Re:Harmony

by starcross7

82 - Crusaders

Chapter 82 - Crusaders

For a brief moment, Applejack considered accepting her plummet to her doom, especially after witnessing Twilight's disgusted reaction to another mare's kiss. The anger had subsided after a hundred feet or so. She closed her eyes hoping that she would not see her own ruinous impact. Then right after she broke through the cumulus layer, a rainbow-blur zoomed in and hoisted her back up. Of all the ponies or pegasii, she had to be the one to rescue her.

"Just let me fall," Applejack grumbled.

"Ah, that's not like you to give up," said Rainbow Dash, whom Applejack could feel her cocky grin beaming down upon her.

"What's the use? She doesn't like mares."

"She's doesn't like to be kissed by me. I can't believe she would be so grossed out about that, 'cause most mares I know would kill to get kissed by the Mistress of Awesome herself. I still think you have a chance, but only if you beat me in a race in Ghastly Gorge. Otherwise, I'm gonna tie her up and keep kissing her until she likes it."

"Don't you dare lay a hoof on her!"

"I knew it! You're in love with her!"

"I'm not! Well, not in that way."

"Denying it is only gonna make it harder on you. Maybe instead of tying her up, I should tell her how you really feel about her."

"No! Anything but that! I'll accept your stupid challenge if you just shut up about it! For the love of earth, please don't tell her!"

"Tell her what?" asked a third voice.

Applejack nearly jumped out of her skin, and she felt Rainbow Dash suppress her shriek when Pinkie Pie suddenly ascended past the cumulus layer. This shouldn't be possible. Three party balloons were tied around the trunk of her body, and yet here she was floating like a balloon herself.

"I saw you two jump out," said Pinkie Pie, "and then I thought, wow, you and Rainbow Dash were having so much fun! So I decided to jump out too, but then I realized I didn't have a parachute or an aeroglider on me. Then I remembered Vinyl Scratch's experimental balloons I had stored in my pocket, and right before I hit the ground, I blew them up and here I am! Oh, I rescued your hat, AJ. You really should think about storing cake inside instead of rope."

Her father's Stetson. Applejack didn't realize she had lost it, and if she did, she would have given up looking for it on the earth below amidst her shame. Thank the earth Pinkie saved it in time. Yet upon further observation, Pinkie Pie, aside from the balloons, was naked, and she wouldn't have any pockets to keep her deflated balloons. Dwelling upon it made Applejack's head hurt until the mental pain caused her to crack an uncontrollable smile due to the utter absurdness of this situation. The smile gave way to a chuckle, and the shaking transferred over from Rainbow Dash's hooves meant she too chuckled. Eventually, the blue pegasus and the orange earth pony burst into laughter the likes of which infected Pinkie Pie, who was probably confused as to what was going on. Applejack was still afraid of her secret being revealed, but still she laughed.

The laughter stopped when Pinkie's tail twitched. The three ponies soon realized that they were in the skies of No Mare's Land, but they weren't expecting bombardment from the two warring superpowers. Residual clouds from both Gaea's Weather Towers and Pegasopolis's weather ponies clashed together to reflect the endless battles of their equine manufacturers. Clouds darkened. The first snowflake landing on their muzzles meant that a snowstorm was coming.

Yet, it was still autumn.

---

"Let us out of here you dumb foals!" cried Dumb-Bell as he shook the bars of the brig. "Or come in here and challenge us like warriors!"

"Not a chance!" cried Scootaloo as she waved the electric prod before his eyes. "All of you are defeated, and you're gonna tell us what you and the Wonderbolts Northern Blizzard Division are doing."

"I don't need to answer flightless blank flanks like you. The Empress Commander is going to rain hellfire on you traitors and mud ponies!"

Scootaloo climbed a stepping stool and jabbed the prod through the bars to shock Dumb-Bell. The tips of his hairs had flared, but the brown pegasus stallion remained unfazed and laughed it off.

"Is that all you got?" he asked.

From another stepping stool, Apple Bloom fired her pepper spray into Dumb-Bell's eyes, causing him to scream in pain and rolling on the ground. His other prisonmates, Hoops and Score, watched and laughed at him. There was no need to check up on the other three prisoners in the other cell. Raindrops blissfully contented on eating Derpy's home-baked spiced walnut muffins but volunteered nothing but silence. Bulk Biceps sat on his bunk bed quietly working out his ripped muscles with a set of old and rusty dumbbells Rainbow Dash formerly used, while Thunderlane sulked sadly in the corner. It wouldn't be right to bother them anyway.

"Ugh, mark 'Interrogation Specialists' off the list," said Scootaloo as she stepped down. "Rainbow Dash and the Twins are usually good at these things."

"So we're not waterboarding?" asked Sweetie Belle who balanced a bucket of water on her back.

"Not with these jocks. They're probably too dumb to know anything."

"Who are you calling dumb?" asked Dumb-Bell. ­­­­­­Apple Bloom promptly pepper-sprayed him once more, just to get his seething muzzle away from the bars.

"You're pretty good with the pepper spray, AB," said Scootaloo. "Maybe you'll get an Insignia of it on your flank if you keep it up."

"I don't understand why you two want to get your Insignia, Glyph, or whatever you call it so badly," said Apple Bloom. "Do pegasii or unicorns get added abilities when they get theirs?"

"Not really," said Sweetie Belle as she set the water bucket down. "What about you earth ponies? Do you gain additional abilities besides Geosense?"

"No we don't. In my country, nopony ever talks about the lost art of Geosense, and we always hide our Nature's Call for fear of discrimination."

"About that," said Scootaloo. "What kind of country calls their Insignia a Nature's Call? That sounds like a pony going to the bathroom."

"Hey, it's an accurate description. I'll have you know that my country went through several decades of committees and ballots to settle on an appropriate name for it."

"Maybe that 'committee' had one too many bathroom breaks."

"I might have to agree with Scootaloo on that part," chuckled Sweetie Belle.

"To me," said Apple Bloom, "calling these 'marks' Insignias and Glyphs sounds pretentious."

"You sound pretentious for saying 'pretentious'."

"I was raised by the leader of a country, Sweetie Belle. I gotta know all these words as the daughter of the Chancellor."

"And yet here you are starting to sound like your real older sister as the days go by," said Scootaloo.

"Don't you want to earn your Nature's Call, Apple Bloom?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"I do, but I'm kinda bit afraid of what it might become," replied Apple Bloom. "I know I'm an Apple, but what if me bein' raised under Posey creates a different mark?"

"But you'd still be you."

"I guess. Maybe I haven't been outside as much as I should when I lived at Gaeaopolis. Do fillies like you two go out and try to figure out your destiny?"

"Actually, I'm in the same boat as you, Apple Bloom. I didn't go outside of the Crystal Castle as much as I should. You can blame my sister for that."

"I'm not sheltered!" Scootaloo boasted. "I began seeing the world right after I was born, and lemme tell you, I would not trade it for any castle or palace."

"So you must have done a lot of things, right?"

"Well… I'm working on it. Now that I think about it, this might be third time I tried my hoof in interrogation."

"You know," began Apple Bloom, "I am noticing that with all the ponies we met so far, almost none of them are doing anything related to what their marks show."

"It could just be their personal talent or interests and not their job," said Sweetie Belle.

"Or it could be a hint on what they are destined to do," added Scootaloo.

"The bigger question is do any of us know how we get these marks?"

The other fillies shrugged. Not satisfied with the answer, Sweetie Belle climbed up Scootaloo's stool and peeked into the cell containing the three pegasii warrior jocks.

"Do any of you three know how and when you got your marks?" asked the petite princess.

"Answer us you'll get pepper sprayed again!" cried Scootaloo.

Dumb-Bell still resisted this supposed 'interrogation' and blew a defiant, albeit slobbery raspberry at the filly unicorn. For that, Apple Bloom, almost as a reflex, pepper sprayed through his blonde bangs and into his eyes once more. Perhaps it was mean to do that to him a third time, but there was something so strangely satisfying watching him roll on the floor in agony while his cellmates laughed once more.

"Don't recall the exact date when I got mine," Raindrops said upon her reply to Sweetie Belle's question. "It must have been when I first attempted my Atmos Arts abilities at the warriors' academy. Do you have any more of these muffins?"

"I LOVE WORKING OUT!" replied Bulk Biceps.

Alas, Thunderlane remained silent and faced his corner.

"Great," said Scootaloo. "These other three aren't helping us either. Are there other ponies who can tell us how they got their marks?"

"What are you talkin' about?" asked Apple Bloom. "We're on a pirate ship full of ponies who already received theirs. We can ask some of them."

"Apple Bloom, that's a great idea! There's no better pony to ask than the coolest pony onboard this ship!"

"Vinyl Scratch?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"I mean the coolest pegasii on this ship."

"Derpy Hooves?" suggested Apple Bloom.

"Look, just follow me," Scootaloo sighed. "I know where I can find her. I know all her hiding places 'cause I'm not only her biggest fan, I am also a very important member of her crew entrusted with the most important duties on this ship."

"I never realized that you'd be a big fan of her muffins and her weird eyes," Sweetie Belle said.

"And aren't you a cabin girl?" asked Apple Bloom.

"You're going to see Derpy?" asked Raindrops from her cell. "Give her my thanks, and tell her to send more spiced walnut muffins down this way."

Scootaloo ignored the captured pegasus mare with a groan, and she motioned Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle to follow her down to a storage room not too far from the brig. Behind several boxes of pepper sprayers were several rusty torture implements unused since heaven knew when. "Torturing ponies ain't cool," Rainbow Dash had once said to Scootaloo whenever they captured the enemy, although self-defense amidst interrogation was allowable. The pegasus filly was not here to further develop her interrogation skills or to find Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash was too cool to hide here.

Instead, Scootaloo had cleverly hidden behind the boxes and old torture equipment one of her aeroscooters and an extra hoverwagon to tow around. Of course, flying the aeroscooters indoors was forbidden, as decreed by the Spa Twins. This decree would have discouraged Scootaloo, but Rainbow Dash had confided with the filly in secret that she was allowed to fly on the condition that she did not get caught.

Her new friends had once again been amazed by yet another presence of her aeroscooters, a wonder of Gaean technology with a couple of minor pegasii and unicorn tweaks. Scootaloo kept many of them on board in secret hiding places like these. This one was a low-power electric model, but it was plenty fast if not faster than a regular pegasus in cramped spaces such as this.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie boarded onto the hoverwagon that Scootaloo hitched to her scooter. Scootaloo revved the accelerator and blasted herself and her friends out of the brig's supply room. The steel halls appeared as blurs as the trio crusaded for the illustrious Captain herself. Where she would be, nopony would know, but Scootaloo was confident that she could find Rainbow Dash in ten minutes her less.

Then from the corner of her pegasii eye, Scootaloo caught a glimpse of a mallard's head poking out from one of the hallways. One second later, the full body of a yellow pegasus came into view. This was what she feared would happen during her scootering jaunts down the Spitfire's hallways, but only smooth moves could save everypony and a gaggle of ducks. The Atmos particles excited her wings to action, and she banked her scooter left to ride along the wall. From the wall, she banked further left until she and her filly friends flew upside down and over Fluttershy and the ducks. The girls managed to land right-side up, but the sudden stop threw them off the scooter and the hoverwagon. They crashed into a conveniently placed pallet of cereal boxes, the kind that Rainbow Dash ate. Most of the boxes of have spilled, and with them being dirtied, there would be no way to recover them.

Yet Fluttershy still concerned herself watching the ducks cross the hall. Content that the birds were safe, the yellow pegasus gingerly floated over to the fillies' aid.

"Are you all right?" she asked them.

"We're fine," said Apple Bloom. "Luckily, we didn't hit any of our heads."

"Or horns," added Sweetie Belle.

"What are you doin', Fluttershy?"

"Well," began the yellow pegasus, "a snowstorm hit the Spitfire, and there were flocks of ducks, geese, and finches trying to take shelter on the deck. So I decided to escort all of them to Rainbow Dash's 'secret love nests'. That is what they are for, right? Nests for loving birds?"

"I don't think that's what she meant by 'love nests'."

"Wait, you know where the captain's love nests are?" Scootaloo asked. "Does that mean you've ran into Rainbow Dash?"

"No, I haven't," replied Fluttershy. "Is there something wrong?"

"We are looking for her to ask her how she got her, uh, what are we calling it again?" Apple Bloom asked her friends.

"Pretty Marks!" cried Sweetie Belle.

"No, it's Awesome Marks!" cried Scootaloo.

"It's another name we have for Nature's Call, Heaven's Insignia, Destiny Glyph, blah-blah-blah," said Apple Bloom. "We're still workin’ on it."

"Say, those three butterflies look pretty cute on you, Fluttershy," said Sweetie Belle. "How did you get them?"

"Sweetie Belle, I don't think we have time for that," said Scootaloo.

"Wouldn't it be best to hear everypony's story out?" asked Apple Bloom. "We can get a good population sample this way."

"Come on, Scootaloo," said Sweetie Belle. "It'll only take a few minutes."

"I suppose we could," sighed the pegasus filly.

"Were you girls in a rush?" asked Fluttershy. "Maybe you don't have to stay. I don't think my story is appropriate. Or interesting."

"We'd like to hear it anyway," said Apple Bloom.

"Well, okay. Here's my story."

Comments

[Cynderfall]

Hooray you're back!

[Rox]

You know, I'm torn about what I think about this story.

It's fun, it's imaginative, Pinkie is written exceptionally well, I love the Celestia as "Sunny," and this alternate world is pretty believable. I think Fluttershy as a feral child, Pinkie as a convict, and Rainbow Dash as a pirate airship captain are all hilarious. Heck, I read all 82 current chapters today. It's really that good.

But on the other hoof, I despise any type of shipping between the mane 6. And it's started to take over in the later chapters, and it's starting to be really distracting from a great story. If I were to beg you one thing, it would be to drop it.

But it is your story so do what you will.

[PiMan]

I like where this is going. It'll be interesting to see how the stories differ from canon.

[The Ohvist]

4968057 you forgot the Farm Mare with a Vendetta, and the GAR-some Peace Main Pegasii Captain.

[Bones_]

Haha! Finally!

[kooarbiter]

"Apple Bloom, that's a great idea! There's no better pony to ask than the coolest pony onboard this ship!"

"Vinyl Scratch?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"I mean the coolest pegasii on this ship."

"Derpy Hooves?" suggested Apple Bloom.

that was the right answer

[Childish Endeavors]

Dear starcross7,

To be honest, I've kinda burned out on this story.

The beginning was amazing, something that told me that this story was going to be just as amazing, and likely more. But the further we go into the story, the more that it begins to fall apart and feel rushed. The story you were trying to tell has gone on for too long, drawn out into something that fell short of my expectations. I enjoyed the references, and you have managed to write out the characters so well, before it fell apart. The adventuresome tone at the beginning was something that I found pleasant, yet that too became less of an adventure and more about packing as much action as you can into the chapters. The dragon chapters broke my heart, because that's about where it began to fall apart. Spike was too easily swayed onto the dragons side, and was about to kill those mares he had formed an amazing bond with just because he saw a few images that might have been fake. The teleportation orbs had so much promise, but we didn't see them as much as we could have. The villain the Posey was meant to be had been turned into someone I pity, rather than the pony I want to hate.

You have so much potential, Starcross. But instead of taking your time with the story, perhaps investing in an editor or two to help your very first story become something greater, you've rushed into this. I understand the want to get the story out, to put down on "paper" the story you want to tell. But this kinda turned out like the George Lucas Star Wars films. The first movies, much like the beginning of this story, were amazing and well planned. But the last movies he made, the prequels, are like how the story is going currently. Lucas didn't take as much time with the story he was trying to tell, and it resulted in a trio of films that didn't meet the audiences expectations.

Starcross, I urge you to look back at your story and go through with a 'fine-toothed comb'. Don't just fix the things that are pointed out to you by the readers, go back and try to fix the things that weren't caught or commented about. The messy sentence structure that had been slowly increasing with each chapter. The rushed battle scenes. The bits and pieces of story that didn't really need to be talked about. Add in more details. Change some things. As my English Teacher told me this year, read the story as it's written, not how you meant it to be written. Let yourself be the reader and look at things that can be fixed.

You displayed talent at the beginning of this story, but things have gone so far off track that I just can't continue reading anymore.

~Childish Endeavors~

[OmalleyCaboose5]

"Derpy Hooves?" suggested Apple Bloom.

yes Derpy is the coolest