The Princess and the Kaiser

by UnknownError

Part Thirty-Nine

The storm wall around the Crystal City seemed to nearly reach the stars. A massive wall of rolling clouds, winds, and ice filled Flurry Heart’s view, and the howling winds could be heard over the roar of nearly three hundred planes. The storm was never this big, she thought with a grimace. Her forehooves curled around the stick on reflex, and her fighter’s wings jittered.

“Stay in formation,” Rainbow’s scratchy voice crackled through her headset. “Transports, group in. Drop Teams ready-up.”

Flurry licked her lips. The air wing edged together, flying in a dangerously tight formation.

“You’re up, Princess,” Rainbow addressed her directly. Flurry spotted the rainbow-winged fighter at the head of the flock waggle its wings.

“Acknowledged,” Flurry rasped, then unclipped her flight cap and disengaged the canopy. The wind howled around the cockpit of the plane. The alicorn sat up and primed her spell, scanning the sky with her icy blue eyes. She was in the middle of the formation, flanked by several fighters. The transport planes flew behind her, and the more heavily armed fighters flew in front. She needed to be in the middle for the shield to work properly. She looked forward, staring ahead above the spinning propeller.

The storm wall loomed over the Empire. A belt of wind extended from the circular, rotating wall, flinging bits of ice towards the ground. They impacted with a puff of snow. She looked down over her wing and only saw rolling hills of white. This close to the Crystal City, the snows buried the roads and tracks year-round. The Changelings would send teams of ponies to clear the tracks to keep supplies moving.

It wasn’t always like this. The wind and snow were always a threat in the Crystal Empire, but it was manageable during her parent’s reign. The Crystal Heart protected the city from the snow, and the joy of the crystal ponies seemed to help calm the perpetual weather. Weather teams of pegasi kept the snow at bay well enough for her parents to begin reclaiming the Frozen North.

All of that was gone now.

Her horn burned brighter, and a slow, warbling, translucent blue field glittered above the highest fighters. Flurry licked her chapped lips and concentrated, devoting her entire focus on stretching and molding her magic into a bowl around the top of the air wing. The winds from the approaching storm buffeted the planes, but the pilots compensated with the softest possible adjustments.

The shield edged downwards, going from an upside-down bowl to a bubble. As it passed over the front of the air wing, the wind ceased and the planes wobbled in suddenly clear sky. Flurry heard her discarded headset squawk a reminder as the pilots adjusted. One transport scraped a wingtip against her shield. The metal squealed and the shield pulsed around the impact for a heartbeat before the pilot moved away.

The planes were flying wingtip to wingtip now. Flurry couldn’t see the entire shield from her cockpit. She relied on her magic to know when the shield was entirely complete. She reached out with her senses, pushing through the imprints of hundreds of planes and their pilots. Flurry distantly felt guns clutched by the soldiers preparing to drop, feeling their nervousness, fear, and resolve.

The alicorn grit her teeth and swept all of it aside. She visualized the completed bubble and flared out her horn, anchoring the shield to her plane in the center. The brown paint on the Nova Griffonian fighter glowed with a faint blue light.

Flurry shook her head and slumped into the cockpit. Rather than use her magic, she fumbled with a hoof and slapped her flight cap back on awkwardly. Her little golden crown jiggled around the base of the stick. “This is Princess,” Flurry said in a clipped tone. “Shield anchored. Stay in formation. Break on my word.” She slid the canopy closed.

“Acknowledged.”

“On your command.”

“Received.”

The engine sputtered as Flurry’s giant blue bubble approached the storm wall. They flew low, attempting to get below radar range, but the planes would have been picked up crossing over the Crystal Mountains from Evergreen. The fighters were already critically low on fuel. As they closed in, the size of the storm became truly apparent. Flurry’s shield appeared to be a marble next to a bowling ball. The winds threw shards of ice and snow against her shield. A huge chunk shattered into a spray of ice right in front of Rainbow's plane.

“Ancestors preserve us,” a griffon radioed.

“Preserve comms,” Rainbow barked.

The army is days behind. We’re relying on the word of one changeling who knew he was dead. This is a trap. Her thoughts spiraled. I’m leading them to their deaths. The crown jittered against her hooves, and her mouth pressed into a thin line. It was a straight shot through the storm to the Crystal City. The Crystal Heart still shielded it.

Now matter what the Changelings have done, it won’t keep me out. Flurry did not remember destroying it as a foal, but she remembered the painting somepony made after the event. Her cries shattered the fragile crystal, accomplishing by accident what Sombra could never achieve. She lent her own magic to its restoration, and Sunburst had always reminded her of that when she felt guilty. You know me.

The shield impacted the outer edge of the storm. “Keep formation!” Rainbow shouted.

Flurry Heart felt the screaming wind attempt to push the shield bubble down, but lit her horn and held her plane in place. She poured more magic into the spell to keep the shield rigid; it wanted to stretch and warp with the air currents. Flurry imagined the pilots near the edges watching the shards of ice and compacted snow crash against the shield, sending ripples through the magic. A bolt of lightning struck the shield; the electricity arced around the front of the bubble. Another bolt struck the side, and the alicorn’s horn vibrated. She ripped her flight cap off in case the heat from her horn became too intense. More lightning bolts slashed against the bubble and arced along it like a spiderweb.

Flurry held her breath and gripped the stick with stiff forelegs. A faint pink shimmer flickered through the icy winds. Her radio said something, but Flurry didn’t hear it. Please. The pink became clearer as the planes approached. Don’t bounce off. If it bounced off, all the planes wouldn’t be able to adjust. You know me.

The Crystal Heart still shielded the city. Flurry didn’t see the front of the bubble touch the shield, but she felt it in her horn.

Weak. The Heart was weak; the resistance against her spell felt like a feather bouncing off her forehead. Rainbow’s fighter at the head of the pack entered first, and Flurry grabbed her flight cap again and pressed the headset to a folded ear with her shoulder.

Flurry’s blue bubble and the planes inside it passed though the shield, and Flurry saw her home for the first time in over seven years.

The Crystal City looked the same in her hazy memories; a circular ocean of tightly-packed crystal buildings around the spire of the Crystal Palace. The palace was more of a tower than a castle. The open area below the legs was heavily fortified with sandbags and rough-looking crystal structures. Flurry recognized the few open spaces: the Market Square, the Crystal Plaza, and Snowberry Park, all around the palace. The balconies around the central spire were draped with black flags depicting Chrysalis’ pronged crown.

The anti-air guns installed by her father and his army surrounded the palace, bolted onto flat crystal rooftops. The guns were unattended; Flurry noted one was covered with a tarp. The alicorn heard her heartbeat in her ears as the sputtering engines faded away. The Crystal Heart muted the sound of the raging storm outside, and the Crystal City seemed cast in shadow from the perpetual winds and clouds.

The city was quiet. “Are we through?” Rainbow’s voice broke in.

Air raid sirens erupted from the Crystal Palace and echoed through the bubble; small black figures leapt from the balconies to buzz towards the anti-air guns. Flurry Heart sensed the back of her shield lose contact with the winds, and released the spell. Her plane ceased glowing blue as the anchor dissipated, and the shield shattered into harmless sparks.

“Break!” Flurry didn’t mean to use the Royal Voice, and her headset crackled with a burst of static. “Break now!” She slid the canopy open, pulling on the lever so hard it tore from the metal.

“Go!” Rainbow whinnied over the headset, and the fighters spun out into groups. Flurry rammed the stick down and followed. The transport planes climbed higher and began to fly clockwise around the shield.

“Prepare to drop!”

Flurry adjusted her headset with a burst of magic, switching over channels. The balconies of the Crystal Place erupted with tracer fire that spiraled into the sky. Heavy machineguns. The angles were too shallow; the guns were aimed towards the streets below, not the sky.

“Falcon, west side! Take out the AA!”

Flurry banked right and rolled her plane through the scattered gunfire. A bullet pinged off the tail. She spotted the battery with the tarp. Several Changelings were hauling the trap down while one spun the gun around. Flurry squeezed the machine guns and strafed the roof. The bullets kicked up shards of crystal and several changelings dove clear off the side of the roof. The long flak barrels collapsed back onto the roof; the gunner was clearly dead.

“Stay low, draw fire from the transports!” a voice squawked. The fighters circled the Crystal Palace, strafing the roads and rooftops with staccato machinegun bursts. One of the anti-air batteries was firing wildly into the sky.

“Crystal ponies all over the place! I don’t have a target!” Flurry tilted her plane and looked down. A blur of colors filled the streets; Crystal ponies of every size and color. Her horn flared and she cast the detection spell from above. She was moving too fast to see how many burst into green fire as they lost their illusions.

Flurry flew just above the rooftops and dodged a steeple, then fired into the side of a mechanized troop carrier rushing down a cobblestone street. It burst into flames. She cast the detection spell again, flying as low as she could to cover the most ground.

“I’m out of fuel, ditching!” a voice called out. A plane slammed into the side of the Crystal Palace near one of the balconies and a brown figure flared its wings and flapped towards the outskirts.

Flurry looked up. The Drop Groups were leaping from their transports, wings tucked in and diving towards the ground. The fighters were drawing the most attention from the garrison, but one transport’s engines were aflame. It flew low and a large group of creatures leapt from the tail with barely enough time to flap and slow their fall.

“My wing’s about shot off,” a pained voice squawked. “I can’t hold on. I see the panzers.” The transport dipped towards the Plaza and disappeared into a fireball.

Flurry continued circling and strafing any vehicles until the warning light for her fuel flicked on. She banked up and scanned the edges of the shield, only spotting a few circling transports. Half the fighters were already down. She licked her dry lips. “Transports, report.”

“Magic’s landed.”

“Laughter clear.”

“Generosity clear!”

“Honesty clear!”

“Kindness clear!”

“Loyalty’s getting chewed up!” a pegasus whinnied into the headset. “Bugs got some armored train!”

“On it,” Flurry answered at the same time as Rainbow. The alicorn spotted the rainbow-painted fighter streaking east around the central spire towards the edge of the shield. Flurry followed and primed her horn.

The east trainyard was smaller than the west, with several two-story crystal buildings and cranes for unloading cargo. Only one crane was still standing; the other two were smoking, mangled wrecks. Green smoke drifted above two of the buildings, and figures fired from the rooftops and windows into a field of train cars and containers.

The armored train fired shells back. Swiveling turrets had been mounted onto several cars, trying to fire towards the buildings. It was clear the train wasn’t meant for close-range combat, but steam poured from the engine, and black figures were using the armored plates as cover and firing towards the railyard.

Rainbow was in the lead; she strafed the top of the train and downed at least a dozen figures taking shelter along the cars. Flurry angled her fighter’s nose down and fired her laser over the propeller. The train’s engine exploded into shrapnel that took out the surrounding Changelings. She poured more magic into the laser and cut through the next several train cars, slicing through the armored plating like a knife though butter. Her plane continued to dive.

One of the cars exploded into a massive fireball right as Flurry’s spell hit it. Ammunition, Flurry blinked. Too close! She jerked the stick up and climbed above the fireball, dropping her spell. The explosion rocked her fighter and she heard metal screech behind her. The stick was suddenly loose. Flurry glanced over her shoulder; her tail was studded with shrapnel and the rudder was nearly gone.

“You good, Princess?”

“Yeah.” Flurry struggled with the stick and pulled the plane around for another pass. The engine sputtered again and the warning light flickered. “I’m almost out of fuel.” Rainbow strafed the trainyard again and Flurry copied her sluggishly with the last of her ammo. Her plane was rattling and it was a struggle to pull back up.

Flurry slowly banked back towards the inner city. The few fighters still up continued to dive-bomb the anti-air emplacements around the Crystal Palace. Tracer fire arced from the balconies towards the planes and streets; Flurry recognized the distinctive buzzing sounds of the heavy machine guns echo across the city. One of the balconies seemingly took a hit from a ditched fighter; the burning black flag of the Hegemony fluttered to the ground below a jagged hole in the crystal. Flurry summoned her small blue shield around her plane and flew towards the palace.

“This is Princess. I’m ditching. Will cast the spell as often as I can.” Flurry tossed the flight cap behind her. She unclipped her belts, zipped her brown flight suit up, and checked the revolver strapped under her right wing. Lastly, the alicorn pulled the crown off the stick and shoved it down under her curly mane.

The bottom of the Crystal Palace was heavily fortified with a wall of sandbags and machineguns. The open area just beyond it was going to be a killing field. Right now, the machineguns aimed up and Changelings poured small-arms fire into the sky.

Sombra banished this place rather than try to hold it.

Some changeling spotted the incoming plane, and a few bullets pinged off the front of her shield. Flurry pushed the failing engine to the limit as she just skimmed over the destroyed anti-air guns and rooftops. The plane struggled to pick up speed with the ruined rudder as she went into a clumsy dive towards the foundation. As she approached, she realized that the crystal walls around the sandbags were actually large shards from other destroyed buildings placed to limit access to the palace.

The Changelings did not retreat from their sandbag wall, and a heavy machine gun on the balcony above the sandbags sprayed her shield with ricocheting bullets. They fired up at the shield futilely, trying to break it before impact.

Flurry primed her horn. She waited until she could make out individual expressions of panic on the Changelings' fanged muzzles before she dropped the shield and teleported with a crack of magic. The teleportation spell scorched the cockpit and fried the instruments. The plane burst into blue fire just before impacting into the sandbags, exploding into shards of glowing metal and shrapnel peppered the surrounding Changelings. They shrieked and hissed in pain, trying to put out the magical blue flames.

They could not.

High above them, near the top of the spire, Flurry reappeared in a snap of blue magic. She flapped her wings and tugged on her singed brown flight suit with a hoof, then shook her head and felt the crown settle above her eyes. She glanced down, seeing the machineguns firing from the balconies and the damaged wall of sandbags below that. A few fighters still circled and picked targets, but most of the planes were now shards of metal and trails of smoke through the city.

For one long moment, she charged her horn to blast through the Crystal Palace. She could slice through the legs and topple the entire structure. She flapped her wings in a circle and spotted green smoke in every direction. The Drop Groups had landed and were fighting it out. The light around her horn died down. Not yet.

Flurry Heart summoned a shield around herself and flew towards the Crystal Plaza.

Comments

[PearlyDoesStuff]

The return of the Empress. Beat the bugs back!

[SirCarrot]

Boss fight time, or it would usually be I guess. Flurry prob just gonna incinerate the dude

[TasermonsPartner]

Very dramatic!

[Caladis]

I can hear the boss theme music.