Prologue: Chaos in The Ports!
The sun shone high over Equestria, and to Lightning Dust it seemed as though the blazing orb had been strategically placed just for her leisure. She reclined on a particularly sturdy tree branch, her patrol armor discard back at her flat as she rested. Forelegs around her head and a leg hanging down from the branch. The light danced through the leaves warming but not blinding her as she let out a deep relaxed sigh.
"Aaah... This is the life," she said satisfactorily.
Below the opal pegasus lay Epona Quick Fix, the young inventor lay sprawled out on the grass, a pencil and protractor stuck behind each ear respectively. The brown unicorn had her tongue stuck out as she looked over some a small pile of sketches, squinting through her magnifying monocle.
The two friends were spending their respective afternoon off just relaxing in one of Everfree city's small side-street gardens a little ways outside the zebra district. The hustle and bustle that usually permeated the city seemed to have slowed to a crawl in the hot summer sun.
Though it seemed even the intense heat wasn't enough to drive everyone off the streets of the normally bustling and overcrowded trade and tourism port. The pegasus still caught sight of ponies, zebras, griffons and even the occasional Diamond Dog. It had been... odd for Lighting Dust, at least at first. She was used to either the rich and almost entirely pony population of Canterlot or her clans holdings in the Stormy Hills. Having come to a city like Everfree she suffered a bit of understandable cultural shock at the sheer volume of other species the cosmopolitan city possessed.
She'd even seen an elk, a rare sight, in Equestria at least, largely thanks to their attempt at an invasion having ended so jarringly and harshly that it went down as one of histories greatest military boondoggles, and they were now stuck in a never ending cycle of civil disputes.
The two mares companionable silence was broken by a scream that echoed and rebounded across the city. "Aaaaaah!"
Without missing a beat both ponies rose, Lighting's wings flared as she prepared to take off, only to be distracted by more cries, all seemingly coming from the same area.
"They're everywhere!" A stallion cried.
"Get the guard's! Get your princes, get somepony!" a sibilant, and obviously Diamond Dog, voice cried.
"The horror! The horror!" three mares cried in-sync.
"That's all I need to hear!" Lighting Dust said, she jumped from her perch and flew down the streets, Quick Fix hot on her trail as she flew.
As they galloped down the street Lighting Dust saw Redheart in the distance, evidently heading the same way they were. She called out to her friend, "You hear the screams too?"
"Yes! They're coming from the transport district and they're getting worse!" She replied snappily.
"We heard!" Quick Fix shouted, not being as fit as either of her two friends the mechanic was struggling to keep pace with their rushed movements as they pelted down the nearly white cobblestone streets.
As they approached the transport district the looming figure of the city’s airship towers cast a shadow over the three ponies.
The large circular 'Town Square' which was actually circular, no-one had yet informed Lighting Dust of exactly why it was called that, was in utter chaos.
A thousand colorful orbs buzzed through the air, tearing into restaurants and grocers, shipping crates filled with foodstuff were forcibly overturned by the ravenous creatures as the gorged upon the town. The restaurateurs, traveler and just anypony around seemed to be either trying to fight them off or in the midst of a terrified break down.
Two very odd cries managed to pierce the overall din of chaos that filled the area. "My summer line, they're taking it away!" a mare cried, her voice high pitched and shrill.
Lighting Dust and her friends watched as the small multi-colored balls floated by them carrying an elegant, gem-studded gown. They were closely followed by a purple maned white coated unicorn in a purple robe and a black suited white maned mare.
"Ze magics! Zey are flying away!" the white maned mare cried in abject horror, only to stop running and grasping the white mare's side she said, far more casually, "I must so though Miss Rarity, it does look lovely wafting in the breeze."
Stopping her terrified stamping the mare smiled confidently and replied, "Oh doesn't it though? I wanted it to capture the summer breeze, just so," The two ponies then seemed to realize that the dress was still being dragged away higher and higher into the air, well past the small shops and restaurants and over the apartment buildings.
"Carrot Top!" the white mare cried and out from the brewing madness surfaced a yellow coated orange maned and serious faced mare in a suit. "Get it back from those filthy creatures!"
For a moment the mare simply looked at her, apparent, employer disbelievingly, gaping ever so slightly, before sighing and giving chase to the parasprite, closely followed by the two fashion ponies themselves.
"OK, this is just getting weird," Lighting Dust muttered. 'What in Tartarus are these things?' she asked silently, not being willingly to let the question out.
"No kidding!" another voice cried cheerfully. Turning to the side the three friends were blinded by a sudden flash.
Rubbing her eyes irritably Lighting Dust watched as a cream coated and orange maned mare with a camera strapped to her neck and a fedora on her head leap down from the top of restaurant.
Cocking her hat cheekily the mare simply said, "Hi guys!"
"Film Reel this is not the time for photos, we have to do something!" Redheart cried, the nurses somewhat short temper already wearing thin at her friends antics.
"Right, right," the photographer replied placatingly, performing a shushing gesture with her hooves as the chaos seemed to fade in into the background around them. Rubbing the back of her head she continued, "I just figured this is the guards job to deal with this. I mean, they're just Parasprites, you know?"
'So that's what they are, cuter than I expect, and a lot more vicious' Lightning Dust thought to herself. The knight in training could vaugely recall having read something about the vicious little creatures. They were responsible for a number of farms put out of business and a few crops disappearing entirely and were... 'something?' about music. Still, she'd never read about them appearing in cities, or in this number.
"Well, they aren't doing well," Lighting muttered. Throughout the crowd she could make out some of the local militia attempting to corral the tiny insect with nets and, magic and wind, but so far they were proving a little to agile and small for the ponies to grasp.
"Well, this isn't the sort of thing they've been trained to fight is it?" Redheart said, before diving into the thick of things, bandages from her first aid kit at the ready.
Lighting Dust readied to follow her into the fray, she could probably blast the little insect with lightning or knock them around with some powerful wing beats but she was distracted by a cry for help.
Lighting Dust turned only to see both Sparkler and Strawberry Sunrise defending a pile of foodstuffs. "Guys, little help here!" cried the familiar voice of Sparkler. The purple mare's horn was aglow, but all her magic seemed focused on maintaining some form of crystalline shield spell over the food trays while she desperately swatted at the small insects with her tail and hooves.
In almost direct contrast to the unicorns defensiveness Sunrise looked positively murderous. The red maned, creamy yellow pegasus was holding something sharp in her mouth and darting back and forth through air, swiping at any insect that dared get near the food.
"None of you will touch my crembrulet!" the mare snarled.
"Where did she even get a sword!?" Lighting Dust question, mildly horrified at the sight of the normally gentle mare in such a state, looking to her sides she saw no answer was forthcoming.
At some point Film Reel and Quick Fix had vanished from her side, she could make out vague flashes in the growing chaos that were likely the photographer in action. In the distance she could see make out Quick Fixes aura as she tried to slam an empty crate over some of the creatures.
Slamming her hooves together Lighting Dust dived right into the growing bedlam, 'Not exactly what I was trained for, but taking these pest out should be fun!'
Lighting Dust ducked and weaved through the chaos, pegasi and griffons flew through the air, trying to exact some form of justice on the tiny thieves. The ground was filled with magic and the sounds of crashing as unicorns, earth ponies, and various other visitors tried to capture or crush the bugs.
Lighting Dust, pushed her wings faster and smirked proudly at the growing static at the tip of her wings as she dived into a particularly large cluster and let loose the miniature lighting shock. It wasn't a particularly dangerous spell, most ponies would only suffer a mild shock from it, but bugs, they were history, 'It's great use in the summers as well!' she thought good humoredly.
Without missing a beat she extended her wings beats and sent a powerful gust of wings into the Parasprites before her, scattering them away from the restaurant. Then she exploded upwards after the scattering enemies. The opal mare did a speedy back-flip and took in the damage she'd done, only to find that the invading bugs had barely been singed by her lightning and those she scattered had already reconvened on the innocent Apple Family Tavern.
The pegasus slapped her forehead and swore under her breath, "Of course! They're from Everfree weak magic isn't gonna take them out!" she lambasted herself.
Desperate for a solution she scanned the crowd for her friends, 'I can't pull of any big lightning stunts, i'd probably kill somepony,' she thought biting her lip.
"Lighting!" Redheart cried from down below, focusing on her friends voice, the pegasus finally spotted the white coated nurse near the zeppelin tower, waving frantically. Without thinking she dived through the horde of Paraspirtes and past her fellow flyers to join the mare. She was surprised to see the rest of her friends, and Sunrise's crembrulets gathered there as well.
"Any ideas!?" she demanded without preamble, coming to a halt in front of her gathered friends.
"Keep them off us and i'll tell you!" replied Redheart, striking out at the buzzing nuisances with a hoof as the swarmed around them.
Lighting Dust spun around and faced the crowd upright, she began beating her wings against the air, forcing herself to stay in place as the powerful gusts of wind cut through the Paraspites and force them back into the square. At her side, Sparkler was maintaining a small shield over their heads and Film Reel was, apparently. using her camera to great effect and blinding the hungry monsters.
"We need a plan, just attacking these things wildly isn't working, the guards, and all the food, is holding them here but it won't stay that way for long," Redheart explained from behind her. Lighting Dust shuddered at the thought of what thousands of those colorful locusts could do to the city, to all of Equestria.
"Well what do we do!? The Elements aren't even here and I can't blast these things without charging up and probably tearing the place apart!" she shouted back.
"I know! But I have a plan," the nurse said firmly, half shouting to be heard over the buzzing swarm. "They've scared almost everypony out of the square, you make a whirlwind, just start up high and make your way down, we'll do the rest!" the pink maned nurse ordered.
Lighting Dust didn't move from her position, she turned and glared at the other mare, being ordered around was not something the pegasus liked and she was not about to trust her friends plan on a wing and a hope.
"Please, just trust me!" Redheart said, her normally strong voice hoarse with desperation as the locust swarm continued to grow before them.
Guilt gnawed at the pegasi's stomach as she thought back to their victory over the mad princesses of Old Equestria, 'I trusted them then, I can trust them now,' she thought with conviction. Without warning she burst into the air, cutting a mad path through the swarm as she exploded into the sky, their tiny bodies bouncing off her own as she flew.
From the corner of her eyes Dust could see her friends break apart, each one likely going off to do whatever their part of the plan was, she could just make out Sunrise flying towards a group of oncoming guard ponies.
The opal pegasus came to a jerky stop in the air and looked down at the growing mass of locusts beneath her hooves and smirked grimly, "Well, here's hoping you're ready, cos i'm bringing the tornado!"
Lighting Dust burst into action, she flew at blinding speeds in a circle above the swarm, her wings dragging the ambient air behind her. The mare could feel the magic flowing out of her and crashing against the elements as she pulled them to her, creating the 'eye' of the tornado, around her the knight could barely make out the blurred forms of other pegasi in the distance and the ringing commands of the ponies beneath her.
The breeze was taking her away as the world disappeared behind a wall of air and dust as she dived into the center of her tornado and dragged it down into the town square. The Parasprites tiny bodies passing her by harmlessly as she dragged them into the raging tempest.
'If I keep going i'm going to tear the entire square apart and start sucking in ponies!' she thought nervously.
Desperate to see if the plan was working Lightning Dust forced herself to see through the raging winds and looked outside the raging tornado. Outside were guard and weather pegasi, each one of the was flying around her tornado at a different altitude, their own combined magic stopping hers from spreading wider and keeping it as a simple thin tunnel in the center.
Outside in the square she could just barely make out seemingly hundreds of different figures charging towards her from all sides. 'Well if nopony's going to get hurt,' she thought, a maddened smirk stretching across her muzzle, 'Then there's no reason to hold back!'
The pegasus forced her wings into overdrive as she gritted her teeth and forced the tornado to speed up, the howling winds that would have flung a normal pony into the clouds barely affecting her as she flew. The sheer volumes of Paraspites were making the tempest a little hard to control, but the other pegasi were perfect compensators, allowing Dust to focus mostly on her speed over anything else.
'So... what's part two of this plan?' Lighting Dust suddenly wondered, she'd been stuck in the tornado for almost ten minutes and her wings were beginning to suffer the first signs of cramps and exhaustion as she tried to maintain the cyclone.
That was when she saw it, or more accurately, felt it. Outside the windstorm the pegasi were moving, their originally cylindrical motions were replaced as they grew tighter and tighter against the miniature typhoon, enlightenment dawned on her features as she recognized the form they were taking.
"Time to wrap you up and send you to mama!" she roared. Exploding from the stormy squall, Lightning Dust looked like a glowing opal and orange blur as she began to circle the slowly dissipating tornado in great wide arcs. She was quickly joined by the rest of the weather patrol and pegasi guards as they turned the raging tornado into a spinning orb of air, easily as large a house.
"Now force it down!" Redheart barked from the sidelines. Even through her dazzling speeds Lighting Dust could make out a massive mish-mashed tarp that looked pieced together even from her dizzying perspective. It was being held down by various unicorn auras as she and her fellow pegasi forced the orb of air down towards the street, on all sides she could see the darkened tarp rising to encompass them like a shadow.
"It's surrounded us, break of and flap down!" ordered the pegasi sergeant. Without missing a beat Lighting Dust and the other pegasi kicked off from the spinning orb, shattering the magical prison. But their wing beats forced the gathered, and confused, Parasprites downwards and they flung themselves into the air. Within seconds the tarp closed in around the insect and a crystal clamp materialized in the sky sealing it shut and trapping it's contents.
"Oh yeah, victory!" Lighting Dust cried, she was quickly joined by a massive crowd of Everfree citizens as they roared in celebration.
Lighting Dust looked around the square and was pleased to see that the damage was only superficial, some broken windows and plenty of shattered or damaged krates and carts, but nothing major. Without thinking she quickly gravitated toward her friends, who were, much like herself, receiving accolades and congratulatory pats on the back, or punches in the case of griffons.
She pushed her way through the crowd and was promptly embraced by Redheart and Sunrise as she cried, "What did you guys do!? That was awesome!"
Pulling themselves away Redheart began to speak, her voice breathy and excited as she spoke, "Once you were up in the sky, Sunrise told the pegasi and griffons to help you keep the tornado under control!"
"Then, I ran off and gathered up everypony, zebra, griffon or whatever I could find and had them bring food, we lured the rest of those things into your tornado with it," Film Reel said proudly.
"While you guys were doing that I had to make something to trap them, so I got lots of scraps from the ships and storage and even store fronts and put it all together with Redheart's help," Quick Fix said, her voice almost drowned out amongst the crowd.
Behind her, Lighting Dust could make out the sound of hundreds of pegasi, earth ponies and unicorns hefting the impromptu prison into the air. Likely to go and dump the wretched creatures back into Everfree where the poisonous plants and monsters would keep their population down.
"I had to summon up shield spells to help everypony stay safe and bound the bag," Sparkler added carelessly.
Their conversation was ended when somepony shouted “Party!” and wine started flowing.
The six friends managed to stay together throughout what quickly became a street party, the excitable atmosphere initially shocked Lightning Dust. The transport sector was where half the travelling merchants and tourists, arrived, lodged and departed from.
But overhearing some of said tourists discussion the reason became quite clear.
"I can't believe it, first day of my vacation and a Parasprite invasion!" A mare said excitedly.
"I know, it really feels like getting the full "Everfree City Experience" doesn't it?" a griffon replied, proudly sporting a bruise he'd receiving when diving after Parasprites.
The opal mare reclined against a shaky table and smirked at Film Reel and muttered, "I guess that whole 'adventure tourism' thing wasn't a total crock."
The photographer laughed in response, before her eyes re-focused on the celebration around them, "What I wanna know is..." she left the sentence hanging dramatically. "Who brought them into town in the first place?" she finally asked. Lighting could only shrug in response and glanced over at Sunrise who had, naturally, given away all of her crembrulet to her fellow party goers.
"You were here weren't you Sunny?" Lighting asked.
"'Yeah what happened?" Film Reel asked slyly, a notepad and pen already in her hooves.
The pink maned mare shrugged helplessly and replied, "Well, I wasn't paying attention, but apparently some Paraspirtes were being shipped to Canterlot for study. But the box got dropped and they broke free, after that, well..." she looked away blushing as she finished, "You saw."
"We did, I even got a picture, you looked great!" Film Reel chimed in happily, holding up a photo of the caterer wielding a sword against tiny adorable insects. The picture was gently, but quickly snatched from the mares grasp and torn to shreds, Sunrise never losing her smile.
"What picture?" she asked cheekily, Film Reel docked her hat in defeat.
'She has to have copies,' Lighting decided.
"Shame, i'd really like to find whoever's responsible and smack them upside the head," Lightning said, though there was no real heat in her voice, she was too relaxed to be angry right now.
"You shouldn't worry so much, this sort of thing is par for the course living here and we dealt with it, just like we'll deal with anything else that comes our way," Sparkler said happily, striking her mug against Quick Fix's as she spoke. The blush on her cheeks giving a good indication of how much she’d been drinking that night.
"She’s right you know," Quick Fix said pleasantly, Mjolna stood beside the young mechanics side nursing a mug of mead and smiling politely at her friends by proxy.
"Very true, this is hardly the toughest thing this town has faced, by tomorrow everyone but the tourists will have forgotten so lets just enjoy the night!" Redheart cheered. Upon discovering there were no serious injuries the mare's mood had brightened considerably as they all cheered.
"Good plan!" Lighting cheered, letting her concerns fall by the wayside as she rejoined the revelry, 'So long as i’m with my friends this kind of thing is fun, and so long as we're together, nothing can stop us!'
Nopony noticed two tiny little eyes watching from inside a sewer grate, the faint buzz of it's wings being swallowed up by the crowd as it blinked and disappeared into the darkness.