stalliongrad agents.
Rainbow claimed the weather patrol for Las Pegasus was the worst possible posting in pre-war Equestria. They constantly wanted sunny days, and often demanded pegasi break up the smog from the factories below before it stained the fluffy white clouds that drew in the tourists.
Stalliongrad rebelled. Las Pegasus was roiling. Appleloosa quarreled with the Buffalo. How often did Celestia leave Canterlot to actually see her principality? Flurry could see the clouds clustered together from her vantage point, lit up by searchlights or the blaring lights of the casinos and tourist traps. The planes gave it a wide berth. Several other air wings flitted through the sky between the alicorn’s cockpit and ‘Equestria’s Playground.’
Flurry Heart had not ordered a single hanging.
Yet.
“We’re hitting the coast,” Gilda announced. “Ready up. Weapons check. Eagle-One.”
The Princess of a foreign country to all the other pilots listened to the varied accents call in. The sun had set by the time they crossed into open water. Flurry adjusted her heading on the compass with the others as they moved west. The planes ascended again, breaking through scattered clouds.
There was a large, seemingly endless dark mass of clouds to the north over Equestria. The storms broke apart and reformed after the wind currents brought them against her pink shield in the Crystal Empire. Well, at least the crops are doing well inside the shield.
Her horn tingled whenever she faced north. Flurry realized last night she slept better with her horn pointed north as well. The nightmares weren’t as bad.
“Bugs are out to play!” Gilda squawked. “Heading 220! Spectrum, Eagle-Three, Demon-One, follow me in!” The alicorn aligned her compass and followed Gilda up.
“Seeing a launch from Las Pegasus,” another griffon reported.
Heavy fighters from Olenia and whatever’s left in Las Pegasus. Flurry visualized the sky above the ocean in her head. Trying to sandwich us in.
“We have this patch of air,” Gilda answered the other pilot. “Others have the rest. Drop tanks.”
Flurry scanned the switches and flicked one with her hoof. She felt the clunk as the latches released. The two canisters on either side of her wings fell free and tumbled to the ocean below.
Rainbow’s plane kept the fuel tanks for several seconds before they fell free. Flurry pressed her flight cap to her shoulder. “Having problems with the controls, Air Marshal?” she asked in Herzlander.
“Fick dich,” Rainbow answered. Her pronunciation was surprisingly flawless.
“Glad you learned the easy ones,” Flurry deadpanned. She rolled the plane, feeling the flex in the wings now that the drop tanks were gone. A hoof flicked the button to prime the machine guns.
Shadows crossed the dark clouds to the west; the boxy shapes of Changeling heavy fighters broke into a swarm formation. Packs of fighters split into clustered groups of eight with one in the middle leading the charge. Black paint against gray paint in the night meant that only the tracer fire would be easily visible.
Flurry chewed on the inside of her cheek. She leant her head to the side again. “I have to ask: Is Demon-One my callsign from Nova?” The alicorn tracked a swarm descending to meet the air wing as it split.
“Yes,” a male griffon curtly responded.
“Then watch Maar’s Daughter work.”
Flurry Heart pushed the canopy back and unclipped her headset. She pushed the flight cap down and slammed the stick up and to the side. Her fighter spun through the sudden corkscrew and the engine screamed at the strain.
The fighter snapped out of existence.
It reappeared in a crack of golden light, screaming directly into the swarm of Changeling fighters. Flurry didn’t squeeze the trigger. She flashed a bubble shield around her plane at the shock maneuver and aimed at the lead fighter. The pilot only had enough time to nose down.
The bubble shield slammed through the chassis in an explosion of sparks and rivets. The wings broke apart with oil igniting on the crackle of magic. Flurry couldn’t see her next target, but banked the fighter to the side. The bubble shield moved with her plane and sheared off a wing of another changeling. She slammed through the tail of another at the end of the swarm. The two crippled planes spiraled through the clouds as the rest of the formation broke.
It took about two seconds. The wind cleared the burning oil off the bubble as Flurry readjusted her trajectory. She brushed the flight cap back up with a wing, pinning it to her shoulder. The fighter banked after another swarm.
“Demon-One. I’ll soak fire. Break up the swarms.” She checked her rudder before dropping her shield and lining up one of the straggling planes. The machineguns shredded the canopy and it spiraled through the clouds.
The bubble shield reformed and she dove down, screeching into the top of another fighter. She blinked at the explosion and filed away the crunch of chitin at the direct hit against the cockpit. The radio crackled.
“Say again?” Flurry asked.
No one responded.
Her air wing in Nova Griffonia called it ‘bowling.’ The Hegemony practiced tight, swarm-like formations to overwhelm individual pilots with sheer numbers. It took practice to accomplish the tight shape, but the skill of a lone pilot didn’t matter with so many wingmates to watch their tails.
Flurry could see the packs chase and attempt to box-in the Griffonian fighters. Her plane was faster and more mobile. Changelings could fly and stand on clouds, but they lacked the deeper senses of air currents. Her feathers ruffled against her jumpsuit as the wind raced across the open canopy.
Their plane design matches their tanks. The Luftwaffe flew armored scarabs. Bullets pinged off the reinforced metal, only slicing through the weaker joints in the tail and rudders. Flurry corkscrewed and teleported, using the momentum to flash upwards into another swarm trying to encircle a fighter.
Their formations made it very easy to go bowling. The bubble shield clipped two by the wings and smashed apart another’s tail as the plane broke in half. Flurry could not hear the radio over the rending metal, but a griffon squawked something.
Flurry peppered one of the survivor’s cockpits before responding. “Demon-One. Say again?”
No one responded.
“Two on your ass, Spectrum,” Gilda broke in. “My turn.”
Flurry Heart flashed around the sky and shattered three more swarms before the light fighters from Las Pegasus joined the fighting. She barely had time to snap her shield back into place before bullets slammed home in her rudder. Flurry banked wide and three fighters followed her.
The alicorn tracked them with a side-eye. The lead fighter was doing a good job keeping the bubble lined up, and whenever she managed to break away from her, the other two spun to intercept. They occasionally peppered a short burst against the shield as she pirouetted, anticipating when she would drop the shield to teleport.
Might just have to-
Bullets slammed into the shield from above. One of the heavy fighters screamed past, pulling up just ahead. The tail gunner fired tracers liberally into the front of the shield, just in front of the cockpit. Flurry squinted at the sparks and nosed away. The four fighters followed her.
Another burst hit her from below. Flurry twisted to fly sideways, seeing another heavy fighter and a tail gunner aiming upwards. She dove down towards him, but the plane spun away in time.
Flurry sagged back into her seat. Well, fuck. She glanced up to the tail gunner still firing bursts of tracers into the front of her bubble shield. During a pause, she waved her right wing up at him.
He did not wave back. Flurry assumed it was a changeling stallion, at least. She couldn't see him that well through the sparks and his black flight suit, but the muzzle looked square.
Flurry spun right and the five fighters adjusted. She leaned her head to the side and shuffled the flight cap back to her ear. The alicorn took a deep breath. “This is Demon-One. I’m swarmed.”
“Anyone got eyes on Demon-One?” Gilda asked. “Help her out.”
Flurry noticed a gray fighter scream past her formation, chasing another black plane. They got the kill and ascended, looking for another target. Below her, another set of pilots engaged in a vicious dogfight. The guns barked in short, controlled bursts.
Flurry maintained a steady heading, somehow alone in the middle of a battle. The three fighters from Las Pegasus on her tail were thinner and sleeker than the heavy fighters boxing her front and bottom. The alicorn glanced back at them, but it was too dark to make out their expressions. Her horn hummed from the constant effort in keeping the shield up.
“I’m on Gilda’s six,” Rainbow barked in Equestrian. “Gimme a sec.”
“Spectrum-Seven, stay with Eagle-One,” Flurry countered. Another burst hit the front of her shield. Flurry glanced upwards at a gray fighter spinning after a retreating Hegemony fighter trailing black smoke.
The alicorn openly sighed into a radio. “Look, if you’re hoping they’re going to kill me, they aren’t. I’m going to sit under this bubble with a hoof up my ass for the rest of the fight.”
There was no response.
Flurry forced her voice to sound even higher-pitched and sweeter. “Could a big, strong griffon please help the little alicorn?”
The radio crackled.
A gray fighter sliced through the clouds behind the three on her tail and fired a long burst. A few bullets pinged off the back of Flurry’s bubble shield, but the Changelings took the brunt of the fire. All three planes broke off, beginning death spirals towards the ocean below.
Free from them, Flurry slammed her shield downwards on the distracted heavy fighter below. She clipped through the tail and sheared the tail gunner’s cockpit off the plane. It broke apart as it fell. The heavy fighter above broke off, tail gunner attempting to line up the new griffon.
Flurry dropped her shield, nosed up, and put a burst through the fuel line underneath the chassis. The cockpit burst into flames and the fighter corkscrewed out of control. She summoned the bubble shield afterwards and looked for the gray plane, but it was already spinning off to find new targets.
“Thank you,” she said as sincerely as she could.
No one responded.
The Changelings attempted to box Flurry in several more times and prevent her from teleporting around, but quickly realized they made themselves easy targets for the other fighters. The golden bubble shield was the one consistent light in a dark sky. Whatever advantage the dark paintjobs gained them was lost when flying too close.
Flurry nearly shot several griffons on reflex after spotting their silhouettes in the clouds, and a few were too liberal in their peppering of her bubble shield to down the swarming fighters. The Hegemony’s numerical advantage thinned. The alicorn brought her fighter back down to Gilda after half an hour.
She tapped her fuel gauge and ammunition on reflex, raising a brow at their amounts. Not used to actually having bullets.
“Cubs,” Gilda squawked. “We’re descending. Bombing runs are moving in.”
The fighters dove down through the cloud cover.
The ocean was on fire. Tracers and flak thundered above the escorting destroyers, and dozens of long freighters trailed through the waves. They were glorified steamers, repurposed for troop transport to make it across the bay to Olenia. A few were painted with dazzle camouflage, but most were left with the original colors.
Flurry could pick out which belonged to Equestria and which were Changeling by the gradient. Equestrians loved bright colors. A few were larger than the destroyers trying to escort them back to safety.
Flowers of fire blossomed on the decks as the dive bombers did their work. The engines screamed high and loud, sounding like the keening war shrieks of the Griffonian knights as the planes dove. Flurry spun down with Gilda. The destroyers were bracketing the freighters, but without air superiority they were too open.
Flurry Heart slid the canopy back again, shouting into the flight cap. “I’m going in!” She let it hang by the strap and unbuckled herself. The alicorn leaned her horn out of the glass canopy, one hoof barely on the stick. A spark of fire trailed down the spirals of her horn.
The laser arced downwards, cutting straight through the conning tower and behind the smokestack of a destroyer. There was no immediate effect. The anti-air guns blasted flak upwards and forced the alicorn to spin away with a hasty bubble.
The destroyer rapidly began to sit lower in the water and slow. Flurry circled it and watched water lap into the hole from the bottom. She had blown straight through the deck and hull with a quick shot. They’re screens; their armor is awful.
Flurry twirled the fighter through the masts of another destroyer, letting the dual flak guns pound the bubble shield as they tried to track it. In the dark of the night, changelings leapt from the sinking destroyer and buzzed their wings across the waves to the other ships. A few were strafed by the dive bombers as they pulled up from dropping their payloads.
The alicorn pushed her flight cap back up; the wind nearly blew it down. “I’ll keep drawing fire!” She couldn’t hear a response, but dive bombers took the window of opportunity to land hits on the destroyer she was circling. Once it began to list portside, she jerked the stick to the side and flew at an angle along the line. She glanced to her right.
Colorful dots stood on the decks of the freighters.
After a moment of recognition, Flurry bared her teeth. I’m not that fucking stupid. She turned away from the stricken destroyers and their two turrets. A few of the freighters had been hit; smoke poured off the decks with growing fires, but most of the bombers were sinking the escorts first.
The fighter buzzed the top of a repurposed freighter. Flurry barely cleared the smokestack before circling around. It was a wooden deck speckled with ponies among a sea of black chitin. Small arms fire sprayed into the sky. Flurry dove almost to the whitecaps and broke line of sight. The bottom of her bubble shield skipped across the waves.
The alicorn dropped the shield and charged her horn before yanking the stick back up and to the side. As she spun across the top of the deck, Flurry unleashed the spell point blank. One lucky bullet pinged off her left wing.
Flurry reformed the bubble shield as she completed the spin, leveling off just above the waves. The fighter twisted to circle the freighter. She leaned to the side, dangling in the loose straps to see over the pulled-back canopy.
There was not a single colorful dot on the deck. The detection spell had washed over the entire ship. Flurry took a deep breath and tugged her flight cap up. “This is Demon-One. Changelings are disguising as ponies atop the decks to throw off bombers. How copy?”
There was a burst of static. “Hang on,” Gilda said with uncharacteristic sullenness. “Patching.” Another burst of static followed.
Flurry weaved between the line of convoys. Most of them had far too many ‘ponies’ on board. Thorax said they did that during the war. She closed her eyes.
Some of them were ponies. She knew in her heart some were, somewhere, either collaborators still worth something or servants just being dragged along. But unless she cast that spell all night through the entire line there was no way to check. Flurry checked her fuel, then looked across the open ocean.
She was flying west; she couldn’t see the Olenian coastline, but it was there ahead of her. She banked the fighter around the bow of one freighter, aligning the fighter back east. Las Pegasus’ lights were in the horizon. They barely made it out of port.
“Demon-One?” a griffon asked. “This is Peregrine-Five. You’re soaking their attention. We’ve almost taken care of the escort.”
“You are unusually polite tonight, Peregrine-Five,” Flurry sighed.
There was no response for a heartbeat. “We’re moving to the troop transports. How copy?”
“Copy,” Flurry agreed neutrally.
The alicorn sliced one more destroyer in half before the bombs began dropping on the transports. The crews of the armed ships fled if they could get out in time, wings buzzing to the remaining freighters and crowding the decks. The ocean glowed with oil fires.
Changelings with oil-caked wings tried to swim free in the waves, but the water was rough. As the first ‘troop transports’ began to list and sink, more changelings leapt to the next ship in the line. Some started to list dangerously just from the extra weight.
Flurry Heart watched in her golden bubble. She stayed with the ships as they turned off their spotlights to try and make themselves harder to spot, but that was useless with a bright magic shield circling them like a beacon. Dive bombers screamed down and dropped their remaining payloads under scattered small arms fire while the fighters dealt with any intercepting planes.
One of the last destroyers sank stern first. Flurry watched the bow go under. The ships weren’t like the Griffonian Reich’s. They had darker blacks with navy accents around the turrets. As far as Flurry knew, the Equestrian navy was able to harass the Changeling surface fleet enough that it wasn’t an issue during the war. The submarines were the real threat.
One of the freighters exploded like a firework. There was a burst of squawking on the radio. Flurry had left it hanging next to her neck, but assumed it was celebrating hitting the munitions in the lower decks. Wind whistled across the cockpit. One of her lasers had accidentally brushed the glass and melted the metal frame. She couldn’t slide the canopy forward again. It was hard to tell in the dark from just her bubble shield, but she was also pretty sure the paint was scorched along her right wing.
That poor griffoness isn’t going to appreciate that. Or maybe she’ll be grateful for the downtime and repairs. She doesn’t want to be here, after all.
Flurry kept circling a shrinking number of ships. She thought she saw one dark purple body floating in the water, but it could’ve been black and discolored from the oil fires. Another convoy went up in a fireball as a bomb found an ammunition stockpile. Flurry only saw a few figures leap from the stern before the ship rolled.
“I think they’re surrendering,” a voice broke through the static. Flurry blinked heavily and turned to regard the final ship. It was a single smokestack cruiser, and the alicorn huffed a laugh at the bright colors.
It was a luxury liner. Only a small one, probably based out of Las Pegasus pre-war. It sat low in the waves and the decks were cluttered with a mass of black shapes. Flurry didn’t see any colors in the herd of black chitin. Spotlights on the deck switched on.
The fighter nosed closer, flying parallel to the ship west to east, then circling the stern and repeating east to west. On the first pass, Flurry noticed a frantic changeling hacking at the Hegemony flagpole above a painted-over name. By her second pass of the stern, the flag was gone and sinking in the oil-slicked water.
Flurry had to adjust her heading. The ship was trying to turn around. The spotlight at the front flashed several times. Her muzzle quirked. Code. “Don’t Shoot.”
“This is Peregrine-Five.” Flurry brought her flight cap back up and clipped it to her head. She worked the pedals listlessly, wiggling the wings as she flew around the last ship. The spotlight continued to flash.
“We’re, uh, out of bombs up here,” the griffon continued. “Good hunting tonight. Thank you, Demon-One.”
Flurry inhaled. “What do you want to do?”
There was a moment of silence.
“I suppose that’s up to you, Demon-One,” the griffon answered. “Looks like they’re turning around to Las Pegasus. Just going to reinforce the garrison there.”
We need the airfields and port intact anyway. Flurry sniffed. “Maybe we could guide them to Stableside?”
“Do you have fuel for that?” Peregrine-Five asked.
Flurry checked the gauge and didn’t respond. The spotlight continued to flash. “Please don’t shoot.” How polite. She stared back at Las Pegasus. Night made it hard to see the smoke clouds, but the eastern horizon was better lit than it should be for nearly midnight, even with all the spotlights and clouds.
Flurry turned her plane to the side and looked across the burning ocean. With the ship turning around, it was sailing through the wreckage of the attempted evacuation. She angled the plane back so it flew parallel to the ship. Her fighter was faster and she kept circling. No one had fired at her shield for some time, and the spotlight continued to flash desperately.
With all the lights on, Flurry could see wet, miserable changelings on the deck watching the Alicorn of Death circle their ship like a shark. She did not see a single pony. I don’t know what it says about me that I’m less inclined to sink them for not trying to shove that in my muzzle.
Her crown rattled against the bottom of the stick. Flurry tapped it back into place with a hoof, then leaned her head to the side to pinch the radio. “This is Demon-One. Let’s just-”
The ship abruptly turned starboard and blared its horn. Flurry had to pull away with a nicker, straining her engine with a whine. The spotlight continued to flash. She spun her plane to the side and glared along the deck.
Flurry had enough time to see the twin trails in the water before the middle of the ship buckled. The blast rocked her bubble shield; the sheer concussive pressure forced her plane upwards and away from the deck. Flurry blinked stars from her eyes, spinning the fighter away on instinct.
By the time she looked back down, she was looking at the bow and the stern in two separate pieces. The stern sank first, capsizing to the side and leaving an oil slick. The bow and spotlight followed a few seconds later. Flurry did not see any figures swimming in the water or trying to fly away.
“Blessed Boreas, Demon-One!” Peregrine-Five shouted. “Give a griff a warning!”
That wasn’t me. The alicorn worked her lips. “That…that wasn’t me. Who fired?”
The radio crackled. “We’re out, Demon-One,” the pilot answered with clear confusion.
Flurry stared out over the open water. Trails…torpedos…
“Please don’t shoot.”
It wasn’t to me.
Flurry dropped her shield and reached out. She brought the plane low over the water, following the wisps of magic glowing across the burning waves. Her horn glowed brighter.
“Demon-One?” Gilda asked.
Flurry pushed past the feeling of the plane, reaching down into the ocean. She rammed her way past sinking rifles and pistols, and the bodies they were still attached to. The stick grinded as it bent in her grip.
“Princess?” Rainbow’s voice crackled.
She ignored all the planes spinning above her and traced the trail to one thing alive in the water, swimming deeper. The alicorn growled and her horn glowed brighter. Her flight cap began to smoke.
Found you.
She grabbed it, and her magic slipped across it like a fish. It was too far away and too deep, so she snarled and tightened her grip. Something hot and sticky gushed from her nostril and trailed down her lips to her neck. The plane bent to the side as she circled a patch of water. Debris floated, including a flag with Chrysalis' trident crown.
Another fighter lowered to just above her, matching the circle. Flurry ignored it. She yanked her horn back like a fishing rod, willing her telekinesis to pull it up. It was heavy, and too far away, but she refused to let it go. Flashes echoed across her vision.
Destroyer off of Olenia.
Cruiser out of Maredia.
Overloaded freighter in Manehattan.
Another, closer to New Mareland.
Another. Pride.
Another. Good hunting.
The submarine’s spinning propeller emerged first, wrapped in a golden aura. It was jet black and dripped with seawater. The long metal tube glowed gold underneath the waves. Flurry felt something pop in her other nostril and another trail of warmth trailed down her muzzle. She jerked her head back again.
The submarine’s tower left the water at a sixty degree angle, then the torpedo tubes at the front. The entire steel tube glowed gold, hanging forty hooves above the ocean water and surrounded by a circling fighter. The magic around it vibrated and crackled across the hull. Blue streaks of electricity writhed across the trident crown stamped near the torpedo tubes.
Flurry’s flight cap ignited from the intensity of her horn. The instrument panels flickered and the compass atop began to spin wildly. She was not aware of any of it.
Her magic slipped down the torpedo tubes and through the hull, down the periscope and through the crystals and electronics. She felt a changeling pinned by a loose torpedo screaming in pain. Another clung to his bunk. One mare had grabbed a hatch to steady herself. Changelings were scattered all through the length. They didn’t know what was happening to their weapon.
She felt her magic race across the consoles and sonar and logs, creeping across rivets and bolts and valves until she felt the hooves of an aged changeling clinging to a chair just next to the periscope. It was his boat and his weapon and he had captained it for years.
The earpiece screeched with feedback, but Flurry did not hear it. The leather smoldered. Her horn burned brighter, and she felt the holed hooves on the console tense as the old captain suddenly realized she was there with him.
The fighter’s engine sputtered and stalled. The plane glided. Flurry did not open her mouth; her jaw was locked into a grimace. Her question flowed from her horn and through her magic into the weapon and its owner.
WHY
The captain did not answer her with his mouth, but she felt his first thought.
We had orders-
In the time it took to blink, the submarine crumpled into a ball the size of a tin can.
Flurry dropped it into the ocean.
The radio sparked next to her ear. The alicorn tugged the cap off and flicked the switch for the engine several times with a numb hoof. It restarted with a whine. Rainbow motioned to her own headset, but Flurry shook her head and mutely followed the pegasus back into formation. The compass stopped spinning once her horn snuffed out.
Flurry did not try to use magic for the journey back. The base of her horn throbbed. The other Reichsarmee fighters gave her space, and no one tried to shoot at the wobbling plane. The alicorn bent the stick back into position, but the ailerons weren’t responsive. A few of the gauges were melted into position, including the ammunition counter.
The engine failed after Flurry landed back at the airbase and taxied it into position. She sat in the cockpit for awhile until Rainbow came over with some towels and a canteen. Flurry scrubbed her muzzle, then placed the jeweled band back atop her mane.
Gilda had followed Rainbow, but kept her distance. When Flurry looked over at her, she flinched. “Uh, nice flying. Princess.”
“Do you mind telling that Vedinan griffoness I’m sorry for bleeding in her plane?” Flurry rasped. She coughed into a hoof and drank from the canteen.
“Of course, Princess. I’m sure she won’t mind.”
“Hey,” Rainbow said softly. She leaned in, standing atop the scorch mark on the right wing. “The bugs are assholes. You tried. More than they did for us.”
Flurry poured the canteen on her muzzle and washed away the blood. She looked east to the fading smoke clouds. “Would’ve been nice to do one good thing today.”
“No losses,” Rainbow shrugged her one wing. “Everyone came back alive. They might not be grateful for it, but they lived.”
The alicorn stared over Rainbow’s wing with dull, icy eyes. Gilda had backed away, and the other flight crews had practically abandoned the nearby planes. Rainbow was the only one within spitting distance of the alicorn.
Flurry gave a long, slow blink and saw the wisps of magic brushing off the cockpits and blowing in the wind. She blinked again and they vanished in the lights of the airfield. “I should go talk to Ember.”
Rainbow nodded.
“Go back to Canterlot, Air Marshal.”
The pegasus looked away. “I’d like to-”
“That’s an order,” Flurry interrupted.
“Promise me you’ll be alright down here?” she asked in return.
“I promise,” Flurry lied.
Rainbow accepted it anyway.
Stats
Page generated in 0.027 seconds
Total duration
610 users online
939,615 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Ace Combat the Chapter
Warcrimes are also part of Ace Combat. 10/10.
Eh, this world is pretty much too broken to fix. I'll isekai in Davros! I'm sure a brilliant scientific mind such as his will find a rational solution!
Trust the science, bigots!
I was gonna make a mean comment about Flurry but I don't think it would be wise.
Is the hegemony just prideful dumbasses? I don't understand what they get from killing deserters by sinking the ship? The only thing I can think off is of there were VIPs inside the ship that were better dead then captured due to Intel or something else.
11717282
I think a large part of the controversy of the Highway of death was the sheer scale of it.
There's countless other similar military engagements that one can point too where you have a mix of legitimate targets and civilians mixed together. The Russian attack on ISIS fuel convey comes to mind, that was also in Iraq just a couple decades later. That produced hundreds of fatalities. Since the trucks were also being driven by civilian 3rd party contractors essentially everyone killed in that attack was a civilian.
But it just doesn't feel the same on an emotional level. A few hundred dying just doesn't hit you like seeing 10K people die in a single slaughter.
11717654
For me it's because it's hard to determine scale in this story, entire cities and villages feel completely empty (eg. Stalliongrad, Rock farms, Crystal empire, Polar bears and penguins). For all I could know there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians running to Las Pegasus. What is the ratio of civilians to soldiers needed for it to be a war crime?
So I came to the conclusion that the hegemony is moving the entire population to their home territory (which when said out loud, sounds completely ridiculous), unless of course the hegemony is even more comically evil and murdered 100s of millions in the 20 years they have ruled. Which sounds unsustainable considering that their diet needs those creatures alive.
So finally, I believe that the author needs to make a entire chapter of Spike learning the magic of census gathering (This is a joke).
Well, that's a fascinating and terrifying facet of Flurry's talent we haven't seen before.
And she's once again well on her way to making friends with the griffon soldiery like she did with the tankers, Flurry-style.
Fear is better than hate, right?
Especially when mitigated with respect.
Her patience and willingness to accept a great deal of social flak (and literal flak, in cases like this chapter) certainly helps.
11717618
To instill fear about the consequences of desertion. And it's saying "You will die if you run, so your best chance is to keep fighting."
11717673
The mod has population numbers, all of Equestria is around 50 million and Changeling Lands are around 37 million. Dunno the scale of that particular highway but I would imagine casualties, civilain and millitary, would be in the thousands.
Once again another great chapter
11717711
Yep I admit the mistake, but I still think the approximate death toll of the occupation is on the 10s of millions. Considering the Yaks, Crystal Empire and Stalliongrad seems to be had their civilian population halved (at best).
11717697
Since Flurry ended the conversation rather quickly with the captain, there's two options:
1. They have general orders not to retreat or surrender. (The Reichsarmee has similar orders, but to be fair they're fighting shapeshifters that will shove them in cocoons and suck their souls out. You really don't want to be captured by them.) Grover mentioned prisoner exchanges were always a trap in the early days. The Changeling Hegemony is not supposed to surrender to inferior prey species. Cutting down the flag and trying to turn back is a sign of weakness that cannot be allowed. Pagala and Trimmel considered it a death sentence if they lost control of their cities, and any changeling that defects to Thorax risks their entire family via reprisals from VOPS if it's discovered.
2. Chrysalis ordered it herself. Purely to spite Flurry. The Alicorn of Death does not show mercy or leave survivors. She's ignored Flurry on the radio and let her propaganda mill work, but some of the Hegemony's decisions have been purely targeted at making her miserable. Chrysalis' radio address with fake Twilight and the Queen's Guard showing up to taunt Flurry (on her birthday) before the Battle of Canterlot came directly from the Queen. It's not exactly a leap to have the Queen be "watching" the battles Flurry's in and making snap decisions to spite Cadance's daughter. (The griffons immediately thought Flurry blew up the ship, and if she hadn't grabbed the submarine there's some ambiguity about whether they would have truly believed she didn't do it.)
Either way: Next chapter will discuss it, but Chrysalis wants the war to be like this.
Now this sounds vaguely similar to a certain other EaW story I've been reading...
The fact that Flurry managed to make a stress ball out of a submarine really shows how much power she got under the hood.
Especially considering how a submarine is specifically designed to withstand outside pressure.
And then just think of all the rumors and reports that the griffons are going to make about this.
I don't think the flying submarine glowing with golden magic was very missable, but considering it was crumpled "In the time it took to blink" a lot of griffons probably missed what exactly happened to it. The ones who were there to see it were looking out of moving airplanes after all. So there are probably going to be some wild theories flying around about how that sub disappeared.
My favorite (self-made) ones so far include:
Vaporized it.
Transformed it into a sandwich and ate it.
Teleported it into the sky somewhere so it could enjoy a nice fall.
Shrunk it to keep it as a trophy.
Kickstarting the changeling space program by sending it to the moon.
Teleporting it directly to Maar as a Father's Day gift.
Hid it away somewhere to one day teleport it in and see how dominant Chrysalis is with a sub up her ass.
I made an account on this website just for this, I only recently started playing Equestria at war and have had no prior interest in the MLP universe. I came here purely out of mild interest after playing the Griffon Reich and Changeling lands just to see if there was anything written about it (I was looking for stuff about Jachs). I have to say that this story is absolutely brilliant and is making me seriously consider learning more about the MLP universe, its honestly one of the best pieces of ff I've ever had the pleasure to read.
Looks like Flurry has one hell of a sore spot when it comes to enemies executing their own that have already surrendered. I wonder if Chrysalis has issued her own equivalent of Order 227.
11717815
I thought the same thing, at least these two are on the same continent.
This story/flurry needs an epic theme to go along some of these moments.
One of the reasons the Navy had increasing success against submarines as WW2 went on is that the Germans tried to avoid the escorts to attack the cargo ships. This meant the escorts gained experience & improved
Of course, the merchant marines had the 2nd highest casualty rate in the war (behind the USMC) & escort duty was about the safest frontline duty in the war.
11717901
If you're at all interested in the Honorverse (Weber) try "Ms Midshipmare Dash". You don't need much familiarity to enjoy the story.
11718069
I'll give it a look, cheers mate.
11718042
This entire fic goes great with background music, or music in general when reading it. (At least it does for me) I listened to the Midway soundtrack while reading this chapter and it went along SO well with the themes. (Usually)
I'd like to do some quick maths to remind us all of something.
The Ohio class submarine commissioned in 1981 (which for this purpose I am assuming has a rough relevant shape and maximum depth to the changeling submarine) has an upwards facing surface area of about ~~4393.566m^2, and cruises at a depth during combat of at maximum roughly 100m. Along with their weight displacement of (rounding up) 19k tonnes means that Flurry cast a telekenisis spell capable of (at a maximum load to be generous) lift 460 Thousand Tonnes. For comparison, The Troll A, an offshore natural gas mining facility weighs 1.2 million tonnes.
And that's the weak feat.
In order to crush an object like that, that quickly, well...
seeing that she made an object that took up roughly 16 thousand cubic meters into .4 cubic meters in less time than it takes to blink. A quick velocity calculation puts some of those particles reaching 20m/s, keep in mind that's individual particles in a solid object. Those clumps have molecules clocking in at almost 1.012*10^-19 Joules, which, per gram of material, coincides to roughly 1.3 million Joules per gram, and that's not even taking into account the denser metal likely present in a submarine.
That's a 1 to 1 energy range of 330 grams of TNT per gram of material. Of which there is much.
Assuming her magic is capable of instantly canceling out the roughly 77% of the yield of the first atomic weapon, as well as near instantly producing it using telekenisis means that her magic is capable of theoretically anything.
I would not at all be surprised if this turns into a Sci-fi story after Flurry get's tired of this shit, blows up the sun, and leaves.
But yeah, I'd just like to remind everyone that Flurry is a genuine deity.
11718177
OH NO MATHS
Those numbers should be halved at the very least. (Ohio Class is definitely too big for a patrol submarine, especially a Changeling submarine. They're U-Boats. We're not Cold War era here; technology remains vaguely 1940's.) As for everything else, Flurry Heart is frighteningly powerful normally and it's amplified when she's pissed. She did push herself into immediate rampant nosebleed. There was a long windup to her "crushing her grip" where her magic wound through the submarine and permeated everything. In Part 23, Flurry crunched a destroyed apartment building down over several minutes with a similar strategy. The heat from her horn set her mane on fire, but no headache or nosebleed.
The "NovaNuke" shield spell (she has never named it) is described as fairly instantaneous when it goes off and basically deleting everything in a varied radius with a shockwave following. I'm not really the Math Guy on how much kilojoules of energy she's flexing beyond "yes" and "a lot" so it's interesting to see numbers. Celestia slings the sun around. I don't know if the sun works the same way as it does over here, and I don't think about it, but that feels like a big flex.
The big takeaway was that she "took over" the submarine and connected to the still-living captain through it. She told Grover that she never tried anything bigger than a plane or tank because it was too complex with too many moving parts. She's never really prodded that deep beyond the Crystal Heart and that was unintentional. Her attempt to do so on purpose had some eldritch horror shenanigans where her fighter went haywire like a living EMP. I have no idea how it looked on the captain's end to feel her presence in the boat through the fucking machinery. Probably the equivalent of realizing there's a very angry demonic ghost in the room.
11718317
Flurry is actually just an eldritch horror choosing to take a normal looking form. Literally Maar's daughter.
11718042
I found Old Soviet songs and Stalker/Metro campfire music fitted the theme of the earlier chapters, before she retook the Empire. The feeling of total despair and hopelessness, the immense suffering and the inability to do anything about it. Especially a song called 'Журавли'. It's about a mother who all 7 of her sons have died fighting in the war.
Whenever one of these flight chapters come up I always think of ace combat music that would fit for them. For part 39 it was "liberation of Gracemeria" and for part 19 I had "charge assault" from ace combat 7 in my head.
Chrysalis punishes her troops for retreating or attempting to surrender. And the sheer number of troops lost is staggering. The forces she still have will learn of the losses and sunken fleet of ships and will know surrender may not be a option anymore.
11718317
E
Flurry is terrifying 👍
I also wanted to factor into my Thaumatic math based off of her special talent, (which I love btw), and it made me realize just how exactly she was able to potentially reverse impact a compression explosion, I figured it was just a quirk of her magic since one could argue that an explosion is a weapon... and then realized even more how scary she is.
I am wondering if we're going to get Flurry Heart harnessing an atomic bomb at some point mid explosion.
11718803
In an alternate universe, a rendition of nerd bird and Maar's daughter stopping a nuke.
Uuummmm , I have something in mind for awhile now,do griffons sensitive to catnip?
if I was a changeling I would disguise My self into enemy line and drop a cyanide in their water supply.EZ, I wonder if they actually use tactics.
11718317
In my head I just assume the sun around Equus is an artificial construct.
Could be magic based, or fusion based built by some ancient space faring race etc.
Otherwise one does need a lot of mental gymnastics to explain how a star that masses many times more then a planet is orbiting a planet. Can't remember the name of the story sadly, but there is a good story that does explain it using questionable quantum mechanics, and using the teleportation glitch.
11721282
Well my take on how alicorns can move celestial bodies is that rather then moving them they instead guide them. More teling them where to go then moving them themselfs. At least that's my theory.
11722825
Well, ain't you quick with the fix.
Well, after reading this story nonstop for the last week and a half, I've finally caught up. Where do I even begin?
Your ability to seamlessly weave together a story of such scale, involving so many characters, has to be commended. It would be so easy to slim the story down to involving only a few characters, but you've decided to assemble a cast of characters familiar and new who are all unique in their personalities. You're also not afraid to remove characters as well, often violently, and that helps keep the tension high.
Equal parts coming-of-age, political thriller, and war story, my personal favorite moments have to be the quiet ones where everything pauses and you let the characters talk. It sets up the next big sequence of events and also serves to remind us of just how vulnerable these characters are.
Which brings me to Flurry. You've created this incredibly complex character that I am utterly fascinated by. Everything she does is informed by something that came before, and you understand why she does what she does. She's a poor girl thrust into the role of leading an entire army and country because no-one else can do it. She's the only one. And you can really see how it weighs on her. This ruthless, selfless, uncompromising individual who is damaged almost beyond repair. There will never be a full sense of peace in her life, and she's accepted that. Already you can sense that, even when Chrysalis is defeated, that will only be the first of many more problems. Same with Grover. They're two sides of the same coin.
This chapter alone really establishes that dichotomy you've created with Flurry. Any other story would have the act of Flurry Heart compressing a U-boat into a tin can be this amazing spectacle. But when I read that, all I could think about was how utterly tragic this all is at its core.
This is what these two should be doing right now. Learning how to dance, joking and casually talking with one another, not leading armies to save an entire continent. And you do a fantastic job of showcasing that, at their hearts, they're still two young adults who have had their formative years stolen away.
This comment is all over the place, and it's because I'm trying so desperately to express what a genuine masterclass of characterization, symbolism, and storytelling this is. It's so, so, so good.
Here I am, up at seven in the morning without a wink of sleep, groggily wondering where the "next chapter" button is.
Oh. I'm caught up. That's what that feeling is. Imma go bed now.
Holy shit, that was amazing, I'm sure that griffs will be even more terrified of her, and now she can read minds too, Flurry really shows what alicorns should be like in any story, I love it!
Question, at the end when wisps of magic drifted away, were they coming from Flurry's cockpit or all of the griffs' cockpits?
Shouldn't they go west not east?