An AC-130 traveling through the Bermuda Triangle is transported to Equestria. How will the inhabitants of this world view this strange metal contraption. More importantly the occupants within.
A United States Air Force AC-130 is transported to Equestria while in transit through the Bermuda Triangle. Insanity aside, this motley crew of aviators must juggle their duties while treading the uncertain waters of diplomacy.
Disclaimer: I've decided to write this in an attempt to get a more realistic view of what military in Equestria would act like, rather then the dark brooding kill happy stuff I've read. So with that being said, these guys will act more like diplomats. So there won't be much gore, and they certainly won't be going on a killing spree. (Obviously, as fiction the term realistic is applied loosely. My main goal is a realistic characterization of one specific community within the military. Just keep an open mind about how sub-cultures can exist within an entity as large as the U.S. military and you'll be fine.) Also rated teen for obvious reasons, morbid humor, light swearing, and background stories.
Struggle sat on the back of the lowered ramp of the AC-130 he would be flying, as he took in the early morning sounds of a base just beginning to wake. The cold winter wind cut through the thin layers of his flight suit, as he watched the rising sun peak over the tree line. The orange glow glinted off the windows of the dozen or so sleeping gunships on the parking pad. Normally, he didn't have an opportunity to do this. Especially, when he was coded to be a loadmaster, instead of a gunner. Their flight plan had them scheduled to take off an hour ago, but a last minute repair to the radar had grounded them for just a bit longer.
A voice from behind him interrupted his lazy sight seeing. "Hey Struggle, it's stations time, get out front," that was his engineer Story-Time, who’d left the comfort of the flight deck just long enough to get ‘the sweaty’ moving. As his nickname implied, he could prattle on for hours, with little to no input into a conversation. With a grunt he jumped down off the ramp, and put his headset on from around his neck. Reluctantly he made his way around the aircraft’s wing and props, as he braced himself against the biting winds to get into position.
After he canted himself to the nose of the aircraft, he picked up his rolled up comm-cord from the ground and plugged in his headset.
"Loads up, ready for engine start."
They had been in the air for a few hours, and Struggle had fallen asleep after all his system checks. His hammock swung gently to the vibrations of the AC-130's massive engines. Normally, sleeping on the plane was discouraged, if not outright forbidden, but on a long ferry flight like this one; no one would have too much heart burn if he caught some shut eye.
"Hey Struggle, you alive back there?" He groggily sat up and adjusted his headset, he could tell from the voice that it was his Pilot, who went by the nickname ‘Chaos.’ Even though there was no reason for it, his heart beat furiously against his ribcage from being woken up on the aircraft, as flashbacks of old lead-guns blowing their gaskets at his tendency to nap came to the forefront of his mind. Not that he had to worry about Chaos doing the same. The two had been on a few deployments together, and while he couldn’t say his pilot was a friend-per say, he certainly felt like one.
"Yeah I'm alive, but barely. Did I miss another checklist call?"
"Hah no, but I should have let you think you did. We were wondering up here, if you had a patch-cord to play some music?"
"Eh... I'm not sure, gimme a second to check." From his hammock, he did a quick scan of the gun deck for his boots, and sure enough, sometime while he was sleeping they’d tumbled down the ramp. Fuck me, if there’s anything more cringe worthy then using the aircrafts shitter, it's walking around the plane in socks.
Foregoing his forsaken boots to their fate, he walked down the ramp to the retracted 105millimeter howitzer. As he reached the gun, he ducked under its yellow painted safety cage, before lifting himself on his tiptoes to pull down his bag from the top of the ammo storage rack. After a few minutes of rummaging through his old helmet bag, he spotted the small curly patch cord under a half eaten burrito he had wrapped to save for later... a few weeks ago. He made a mental check to remove the moldy burrito from his bag once they landed, and gently slid it over to get the cord.
"Struggle, I know we've got all day, but what's the status on that patch cord?" asked the Pilot.
"Just found 'er, give me a sec...any requests when its hooked up?"
"What music do you got?" said the Navigator, whose nickname was Papa Hotel. He was a soft spoken guy, with maybe more than a bit of a forgettable presence. But out of all of them, he had the most interesting back story to his nickname. On his second deployment to Afghanistan, the base had been mortared, and a 'lucky golden bb' had managed to hit right next to the gunship he was in at the time. The shrapnel from the explosion had managed to cut through the aircraft, and one piece had found his leg. One purple heart later, and he had a nickname.
In fact, now that Struggle thought about it; the only member of their five man crew without a nickname, was the Co-Pilot. A scrawny little butter bar Lieutenant, with a last name of Ticer...Or something, Struggle knew it started with a T. He was a jittery young guy, and he was new. Struggle tried his best to cut new guys slack, but damned if they didn't have a knack for bringing it on themselves.
"A little bit of this, a little bit of that. But, mostly just a lot of metal. But don't worry, I'll make sure to find something that will please all of your sensitive little ears."
"Struggle I swear, if you play any 'I hate my parents music', I'll let the Co-Pilot fly while I come back there," Chaos replied. Struggle let a soft chuckle escape his lips at the thought of what pranks he might be able to pull on the pilot in a pinch.
"You won't, and we both know as much as you like your nickname, you're too straight laced to leave a baby co all alone." By this point, Struggle had hooked his ipod up through the patch cord to the comm system.
"So quit your yappin, DJ Struggles comin' at you with what's hot. In honor of our first stop, I got just the song." said Struggle.
As the song opened up, Struggle spoke barely above the song.
"Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mamas."
Struggle huffed lightly as he finished up the last of his after take off checks. I don't know why I even bother, if it's not the Air Force dicking with my plans; it's always the damn weather! Of all the shitty luck we could have. A tropical storm had appeared before the crew had even disembarked the airfield to their hotel. Unfortunately, this had canceled the carefully planned bed down on the island of Bermuda. Chaos had made the call to leave, to avoid being stuck on the island when the storm hit. So much for that island horizontal tango I was hoping for.
"Um Pilot, Nav, main," Papa Hotel squeaked.
"Go ahead Nav," Chaos responded.
"How's it look out there? I just got some weird indications on the radar," Struggle was listening intently now. Radar problems over the Atlantic with an approaching storm could mean a hasty retreat back to Bermuda. He could already feel the hope of a tropical rendezvous reigniting in his chest.
"Nothing out of the ordinary out there, looks like that fix, just unfixed itself....wait, what the hell?" Struggle could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end. It was never a good sign when a pilot sounded baffled, even less so for a pilot as experienced as Chaos.
"Talk to me Pilot, what's going on?" Struggle said, his slightly elevated voice betraying his unease.
"Brace yourselves crew, we're in for a bit of a bumpy ride, not sure how it caught us by surprise. But, the storm is about to be right on top of us." If Struggle had been on the flight deck, he would definitely define what Chaos said, as downplaying the situation. In the distance ahead of the gunship, a dark storm front was materializing out of nowhere, blacking out the sky as it advanced towards them with an unnatural speed. Water spouts otherwise known as 'water twisters', were dancing between the gapping maw of the sea and clouds. The twisters oddly reminiscent of load bearing pillars for the heavens. Lightning lit up the ere darkness beneath the clouds, with a quickening fervor.
"Can we just over-fly them?" Struggled responded, while making his way up to the right scanner seat.
"We're too heavy after that refuel. We'll be fine, just find yourself a seat." Chaos said.
By the time Struggle made it to the right scanner seat and took a look out the window, they were seconds away from hitting the storm front. He found himself staring into the fangs of a storm that seemed to swallow all light, save for the lightning strikes that danced within. As soon as they met the front, a torrential downpour cascaded and flowed around the window, making it increasingly more difficult for him to see anything in the storm beyond. But, that wasn't the only thing he noticed, static electricity had started to dance around the outside of the window. He had seen St. Elmo's fire before, but this was something new. Long thin strands of electricity danced from the aircraft into the heavens; he imagined that the aircraft looked like the center of one of those plasma balls you could play with in novelty shops.
Major "Chaos" Oldes, wasn't a happy camper, this storm and now his plane seemed to be fighting him every step of the way. His forearms burned as he fought the controls to keep the plane on the right heading. The entire plane shuddered, and groaned every time he forced his unwilling craft to adjust. His corrections were being undone faster than he could make them, and the whole process started over. It was almost like they were being dragged along in a unseen current. At least the water spouts he’d had to dodge finally disappeared, one less obstacle on their way out of this freaky storm. But, before he could thank whatever deity was looking out for them, the instruments on his aircraft started going haywire.
The needle on the compass just kept spinning, and the electronic navigational aids went haywire. He spared a quick glance over to his co-pilot, only for him to look just as baffled at the sudden dramatic change to the instrumentation. He didn't have long to think about it, however, before the engineer behind him tapped his shoulder while he pointed a shaky finger towards the window. Chaos looked up, only for his brain to grind to a halt, as his mind tried unraveling what his eyes were telling him. In the distance of the darkened sky; it looked like someone had kicked a beehive. The flashing lights of airplanes zigged this way and that- in total anarchy. He spared his 'Traffic Collision Avoidance System' a glance, only to have it tell him there were no other planes in the sky. But, with all the flight equipment on the fritz, he didn’t feel he could trust it anyway.
"Hey Story, pass me your NVD," he said in the calmest voice possible. Within seconds, the small night vision monocle was passed to his hands, and he wasted no time in peering into it. What he saw didn't register at first, as his eyes darted to each of the aircraft in the distance that were slowly growing larger. Dawning realization slowly crept in, as he recognized the unmistakable shape of guns sticking out of the familiar silhouettes. Gunships?
"What in the world?"
In the center of this swarm of impossible gunships, a single bright light pulsed, and as their gunship joined the swarming cloud of planes it grew till it encompassed all of them. The light saturated and poured through their aircraft, unhindered by physical barriers until the whole crew was left blinded.
Struggle sat in the window rubbing his eyes, trying to get his vision back, while wondering just what had happened. As the floaters in his vision faded, his sight slowly returned to him. When the compulsion to blink finally receded, he was relieved to see sunlight pouring through the window next to him. Perhaps they’d managed to break through the storm, it made sense to him that after flying through the storm that the sun would be blinding. With his eyes no longer crying out in agony, he decided to take a look out the window. What he saw immediately set off a tiny red flag, after all there wasn't much land in the Atlantic this far out. Yet, no matter where he looked, there was land, vast verdant mountain ranges with fertile valleys, and gentle sloping hills that lead to endless fields of color.
"Ugh Pilot, Load. Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" he asked.
"Roger, Load...I've been to just about every island in the Atlantic, but I can’t place this one. Anyone know where we are? We were just over the ocean, I've been circling and I can't spot it... Talk to me Nav, what does the GPS say our coordinates are?" Chaos said.
"Nothing Pilot, before that light it was going crazy...but, now it just keeps showing the drift from our last known coordinates. Normally, I would think there is a fault in the system, but it checks out green. It's almost like there's some kind of connection issue," Papa Hotel remarked.
"I'm not picking up any chatter from Pyramid, Nav."
"Storm might of fried the comms. I'll reload them, but it might not be a bad idea to check the circuit breakers too."
The nav and pilot started to bicker, but whatever was being said, fell on deaf ears as Struggle gaped out the window. There in the distance, was a castle on the side of a mountain, that however, wasn’t what bothered him. He had seen plenty of crazy medieval castles and towns in Europe. No, what bothered him, was the purple shield encompassing the entire thing. It looked like something straight out of science fiction.
"Ugh guys....Not to interrupt your debate about what's going on, but, when you were looking for that ocean; I think you missed something in your scan," Struggle choked out. This time it was the nav who responded first.
"Why? Did you figure out where we are Struggle?" he said.
"Not exactly. But just to be sure, Co-Pilot, could you take a look out your window at two o'clock. About twenty miles out, halfway up the mountain, tell me what you see," Struggle instructed. There was a long pause followed by a muffled gasp over the comm channel.
"Wha..What the hell is that? It looks like a giant purple orb surrounding a city!" the co-pilot responded. Not satisfied with the idea that he was losing his mind, Struggle decided to voice a crazy opinion.
"Crew, Load. I don't know what's going on, but, I bet if we go check out that city we might get a better idea of what is."
"Not the best idea I’ve heard, but damned if it isn’t something, what direction is it now Load?" While the plane was orbiting, the city in question had drifted behind the wing line of the aircraft.
"About the five o'clock position Pilot." With that said the plane banked to the right, and flew in the direction of their new target. All the while Struggle out of nervous habit, scanned the world below looking for threats. Had he been paying more attention, he might have noticed the shadow that lingered over his window for a few moments.
Strong Scales wasn't sure what he was looking at. A few minutes ago he was happily sleeping on his hoard in his lair, before a loud noise he had never heard before kept buzzing about outside his cave. He had tried ignoring it for a time, before it grated on his last nerve, driving him to investigate. Before departing he grabbed a large ruby in his long green tail for a snack, in case hid search took a while. With his jewel secure, he flapped his massive wings while barreling down the cave on his legs till he picked up enough momentum to fly.
It hadn't taken him long to realize that the noise wasn't coming from right outside the cave, as he hovered there searching the surroundings of the forest outside of it. He grunted softly to himself, realizing that the best way to find it, would be to scan the forest from the sky.
Strong Scales had followed the noise for several minutes, but realized that the noise kept moving. He had followed it in a circle of the forest several times now, and could only guess it was two steps ahead of him. No matter, he would wait for it right here, and there would be no way for it to escape him now. So he hovered over a clearing in the tree line, waiting for the noise to circle back over this spot so he could finally catch his foe. It didn't seem like he had much more time to wait as the noise grew louder, and he could barely contain his excitement at catching some new quarry. The other dragons in his clan would surely love this story about how he outsmarted his prey. But, before the noise could grow to its crescendo, a large shadow dashed across the canopy below to his right, startling him.
Whipping around to find the source, he scanned the skies until he had found the shadow’s master. It wasn't a cloud, like he half expected. No, higher then most things fly, was some type of grey metal bird. His curiosity piqued, he decided to get a closer look at it. So he flew higher, proudly dancing back and forth. Breaking up small clouds, and undoing the small flying ponies work. But as he drew closer, he started to realize the noise he had been chasing, was coming from his new object of attention. With that realization he was fuming, all that time wasted hunting, not to mention his peaceful slumber being interrupted. Oh, I'm so having words with you, my metal avian friend.
It wasn't long before he had come up behind the bird, overtaking and flying above him in the sky. The thin air caused the old dragon to wheeze with effort, as he struggled to maintain the dominant position. It wasn't till he had gotten close, that he had realized just how large it was. The bird was easily the size of most fully grown dragons, not to mention, it looked like nothing he had ever seen. He even doubted whether it was a bird, but flying above it in a show of dominance eased his apprehension.
"Hey buddy, just so you know somedragons are trying to sleep around here, and I don't appreciate how much noise your making," said Strong Scales while not so subtlety adding a growl at the end to sound threatening. If the bird heard him however, it didn't seem to care as it continued to circle the land below. Is he...or maybe she hunting? If that was the case than it didn’t sit right with the dragon. He knew the other dragons would mock him if he let another predator muscle in on his turf.
"Just so you know this is my territory pal, so if you don't leave I'll make you."
He made to start building up the flames in his maw, when he noticed it starting to bank right and leave.
He just smiled to himself and let it go, proud that the beast had backed off in the end, clearly intimidated about facing him. The metal bird was an unknown, and while he liked a challenge as much as the next dragon, he didn't really reveille in the idea of taking on something his size, at least without knowing if he would win. Still, he couldn't help but gloat at the loud retreating bird.
"Don't forget to tell your friends about the day Strong Scales the dragon showed you mercy!" He shouted as he brought the ruby in his tail up to his mouth, and slowly munched on it while he watched it go. Perhaps I did get a story to tell the clan, how many dragons can say they scared off a metal bird the size of a dragon. Might need to add a few details... to make it a good story of course.
Big Mac was lying against his favorite tree in the orchard, basking in the shade it provided while sitting on his haunches chewing on a stalk of hay. The best part of this spot was that it sat on the largest hill in Sweet Apple Acres, overlooking the whole farm and Ponyville as well. With his sister Applejack up in Canterlot for some high fallutin royal wedding, and Applebloom doing some kind of project with the crusaders, he finally found himself some peace and quite to come here. Sure, he still had to look after the farm and Granny, but apple bucking season was over, and Granny was busying herself with making pies. But he didn't just come here to relax, no he came here to think and have a hard drink or two.
So with just a little bit of trepidation and glee, he made to pull the object of his desire from his saddlebag. There in a small mason jar cradled in his hoof, was the Apple families special hard cider. He didn't get to drink a lot, what with being the role model as the oldest. But, every now and then he got a chance to indulge, just as he was about to right now.
So after carefully removing the top with his other hoof he drained the jar slowly as the minutes passed. Basking in the warm pull he got from the cold beverage, and delighting in its not overly sweet taste with just a hint of bitter burn. Soon enough it was gone, and he quickly pulled out another jar. All the while thoughts about up-coming work on the farm dashed through his head, as well as about a few mares in town who had caught his eye.
As he reached the bottom of the third jar his head was swimming, and he felt more relaxed then he had been in weeks. But his cool mood was interrupted when his ears twitched at a unfamiliar noise he'd just started to notice. He drew himself up a bit straighter, and madly began swiveling his ears trying to pick up the source of the disturbance. He didn't like that it sounded like it was getting closer, his hackles raising as he prepared to confront some intruder on his farm. When his ears finally swiveled to lock onto the noise, he jerked his head so fast that he went light headed. But when everything came back into focus the noise was right over him, and he watched in disbelief as some gigantic bird flew overhead towards Canterlot. Clearly imagining things he let his head dip to think about what he just saw, and when he did his eyes rested on the empty jars littered around him. The picture came into focus and he chalked it up to a alcohol fueled delusion, before loudly proclaiming "E'nope." and setting out to find something to help sober up.
It's a bird, it's a pegasus, it's heading this way!
CHAPTER 2: It's a bird, it's a Pegasus, it's heading this way!
Struggle was practically glued against the window. Something felt off. It might have been the forest they were flying over, what with its gnarled branches and the oddity of a few things glowing in the underbrush. The longer they flew, the stronger the gnawing feeling in the back of his mind - a hunch, if you will, that whatever they were flying over wasn't...right.
None of the trees were species he recognized; that castle they had passed, while inconspicuous enough, was in a state of disrepair that would be a black mark on any respectable preservation society. The other problem was he had been to enough castles in Europe to know that huge crowds were always present for such landmarks, and they were kept as pristine as possible. So why the lack of any discernable presence?
It wasn't until they sailed over an apple orchard that the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Only then did he truly realize his feeling might hold any merit. It was quick, far too abrupt for him to verify what he saw. But he could have sworn he saw a red horse, sheltered underneath an apple tree. The trees were a common sight for the thirty seconds they sailed overhead, but yet again something was off. He had flown over plenty of orchards before, and they were always positioned in nice neat rows, but this orchard’s arrangement seemed random. What would possess any professional farmer to adopt such a pattern? Sure, he could see the merit in root space, but it would be a nightmare in terms of irrigation. It wasn't until the 'comms' squelched to life that he was broken from his ruminations.
"Load, Pilot. There appears to be a town ahead. I'm going to bring us into an orbit to get a better look."
Struggle watched the scenery flow by as he waited to get a glimpse of the town Chaos mentioned. It was slow going for the most part until he heard a squeal, signifying an addition to his comm net. He turned away from the window for only a second to see who it was. The Nav stood behind him on a pigtail cord in the crew rest compartment, trying to look over his shoulder through the window. With the Nav on the isolation net, he could talk without the rest of the crew hearing.
"What's it look like out there? Anything to indicate where we are?" asked Papa Hotel.
"Nothing I've been able to recognize. Also, I'm not familiar with any island in the Atlantic that grows apple trees. But that's neither here nor there. Why aren't you at your station, and why didn't you check off comms?" replied Struggle.
"Had to take a piss. Besides, I can't figure out why my equipment isn't working."
"Cool story, but you know how Chaos is about comm procedures. Also, if your equipment isn't working, you should probably get back to your station to figure it out."
"What's your problem? I'm just stretching my legs, after all."
"Well, you're distracting me, so beat it," Struggle said before returning to look out the window.
"Well, fuck you too." A second later another squeal informed Struggle that the Nav had left the net. Normally Struggle wasn't confrontational; in fact, he could be considered the definition of laid-back to the point of being a doormat. But he was on edge, as his sixth sense screamed at him.
"Load, I've brought us into an orbit. In about thirty seconds, you'll be able to see the town....I only caught a glimpse, but I don't know, something seems off."
Struggle waited patiently as it slowly came into view, his eyes darting back and forth, searching for anything out of place. It seemed normal for awhile until it dawned on him.
Something important was missing, something that even the most backwards of countries he'd been to sported. There were no vehicles, not a single one. On the latter part of the orbit, he did see train tracks, although there was no locomotive he could spot. After that, he lost sight of the town till the orbit brought them back around.
With the lack of vehicles in mind, he paid more attention to the dirt roads snaking through the town. He had paid little thought to moving figures after the time he was flicked off by that kid on a bicycle on a training line. But now his disregard for animate objects screamed for attention, since even at this altitude he could make out a difference. The beings below scrambling in an a attempt to get indoors at their arrival was nothing new; what was, was that they didn't appear human. Perhaps in their scurrying they did, but not in their shape.
He had flown over all different types of animals: sheep, goats, camels, cows, even horses. The figures below were clearly quadrupedal, but even the largest of familiar herds barely paid mind to an aircraft's presence. So it was a complete shock to see animals acting in such a manner, almost as if they were sapient.
"Struggle, you see anything out of the ordinary?" the pilot asked.
"That depends, Pilot. Do you consider the lack of vehicles, and animals reacting as people do abnormal?"
"Come again, Load, I must have misheard what you said as crazy."
"Well, I would too, but a lot of small things are adding up to only one conclusion."
"And that would be?"
"That I don't think we are in Kansas anymore. It might be time to check out that city under the dome."
"-even now, my minions are chipping away at it," Chrysalis said before chuckling.
"He may not be my husband, but he is under my total control now." Her pronouncement elicited gasps from Twilight and Princess Cadence. "And, I'm sorry to say, unable to perform his duties as Captain of the Royal Guard!"
"Not my Shining Armor!" Cadence exclaimed.
"Orbit established. What are all those black dots surrounding that purple bubble?" Chaos inquired.
As always, the cockpit got a cursory glance at an object before Struggle did. But when it all came into focus as the orbit brought the city into view, he was just as baffled as they were. Hundreds of flying figures bashed repeatedly against the purple dome. That was until they all moved as one, and the dome collapsed. No sooner had it fallen than the black figures descended on the city like green meteorites. Flashes of green and other colors erupted from the streets below. It didn't take a rocket scientist, or a war veteran like Struggle, to understand what was happening. This was a battle, and the greens were on the offensive.
"Well I guess we know why that purple bubble was in place; it was a shield against their invaders." Struggle stated dryly. “Want to get a closer look?”
The sounds of destruction echoed throughout the city. It was just too bad for Mirage that he had sentry duty with his partner Morpheus. They were stationed on the edge of the city in case pony reinforcements arrived. So much love in such close proximity, and yet they were missing out on the feast. Suddenly, Morpheus hit him on the shoulder and pointed to the sky.
“Hey, what is that?” Morpheus asked.
Mirage followed his partner’s hoof to a blob approaching in the distance. He squinted briefly at it before responding. “I don’t know, a bird maybe?”
“You ever see a bird fly that high? I say it’s a Pegasus.” Their brief debate was interrupted by another changeling.
“What are you two knuckleheads looking at?” The voice belonged to their Sergeant, Mystique. She followed their gaze into the sky. “Sweet Chrysalis, what is that thing?” The object in question was still a few thousand feet higher than the city, but it had come within a mile of the outskirts.
“I don’t know, but it sure isn’t a bird, or pegasus, that's for sure.” Mirage replied. “Think we should get the Captain?”
"~This day has been just perfect. The kind of day of which I've dreamed since I was small. Everypony I'll soon control, every stallion, mare and foal. Who says a girl can't really have it all!" Chrysalis sang before chuckling.
Your Highness we may have a problem. A metal construct is flying outside of Canterlot. The psychic link Chrysalis maintained with her Changeling officers was to only be used in a state of emergency. So it was with regret that she divided her attention from her prisoners to respond.
If it is an ally of Celestia's, then deal with it, you foal! Otherwise, make it clear that outsiders are not welcome at this time. Our victory is at hoof, and I do not want any interlopers! Chrysalis mentally commanded.
Your will be done, Your Highness. The changeling officer responded, before grabbing the three changelings and flying out of the perimeter of the city.
Captain Guise was going over Chrysalis’s order in his head.
“What did she say, Captain?” Mirage asked of their commander.
“In not so many words, she said to see if it’s a threat.” Guise replied.
“Your orders, Sir?” Sergeant Mystique asked.
“Alright, here’s the plan, you three will come with me. We’ll see if we can't figure out what it is, before we proceed from there.”
Captain Guise knew one thing: it certainly was loud whatever it was. As Guise drew closer and it came into focus, he realized it was some sort of flying machine. If it weren't for the windows that had given it away, it would have been the unfamiliar flag of red, white, and blue painted on its backside. Its propulsion seemed to be some type of unholy union of a windmill and fire. But it wasn't what was seen that sent shivers down the Captain’s spine. It was common knowledge that all changelings were emotivores, and as such could feel emotions.
What wasn't common knowledge was that they could feel lingering emotions surrounding objects, or those powered by emotions. This thing was unlike any artifact the changelings had. Old sentimental trinkets acquired from the ponies held love, treasure stolen from dragons held envy, Chrysalis even had a object of fear, stolen from Sombra's reign. This flying machine's residual emotions, however, were something new; a plethora of residual emotions surrounded it. More unsettling was that it felt as if a thousand souls had passed through it, each leaving their own unique mark on it. Where had this thing been, and what had the occupants seen to leave behind such strong residual feelings?
Captain Guise shook his head to clear the fog. It was currently about a thousand hooves above them. Taking the opportunity as it once again circled away from the city, he decided now was the time to relay his commands.
"Sergeant Mystique, I will fire a warning shot when it gets close again. You keep an offensive spell charged just in case it takes offense. Mirage and Morpheus, prepare a teleportation spell, and shield spell respectively." When they nodded, he turned back to the craft, charging his fire spell.
When it drew to its closest to them, he shot just below its massive form. The result was immediate and unexpected: the machine seemed to burst into flame, blinding them and causing Mystique to release her spell, before a shield and teleport went off.
Struggle had lost sight of the city and its conflict for near a minute, when he heard the tone go off, before a set of flares dispensed. But when their orbit finally brought it back into view, he was immediately greeted by a streak of green zipping towards the aircraft. He immediately hit the call button, silencing all other comm channels, and making him louder.
"Break right, break right, Triple A, three o'clock!" It was too late, however, as the stream of green tore through the right fuselage of the aircraft, rocking the mighty war bird and eliciting a cry of agony from the Nav in the Battle Management Center. He waited for another until it was obvious that there would be no encore, before deciding to cue the flight deck into the situation.
"Roll out, Pilot! Get us some distance from that city. Hostiles were using some type of anti-aircraft artillery." Struggle commanded.
"What happened, Load, are we hit?" Chaos responded.
"Yes sir, requesting 5 miles out call. After that, requesting check-off for battle damage assessment. Nav, I heard you scream, are you okay?"
"..."
"Eng, can you take over scanning? I think the Nav might be injured." It wasn't the Engineer, Story-Time, who responded however.
"Cleared off, Load, keep me abreast of the situation." responded the pilot.
Disconnecting from comms, Struggle was greeted by a world of muffled silence. Sure he could hear the roar of the engines, but little else. Time being of the essence in an evolving situation, he stumbled about the rocking aircraft that was presumably still being engaged by their new enemy. Once out of the Crew rest compartment, he grabbed his rolled up long comm cord and plugged in.
“Loads up.”
Even through the evasive maneuvers, he managed to make his way back to the battle management center. He stepped through the forward door to the small compartment. What he saw was unsettling: a thin gash ran down the fuselage, revealing a sliver of the outside world. All the while, a small fire raged, and hydraulic fluid spewed everywhere. And there slumped over in his seat, screaming in pain, was the Nav. Taking care to avoid the debris, he made his way around the booth to him.
Well no wonder we couldn't hear him afterwards; his comm box took a lucky hit. He couldn't tell exactly where Papa had been hit, but it was pretty obvious by the way he cradled his arm protectively over his side. He patted him firmly on the back to draw his attention.
The man flinched slightly under the touch before slowly turning to face him. Struggle grabbed his arm and moved it from his side despite Papa's protest. As he kneeled down to get a better look, he sighed in relief at what he saw. Underneath the singed uniform was about a quarter-inch gash that ran all the way across the top of his hip bone in the small layer of fat on the man. Sure, it looked like a third degree burn, and he was sure it hurt like all hell. But all things considered, it was relatively minor.
As he stood back up, he grabbed the right side of the Nav's headset to move it away to speak with him.
"COME ON! LET'S GET YOU TO THE CREW REST COMPARTMENT!" He had yelled as loud as he could, hopefully enough to cut through the noise and draw the man out of his pain. The Nav's only response, however, was a slow nod.
“The Nav is injured; it’s superficial but probably extremely painful. I’m taking him to the Crew rest compartment. I’ll give you a situation update afterwards.”
As the four assembled changelings watched the craft fly away, most of them felt an immense sense of dread. The first person to speak was the Captain.
“Well, Queen Chrysalis isn’t going to like this…”
“Does she really need to know? I'm sure she'll just be happy that it left.” Mirage said.
“I wasn't referring to us accidently hitting the thing..."
Twilight snuck her way to Cadence while the Queen was distracted.
"Quick, go to him while you still have the chance," she whispered, before using a spell to free Cadence from the goo on her hooves.
It had been slow going getting the Nav farther up-front, but now that he was safely out of the way, Struggle could get to work. It had taken two fire extinguishers to take down all the small fires in the booth.
"How does it look back there, Load?" Chaos asked.
"Not as bad as it could have been. We've lost the booster hydraulic system. It looks like the gun deck armor managed to catch most of it, and what it did cut through is mostly dead space from what I can tell. We're lucky it missed the liquid oxygen tank or we would all be cinders right now. I'm about to start my exterior inspection, just let me get back up to the window. Also, can you open up the overhead hatch on the flight deck, to try and vent this smoke out."
"Copy, Eng is on it, Load." Within a few moments, the flow of air barreled through, carrying all the smoke and irritants from the fire bottles with it.
As he got back to his window, he exchanged a quick glance with the pained Nav. Just let me finish up, buddy, then we can see about getting you some bandages. He sat down, ready to do a scan of the engines and wing but stopped as something grabbed his attention.Huh, looks like they got their shield back up....oh shit, oh shit it's heading this way! He watched in awed terror as it expanded carrying black specks in its wake that were steadily growing larger with it.
His voice caught in his throat as he tried and failed to the warn the crew of their impending doom. Where he failed, the Co-Pilot didn’t.
“Brace for impact!” Struggle didn’t need to be told, as he had already curled up with his eyes screwed shut, waiting for the impending collision…The plane shook violently for a second, and a weird sensation seemed to pass through him, but that was it.
Daring to chance fate, he opened his eyes, only to see that, yes, he was still alive. He sighed in relief as he righted himself in the seat, remembering that he still had to scan the exterior of the plane. But when he turned to the window, what he saw made him lose faith in his sanity.
There, comically plastered up against the window was a bug-esque horse, slowly sliding down the window, making a barely audible squeaking noise as it went, before finally falling off altogether to the world below.
“Wha...I don’t even….jus’ how?” He was trying to reconcile the insanity of what he just saw, totally disregarding the fact of how fast the thing must have been flying when it hit the aircraft. He had been flying long enough to know what happens to birds when they hit an aircraft: lots of pink mist and feathers. Deciding to chalk it up to a stress-induced delusion, he started to scan the wing. What he saw wasn’t promising. Smoke was trailing from the number 3 engine, which must have been hit in the attack as well.
“Crew, Load. Engine three is smoking. I can’t see any fire, but it might be smart to shut ‘er down.” Struggle said.
“Shit, we’re too damned heavy to shut an engine down right now. You think it can make it to landing?” the Pilot asked. Struggle was about to respond when the Eng cut him off.
“Indications on engine three are still nominal. I’m fine with keeping it.” Struggle didn’t like it, but the Eng was the expert on those systems.
“Well, let's not chance it. Let's start looking for a spot to land,” the pilot said. But as Struggle scanned the terrain below, their prospects of potential runways were small. In fact, they were currently at zero. Everywhere he looked, there was either a tree line, a creek, or some other obstacle which spelled disaster. It wasn’t until he remembered the town that he got a bit of hope.
“Pilot, Load. Can you bring us closer to that town we passed? Their railroad tracks might have been landscaped enough to provide a decent runway running parallel.” Struggle said.
Celestia grabbed Twilight’s hoof as she forced herself onto her own.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.” She smiled down to her student before continuing. “You have a real wedding to put together.” Twilight smiled back, stating her worry before finally corralling her friends to put the wedding of the century back on track.
As her student and friends departed, Celestia decided now would be a great time to get a breath of fresh air.
What a day. She thought to herself as she stepped onto the balcony. She scanned the scene below, noting the ponies who were assisting their fellow Equine, cleaning up debris, and casually disregarding the severity of the day’s events. It would take a week or so, but her little ponies would get on with their lives. She admired their strength, and she would remember today’s events long after they had been forgotten. The burden of a leader, she supposed. It wasn’t until she checked the position of her Sun that she noted the presence of anything concerning.
In the distance, a small figure sailed through the sky, leaving a distinct smoke trail in its wake. It seemed to be retreating in the direction of Ponyville, a worrying development indeed. She thought after today’s events that she might be able to catch a breather, but duty called, and she knew she would have to answer.
Chaos surveyed the land running parallel to the train tracks below. It wasn’t ideal, at least not for a large AC-130 to land on. Currently, as far as he could figure, it was about four thousand feet of straight away. Possibly a little less, but it wasn’t so much the length that currently concerned him. Their two potential approaches were what bothered him, he could come in towards the direction of that mountain city. However, at the end of that potential run-in, the tracks jerked violently in front of their path as they began their ascent into the mountains. If he followed that route, he ran the risk of going nose end into the track’s berm.
On the opposite approach, it was even worse, he would have to hug the mountain before bringing it in a tight right-hand turn. He would lose precious runway as he wouldn’t be able to descend until they could level out. To make matters worse, the treeline at the end of that side of the tracks made the gravel and dirt berm look friendly. But at least flying over the tree lines on the opposite approach he could bring it in low and level towards the mountain. His decision was rather simple in the end.
“Crew, Decent Checks.” The pilot said.
“Copy Pilot, I just finished bandaging the Nav, he’s passed out but he’s secure.” Struggle responded.
The Pilot banked the aircraft out of their orbit, setting themselves on a trajectory over the treeline.
“Keep me informed, if you can, start on the crash landing checks.” He responded, before telling the Eng to continue the checklist.
“Crew Briefing.” Story pimped the pilot.
“Alright crew here’s the plan, we’ve got about four thousand feet of runway. I’ll bring her around over that tree line, and then we’ll go one hundred percent flaps-
Unaware of the crew’s plan, Princess Celestia watched intently as the large gray beast circled high above. She had decided to err on the side of caution by simply observing the metal beast from her balcony. It had circled above Ponyville for quite some time. However, when it turned South, still trailing smoke, she had hoped that perhaps it might have left altogether. But much to her chagrin it turned back around and began losing altitude, she could tell whatever it was it would soon be earthbound. Drawing from her years of experience, Celestia could tell this incident would not blow over if she ignored it. Glancing behind her she picked out the closest guard to herself.
“Bring Lieutenant Swift Stroke to me. Inform him to quickly assemble an escort of pegasi.” She said.
Celestia clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she wondered if this incident would make the day worse or better.
“Pilot, Load. Are we going to dump any ammo or fuel?”
“Negative Load, I would rather hang onto any supplies we can. We’ll land heavy if we have to.”
“Copy.” Struggle was running ragged across the gundeck, tying down loose equipment, checking hydraulic lines and double checking his work.
“Load, are the guns extended and stowed?” The Eng asked.
“No, I’m working on that Eng.” He grunted in frustration before making his way to the loader weapon control panel. He furiously began flipping switches, but none of the guns moved. He was baffled for a few moments before he silently cursed under his breath.
Fuck that's right, we lost the Booster Hydraulics.
“Hold on, I need to manually extend and stow the guns, the booster was damaged so it will take me a few more minutes.”
“Well make it quick, the Eng is starting to get fluctuating RPM’s on three.” Replied Chaos.
“Well if you can magic four more gunners out of your ass then by all means, otherwise, shut the fuck up ,I’m doing what I can as fast as I can.”
Struggle grabbed the manual drive assembly and rotated its handles with such abandon that his rotator cuff began to scream in agony. The guns begrudgingly elevated under his command. With the 105 millimeter, and 40 millimeter stowed he went around the aft of the largest gun and began pumping the handle to extend it.
“Load, we are on our final approach, you've got five minutes if that.” Chaos said.
No fucking pressure or anything. Struggle grunted to himself, only a few more inches and the gun would be fully extended.
Meanwhile Celestia’s mind raced at the possibilities the large craft could have in store for her. She had gathered her contingent and had left Canterlot a few minutes ago, they had kept their distance but it was clear now to her that it was a flying machine. Unlike any of the ones in Canterlot, but a flying machine nonetheless.
Its smoke trail grew as it descended on Ponyville, no sooner had it left the forest then had it touched down on the ground, bouncing violently near the train tracks. Kicking up dirt, and spitting smoke. She watched the seemingly helpless airship futilely try to slow down. By the time it had reached the halfway point of Ponyville, it became clear to her that it may not be capable of slowing itself down in time before it reached the base of the mountain.
“Guard! On me! Our guest may need some assistance.”
Struggle had barely missed making it to his seat by the time the aircraft hit the dirt, which brought him hard to the floor. The landing was rough, and he took no pride in the fact that three bounces was a new personal record on landing. But he couldn’t help but breath a small sigh of relief that they were at least on the ground now, as he unsteadily got to his feet and made it the last little way to the right scanner window. He diverted his attention from the window to make sure the Nav was still secure. Sure enough, he was still there, even if he looked like he was doing an impression of a bobble head.
As he switched his attention back to the world outside, he saw the town for the first time at eye level pass him. Thatch roofs, and colorful buildings blurred by him. The speed, violent shakes, and harsh jerks made it hard to focus on the smaller details. The few animated forms he saw watched him pass with rapt attention, and for the first time he saw its citizens from something other than a bird’s eye view. In a way, he wished he hadn’t, as it confirmed they were quadrupedal in nature. Their colorful forms and wide eyes spoke of intelligence.
Struggle could feel the g-forces as the engines reversed their thrust, trying to slow their speed. He slowly lurched forward under the shifting momentum, stopped only by his recently harnessed shoulder straps and their convenient inertial reel. The town had fled from his vision, replaced by a landscape of rolling hills and sprawling fields.
“Crew, brace for impact,” The Pilot said. Wait what!?!
Chaos had pulled fully back on the throttles, his legs were both applied to the brakes, hoping that anything would find the traction needed to stop their forward momentum. But as the mountain grew larger, he realized all was lost. They would hit the berm, the cockpit would be crushed and his life would end along with it. Closing his eyes he prayed for it to end swiftly.
But as the cabin rocked, and he thought the end was nigh, he realized that he hadn’t died. He could still feel the breath ragged as it was, escape him. Cautiously he opened his eyes, to find that the berm was mere inches from having impacted the nose of the aircraft, and a golden shimmer seemed to dance along the windshield.
A bead of sweat dropped down Celestia’s brow. Stopping the extremely heavy machine wasn’t as difficult as moving the Sun, but after the day’s events, it had taken an extraordinary effort to stop. She let out a ragged sigh in relief, saving the creature had left her fatigued. However, the effort was worth answering a few of her questions, especially if it meant keeping her subjects safe.
“After Landing checks.” The Pilot called.
“Everyone alright up there?” The Load asked.
“Yes Load, besides the Co pissing himself.”
“Skittish Tombs, very skittish.”
“Knock it off Load, we’re in a checklist.”
“Co-pee. Pilot.”
Struggle disengaged his seat belt, quickly setting to his task of setting his gear back into his helmet bag that he had brought up to the window. Afterward, he went back to the gundeck, checking to see if any of the equipment had shifted. He was pleasantly surprised to see that everything had remained put.
He waited for the engines to down-speed as he leaned against the small window in the right paratroop door, watching the flames from the number three engine be smothered in fire extinguisher fluid. It was a bit abnormal as the engine choked alongside its brother, the number four engine. After he made his way to the ramp and door control panel, this time armed with the knowledge of the booster system being out, he set on the task of pumping both systems, the ramp lowered while cargo door opened one agonizing pump at a time. When the world outside was revealed, he was slightly startled to see that a group of locals had already decided on hanging back about a hundred meters from the aircraft.
Well this isn’t close encounters of the third kind, the ramp maybe down, but I still have other work to do. The take me to your leader part can wait.
“Static right.” The Co-pilot called.
“Load, clear to insert wheel chocks.” Chaos said.
“In progress. Load is checking off.” Struggle waited for the pilot to copy before disconnecting his comm cord, and jumping out the aircraft with the first set of chocks. After landing heavily, he threw the chocks down on the grass, before kicking one behind the back wheel, and one in front of it. Before making his way to the ramp to grab the second set to repeat on the opposite side.
“Loads up, chocks in place.”
“Copy Load, Engine shutdown checks complete. Alright, crew clean up your stations, Load wake the Nav if you can and we’ll gather at the end of the ramp to debrief and gameplan. Cleared off crew.”
With that Struggle took his headset off and rested it on his shoulders, as he began to roll up his comm-cord on the way back to the crew rest compartment.
Celestia was clearly confused, it was obvious that the species that she had seen in the craft was none she knew of. Why hadn’t she heard about a new species being discovered, or for that matter, stories of them if they built complicated looking machines. The gears in her head were turning but she was clearly missing a piece of the puzzle. She watched as one of the creatures in her sight turned in their direction, but simply ignored them as it went about performing other tasks, clearly disinterested by her and her guards' presence. She didn’t know whether to be insulted or impressed.
She watched curiously as it picked up a pair of yellow painted wooden blocks connected by a rope. Before it jumped down out of the craft and placed them underneath what appeared to be the craft's wheels. Although she had never seen the substance they were made of.
It shortly disappeared back into the craft after completing the task.
It wasn’t long however before other occupants from inside the craft began to emerge from the darkness within. The new additions however seemed far more interested in her, and her guards' presence. Perhaps the first one was some type of servant class, or of a diminished intelligence. However, he to shortly returned, cradling what appeared to be a wounded one of their number.
Oh dear, I wonder what happened.
“Welcome back to the land of the living Papa.” Struggle said.
“Ugh, joy, I’m back. I still feel like shit though. I take it we’ve landed.”
“Yeah we’re there sunshine...we’re there.”
“Alright, give me a sec.” The Nav unbuckled his seat, and slowly sat up before hunching over.
“Ugh, why’s this shit always happening to me. Hate to ask, but do you mind giving me a hand standing up?” Struggle extended his hand to the Nav before rocking his weight to bring the Nav to his feet. He stumbled a bit before Struggle hooked the Nav’s arm over his shoulder.
“Woah there.” He chuckled before continuing. “You might need more than a hand, just lean on me... when your not strong~" At the Nav's deadpan Struggle cleared his throat, "right, Chaos want’s us to meet up in the back.”
“Well, lead the way.”
Struggle carefully helped the Nav to sit down on the ramp, before jumping off of it himself to join the three other crew members of the plane off the edge. Rummaging through his left cargo pocket he fished out his pack of cigarettes before pulling one out.
“You know you're not supposed to smoke on U.S Air Force aircraft Struggle.” Said the Pilot. Struggle arched a brow before slowly looking behind him to the craft in question.
“Well then it’s a good thing I’m not smoking on the aircraft, just next to it.” Before he brought up his lighter to the cigarette.
“Do you really think that’s smart, we’ve got alien guests. What if they take offense to its smell or something.”
“Well then Pilot, I would imagine they wouldn’t have sat themselves downwind of our aircraft's exhaust if they were so sensitive. Besides..." He paused to blow a puff of smoke away from his crew, "I think we have bigger fish to fry, like not ignoring the insanity of the fact that there’s a group of aliens in golden armor eyeballing us from a couple hundred feet away.” The Lieutenant decided now would be an opportune time to butt in.
“What do we do Major?”
“We go over our innocent circumstances statement that’s what.” The pilot responded. Eliciting a chuckle from Struggle.
“Really? I doubt our survival school training covers this. Besides if I were them I don’t think I would be satisfied with...” Struggle comically dropped his voice an octave before continuing. “We have found ourselves in your country through no fault of our own, in support of Operation blah blah blah...That’s seriously not going to cut it. Also if they can speak our language, you can shave my ass and call me Shirley.
“Just going to ignore that last part, besides how would you know Struggle, you been through something like this before? That’s what our regulations tell us to say, so that’s what we’ll say.” To this Struggle groaned.
“Look, this isn’t anything we’ve covered, this is a unique situation and we have to treat it as such. Also do we ever strictly follow the regs in combat? No, no we don’t. We adapt them to an ever evolving situation, I don’t see how this is any different. Well you know, besides the potentially alien planet thing...and that this isn’t combat. But you know, semantics and stuff.” He said before taking another puff, careful to blow it in the opposite direction of his comrades.
“I’d have to agree with Struggle, Pilot, there’s nothing in the regs on this.” Story responded.
“Alright, maybe we can be a little more forthcoming. But I would still be more comfortable with allowing them to come to us. Peacetime scenarios clearly dictate that we don’t try to establish contact, but we don’t try to evade it either. So we’ll wait for our friends over there, and then we’ll just roll with the punches. But take this seriously, act professionally, and don’t do anything obscene.” Struggle merely smiled before responding.
“Co-pee.” Followed by a chorus of groans from the crew. Besides the Nav, who was still hunched over. Who either didn’t understand, or simply didn’t care to give a response.
Celestia’s ears were pointed forward, while she wasn’t proud that she had thrown a sound enhancing spell on herself to eavesdrop on her new guests. She had been around long enough to know to take any advantage she could find in potential diplomatic talks. Usually that was just sponging information off of maids for visiting dignitaries, but she wasn’t averse to doing the hoofwork herself. When the garbled nonsense of the creatures came back, she huffed before weaving two spells together. The first of which hid her magical signature from sight, the other was Clover the Clever’s universal translation spell.
Clover’s spell itself was ingenious, translating the spell’s target language into the casters. The principle of the spell worked off of translating the specific idea that was meant to be conveyed into something tangible for the caster, while also doing the same for the target. Certain words that had no analog between the species would simply be translated phonetically into an approximate. All words except swear words in any case. Turns out Clover the Clever saw the potential for abuse of the spell, more specifically a pony casting the spell on themselves just to cuss out another pony in their language. When the mess of sound solidified into something she could understand, she listened attentively.
As she listened she learned a wealth of information, most importantly she had pinpointed this group's de-facto leader. One going by the name Major Pilot. Normally she would have thought Major to be a rank, but none of the others had been referred to by rank so far and she had heard of odder names. Even if it was clear to her by now, that this seemed to be a professional organization if not a military. The most important thing she had learned though, was that this gathering of a new species seemed like they wanted to avoid hostilities.
That earned them a modicum respect in her book, enough at least that she couldn’t help the ear-splitting grin on her face at the prospect of a new peaceful sapient species emerging. She couldn't help but think of all that they could learn from each other.
That grin soon dropped as she went over the mention of two things, the first being the word combat. The second that one of them mentioned that this might not be their planet.
“Come Gentlecolts, I think it’s high time we introduce ourselves to our new guests,” Celestia ordered. Lieutenant Swift Stroke who had been silent for much of their observation decided to throw in his two bits.
Chaos watched as the ten quadrupedal creatures started a slow cautious approach towards them. His crew’s attention was immediately fixated, and he could tell each one of them was as on edge as he was. Why wouldn’t they be? After all the events that had transpired, he didn’t blame them for being on edge. Going through one hell of an unnatural storm, ending up God knows where, and then if all that wasn’t enough, they had enough fantasy elements thrown at them to fill a Tolkien novel. Now on the ground, it was all sinking in. He only hoped that their discipline would win out against the uncertainty and adrenaline.
The creatures in question were about fifty feet away from them now, and their approach only grew slower and more cautious the closer they came. With nothing but time and nerves, Chaos decided to do another once over of his crew. As expected Story was showing his nervous tick of running his hand through his thinning salt and pepper hair. Struggle perhaps looked the calmest, his only tell was his rapt attention while furiously flicking the cigarette in his hand that had already lost its cherry ember. Papa was dead to the world as his attention was still solely on his wounds, and his Co-pilot looked like he was on the brink of a mental meltdown. He was shaking like a leaf, and his blue eyes were the size of saucers, all that coupled with the piss stain from earlier didn’t leave much to the imagination about how he was holding up.
“Co you alright?” If the co-pilot heard Chaos it didn’t show. Sighing, Chaos made to repeat himself louder, before he could though Struggle put his hand in front of Co’s face snapping his fingers and the crewmember back to reality. Co-pee jerked his head to face Struggle.
“What?”
“Chaos wants you.” Struggle emphasized his point by gesturing in Chaos’s direction. Now with the young crew member's attention, he gestured the young Lieutenant over to him.
“You wanted something Major?”
“Yeah, no nice way to say it you smell like piss Lieutenant, you have your 72-hour bag right?” At the Lieutenant's nod, he continued.
“Alright, go up to the flight deck and change. If you have any baby wipes I would suggest using them, if not I’ve got some in the big zipper on my backpack.” The Lieutenant seemed mortified at the realization that he had forgotten about his accident. Chaos watched him quickly scurry away until he noticed Struggle had saddled up right next to him. Before he had a chance to question him, Struggle pulled close enough to whisper into his ear. It was a quick thing, a simple question before he pulled back searching Chaos’s eyes for approval.
He chewed on his lip for a moment, before giving a single quick nod, without a word Struggle took off into the plane.
Celestia gave the signal for her guards to stop when the first creature withdrew, if she could help it she would prefer to have each of the members of the new species present for their inevitable first contact. With what their leader said, she was more than willing to delay for a few minutes to save the one named Co further embarrassment. It was rather clear now that they had a rank structure and one that might be eerily similar to her own guards.
The one in charge watched his Lieutenants departure as another crept up behind him, Celestia was at first alarmed with how quick the other pulled the leader in. For what reason he did this she was uncertain until he uttered a word she could barely hear. It sounded like emnine, she pondered on its meaning until she could only assume it was a word that had no rough translation.
Struggle was quick to get to his destination, from the crew rest compartment he could hear Co frantically changing. Most likely not because he wanted to impress Chaos about quickly carrying out his task, as much as him probably fearing being caught naked. Bending down Struggle’s eyes rested on the small gray metal box beneath the forward seats, extending both arms under the seat he gave a quick pop of the latches. Pulling it out and opening the lid twenty-one M-9 Berettas and twice as many magazines greeted him, the patina on most of them spoke of an exceedingly long service life. A few even showing the beginning signs of rust, carefully scanning the more pristine ones, he picked out the best to run their slides through a couple times, before picking two favorites.
With the weapons checked he grabbed four magazines before stowing the rest back beneath the seat. About that time Co came stumbling down the flight deck in a hurry, passing the door before Struggle could stop him.
“Co!” The shout was immediately greeted by the sound of slowing footsteps before they headed back towards him. The crew member in question peeked around the corner when he got closer.
“Yes?” Struggle racked back the slide of one of the M-9’s before presenting it butt first to the Co.
“Take it.” Co shot a baffled gaze to the proffered weapon before returning the same look to Struggle.
“Well?” With a shaking hand, Co grabbed the gun like one might handle a venomous snake, eliciting an eye roll from Struggle.
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“Preferably point it somewhere other than my dick when you load it. Speaking of which, here's two mags.” Struggle offered them up with one hand while he grabbed for his own M-9 with the other.
“Very funny, I mean where am I supposed to put it I don’t have a holster?”
“Do you want a play by play? Just slide it into your pants near your hip, if that’s too hard then maybe you should consider holstering it in your mouth.” After sliding his now chambered Beretta into his waistline he turned to find Co gawking at him. Apparently, the greenhorn hadn’t yet learned the mixed art of dark humor and sarcasm.
“It’s a joke, not a dick don’t take it so hard. Now come on, I’m sure Chaos won't be happy if we drag our feet.”
Celestia silently observed her guests from where she had stopped, though she hadn’t got an up close look yet, she could already distinguish a couple notable traits between them. Their leader who had been referred to as Chaos seemed to be the tallest, sporting a dirty blond mane, and sharper jawline than the others. Then there was the shortest one standing next to him quietly conversing with him, she didn’t know much about the species yet, but pudgy definitely came to mind for the salt and pepper haired sapient that 'Chaos' had called Story. If the conversation was anything to go off of then they were currently debating on why she and her guards had stopped approaching. The only distinguishing feature she could make out from the one on the craft was that it had black hair and a slightly darker complexion than the others.
The conversation between them died with the reappearance of the two who had left earlier. Celestia waited till they had rejoined their leader before signaling with a nod to Lieutenant Swift Stroke that she was ready to move again. Swift Stroke responded by pointing his spear forward, relaying the command to move.
“Look sharp gentlemen, we’re about to meet the locals.” Chaos said. Chaos watched their line march towards them with precision, before eyeing his little gaggle. None of them were wearing their hats, and Struggle looked like he had a fight with a water gun full of grease and hydraulic fluid. They may not be the most presentable, but he could at least properly represent Uncle Sam by displaying some order and discipline.
“Form a row behind me, snap to parade rest when you get there.” They did as told, even if it was slower and less organized than he had hoped for. Glancing over his back he saw Story had taken up the spot behind him, with Struggle on his left and Co on his right before he returned his attention to the front. “At ease gentlemen.”
“I want to go home…” The Co-pilot said. Eliciting a bark of a laugh from Struggle.
“Calm down kid, they’re small creatures in bronzed armor, we’re cool. Let’s just see where this goes before we get antsy.”
“Don’t let your guard down yet Struggle, we don’t know anything about what’s going to happen.” Chaos responded.
They watched their approach, a single one of the marching quadrupeds breaking off to take a spot next to the tall alabaster one. Chaos surveyed them all before realizing something, all of the ones sticking behind had plumes on their helmet that were either white or blue. Whereas the one sticking close to what he could only assume was their leader had a red plume. Red Leader? Color coded ranks perhaps?
As the tall one drew gracefully closer, a pair of white wings appeared from its sides. There’s no way it can fly with those, maybe a way of appearing larger? Territorial threat display perhaps?
The alabaster one with the colorfully billowing hair stopped ten feet short of Chaos and his crew. With a wordless signal, the armored quadruped next to it lifted a foreleg causing an immediate halt from the line, followed by a crisp click as the entire line snapped to attention. Chaos had to admit he was rather impressed, the amount of drilling it would take to do that right the first time was a testament to this group's dedication. But while he was horribly outmatched in drill he could at least give them a show.
“Ah tennch hut!” He was pleasantly surprised when he didn’t hear any feet moving out of sync. He too had moved by his own command, his heels touching, feet angled forty-five degrees apart, and his shoulders squared while his clenched fists rested against his legs, with thumbs pointing down the seams of his pants. For the next command, however, he wouldn’t move.
“Pre-zent arms!” He heard the snaps of movement behind him signaling that the salute he ordered had been rendered. He decided to give it a few potatoes before he would order the command to drop it, he was surprised however when the red-plumed one made another gesture resulting in the line behind him to hoist their spears at an incline into the air.
I guess military is military no matter where you go. Although I’d really like to know how these creatures can hold a spear that well.
“Order arms!” With their salute dropped the other line was quick to issue their own order to drop their spears to their sides.
“Parade hest!” With that, he dropped his crew out of attention as well as himself.
Celestia couldn’t help but smile at the impromptu posturing between her guards and the new species. She could now say with almost absolute certainty that the members of the species before her were military, after countless centuries she had yet to meet a rebel or paramilitary group that practiced ceremonial drill. Deciding that she had delayed the inevitable long enough she decided to break her silence.
“Hello travelers, I am Princess Celestia of Equestria. One of the rulers of this land, and Princess of the Sun. May I inquire as to who you are?”
To say the lack of a language barrier floored the human crew would be an understatement. Even Papa who had largely been dead to the world managed to break out of his stupor long enough to regard the lack of a language barrier with incredulity. As the grinding gears in Chaos’s brain worked furiously to reboot his perception of the situation, he made several mistakes. The first being that he abruptly walked forward while deeply clearing his throat, something that came out sounding dangerously close to a growl while extending his arm for a handshake entirely too quickly in the Princess's direction.
The next few moments passed in a blur of excited responses. The red plumed quadruped let loose a quick whistle while thrusting his spear within inches of the immediately frozen Chaos. Struggle drew the M-9 from his waistband and leveled it at the spear wielding quadruped, eliciting a response from three of the now airborne ones. Co did the same but managed to fumble his own M-9, freezing as he watched it descend to the ground. While Story made a dive for it, but ended up spectacularly missing. Three on the right flank now took off straight towards the two humans, while one broke off to back up the other wielding a spear towards Chaos.
The first flying one to reach Struggle was a few body lengths ahead of its closest compatriots, thrusting its spear straight at him as soon as it was within range. The mistake was caught by Struggle more by instinct then purpose, as he made a quick grab for the shaft of the overextended spear, accidently grabbing the rear of the spearhead nicking his hand before grasping the shaft. The guard's own training kicked in, as it quickly chose instead to drop the spear rather than be dragged into close quarters with a larger opponent. When the grip from the guard slackened Struggle haphazardly spun the spear back towards its owner, by that point though the guard had retreated safely back to its friends. With a new weapon in play, the two new flying guards simply hovered out of range with spears leveled at Struggle while guarding their disarmed comrade. The last of the armed quadrupeds took a flying position over Celestia essentially guarding her on all sides. Story had managed to grab the M-9 right before two spears took up residence in his personal bubble, with a third trained on Co.
Struggle’s heart was trying to reenact the scene from Alien, as it seemed close to bursting out of his chest cavity. As frightened as he was, a small part of him couldn’t help but revel in the fact that he was in the center of a God honest Mexican stand-off. A twitch out of the corner of his eye drew his attention away from the quadrupeds out of range of his commandeered spear. The red plumed one was now eyeballing him, his response was to cock the hammer back on the pistol.
“Now that I know you understand me, let me make something perfectly clear. Move so much as an inch, and I’ll use my boomstick here to add a new hole in your forehead.” The glare coming from the armored guard signaled to Struggle that his threat was shrugged off.
“Tough guy huh? If you think your spear trumps my Beretta you're gravely mistaken.” Struggle briefly considered whether he had just crossed a line by threatening these creatures, before discarding the thought in favor of staying focused.
The smile that had recently graced Celestia's lips had vanished only to be replaced by the neutral mask she often wore in court. To say Celestia was disappointed would be an understatement, more in herself than in her guards. She should have known that the day’s events would have taken a toll on her little ponies, and all that stress was just like applying tension to a spring, the first outlet for its stored energy would be the course it took.
Luckily she still had the spell up to hide her magical signature, if things escalated any further she could at least rest assured that she could teleport herself and her guards to safety without giving it away. But that course of action would most likely mean the end to any peaceful relations. That is if they weren’t destroyed already. The scanning spell she had just cast on the black hunk of metal in the creature's claws didn’t yield anything terribly useful, except that something that intricate certainly wasn’t for show. Talking everyone down would take time, and the sooner this situation was resolved the faster she could begin to run damage control. With any luck a bit of trust from me can end this.
“I think that’s quite enough, guards lower your weapons.” The guard’s glare leveled at Struggle was replaced with confusion and uncertainty.
“Princess?”
“You heard me Swift Stroke, lower your weapon, that goes for all of you.” The guards although hesitant complied to her will, and slowly backpedaled away from the humans before lowering their spears. That was except for the guards currently at a standoff with Struggle. Celestia fixed a strained smile towards him.
“I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop pointing a weapon at my guards.” Chaos who had regained his senses was now also looking to Struggle.
“Chaos?” He left the rest of the question unasked.
“It’s okay Struggle, let's take it down a notch.”
Struggle let out a deep calming breath before lowering the pistol and switching the safety back on. The click of the hammer resetting before he returned the side arm to his waistband. He returned his attention to the guard in front of him before pulling the spear back as he rotated the shaft so that the spearhead was facing him. Before presenting the butt and shaft to the guard he had stole it from. Timidly the guard approached before it slowly grabbed it and Struggle let it go. The light now hitting the spearhead revealed a small tinge of red. It took a second before he remembered he had cut his hand, before he turned his palm to face him so he could survey the damage. The cut wasn’t deep, it ran along the skin between the first and second knuckle of his index finger and thumb. Glancing back to the guard who still seemed a bit shaken up he decided to apologize.
“Sorry about all that, but on the bright side it looks like you got me worse then I got you.” He said as he presented the minor wound for inspection. Celestia let an optimistic smile find her lips at watching the tense situation become a little more friendly. Celestia returned her attention to their leader.
“Where were we? Oh right, I had just introduced myself, and if I’m not mistaken you were about to do the same before that unfortunate turn of events.” Chaos couldn’t help but turn a little red at the thought that he might have been the root cause of that debacle.
“Right, I would just like to start off by saying how sorry I am Princess. So much has happened that you being able to speak caught me off guard, I just kind of acted without speaking. I only wanted to greet you with a handshake.” His apology was met by a warm smile from Celestia.
“No one was seriously hurt, that's what really matters. I’d be honored to take part in.. what did you call it, a handshake? Your name would be nice as well.” For the first time since landing Chaos smiled as he extended his hand to her. When she offered her hoof to him he took it before giving a quick shake. He was surprised to find that the fur that he felt wasn’t coarse like he had expected it to be, but was instead incredibly soft and silky.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Princess Celestia, I’m Major Joshua Oldes, however, my friends call me Chaos. And I am the commander of this crew.” Celestia smiled despite wondering why his friends would call their friend such a horrible name. It was clear by Chaos’s silence after his introduction that he might have been out of his depth of expertise. Trying to save him any embarrassment she decided she would have to lead the conversation.
“I believe you just met Lieutenant Swift Stroke here.” Chaos merely looked to the red-plumed guard who had held him at spearpoint earlier before quickly looking back to Celestia.
“I would say it’s a pleasure to meet the Lieutenant as well, but we didn't exactly get off on the right foot here.”
“I see...I hope you can overlook the Lieutenant’s actions in time, all of my guards must be on edge following the failed invasion of Canterlot. As you said your crew has had a rough day as well, suffice it to say I think we all acted a little hastily, myself perhaps included.”
“I suppose you're right, let’s put that behind us for now. Let me introduce you to my crew. The man to my far right is my Co-pilot Lieutenant Brad Ticer, and the gentlemen next to him is my engineer Technical Sergeant Jason Sterry known more commonly as Story Time, or Story for short.” Celestia hummed her approval before exchanging pleasantries.
“To my left is Senior Airman Jake Drudge our loadmaster, and he'll be the first to let you know that he prefers his nickname Struggle to his real one.” Celestia cocked her head to that before greeting him and allowing Chaos to continue.
“And last but not least is Captain Simon Alicide or Papa Hotel, I doubt he is in any condition to exchange pleasantries right now, he got some nasty burns before we landed.” At which point Chaos shouted to get Papa’s attention who waved somewhat sarcastically from his hunched over position.
“Does he require medical attention?” Celestia inquired?
“I'd say probably, Struggle bandaged him up. But no offense to Struggle he’s no doctor.” Chaos' statement earned him an indignant snort from Struggle.
“In that case, I would be happy to have him treated by my own medical staff in Canterlot.” Chaos merely rubbed his wrist unsure on whether he should take up the generous offer and potentially put his wounded crew member in jeopardy. The bottom line was he didn’t trust these creatures yet. Sensing his distress Celestia decided to continue.
“I’ll give you some time to think it over, in the meantime, onto other things. I heard you refer to one of your crew as ‘man’. Is that the name of your species?”
“Oh um, human would be our species, man refers to gender generally. I don’t think I got a name for yours yet though.”
“We’re called ponies.” Chaos stopped at that to take in more details of the creatures in front of him. He had seen plenty of ponies from earth before, sure there were similarities, but only as much as one could say there were similarities between monkeys and humans.
“Is something wrong Major?”
“No, its just… I didn’t expect you to be called ponies is all.” Celestia raised an eyebrow to that.
“Why wouldn’t you expect us to be called ponies…” Before it clicked that the translation spell may have found a translation for ponies in their language. “Wait have you met other Equines before?”
“Sort of...” Celestia reeled from the implications, if these humans were correct in the assumption she overheard earlier about theirs being an alien world and not simple hyperbole, then that could only mean that there is extraterrestrial Equine out there! This discovery would be tremendous, she couldn’t help but let her mind wonder about how exotic and interesting they must be.
“Um, Princess Celestia?” Celestia was snapped back to reality, embarrassed to realize that she must’ve been mumbling out loud in her excitement.
“Sorry it’s just this is amazing! I would love to hear all about them!” Chaos’s response to that was to avoid eye contact, how could he tell her that her assumptions were most likely wildly inaccurate. Celestia’s joy was curbed however when Chaos didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm.
“Sorry of course, we can talk about that later. So where are you and your crew from?” From listening in on their conversations, she knew they suspected that this wasn’t their world, she just didn’t know why yet.
“We’re from the United States of America. Have you heard of it?”
“No, I can’t say I have,” Chaos let out a sigh at that.
“I suppose that's not too much of a surprise given everything we've seen so far." At Celestia's curious expression he decided to elaborate. "Most, if not all people on our world have heard about our country, and most could probably pinpoint it on a map." Chaos lapsed in silence as a disturbing thought crossed his mind. "That’s what seems weird here, relatively speaking I guess, my crew and I are shocked by this whole situation. You, however, seem to be taking this very well. Too well, in fact. If I was a betting man, my money would be on you expecting us to come here.” Celestia didn’t understand were he was going with this but let him continue anyway.
“I could see some strange portal opening on our world, as far out as that sounds, especially with all those myths surrounding the Bermuda Triangle. But to end up in a world filled with life? What do you suppose the chances of that are? Or how our arrival just so happened to correspond with an invasion of your city? A bit too convenient don’t you think, perhaps you brought us here? It would be a clever tactic, use some aliens to distract your enemy at the precise moment you plan on launching a counter-attack, pretty ingenious if you ask me.”
Celestia had heard plenty of conspiracy theories surrounding her reign, but this one was so out there that she couldn’t help but chuckle despite herself.
“I think I’m missing a few things about your arrival here. Did you arrive near the skies of Canterlot?”
“No, I would say the city was about twenty to twenty-five miles away from where we ended up, but we still saw it soon enough.”
“But you could have missed it right?”
“I suppose that could've happened, but it didn’t.”
“And when you saw it, did something force you to fly here?”
“Well no, but who wouldn’t investigate a city surrounded by a bubble?”
“Let’s say you're right, that I can open portals to other worlds, and that I did bring you here to provide a distraction to the changelings. Why wouldn’t I open the portal above Canterlot? Why would I take the chance in you flying by without spotting it, or another on you possibly choosing to keep your distance? The real question is if I could create portals, why would I not just use that power on the changelings? Use it to send them somewhere else to end the invasion before the changelings had a chance to break through Shining Armor’s shield spell?” The longer Celestia spoke the more wind escaped from Chaos’s sails, everything had just gotten to him, and he felt a little ashamed that he had jumped straight to baseless allegations. The last thing she said though caught his attention.
“Did you say shield spell? As in spell spells? Like magic?” Celestia was confused why he would add so much emphasis on magic but responded anyway.
“That’s correct.” Her succinct answer grated on his nerves.
“If you think I’m gullible enough to believe in magic then this conversation’s over.” Celestia and Swift Stroke couldn’t help but puzzle at how quickly the conversation had turned once again. Chaos was already turning on his heel while motioning to his crew to leave when Celestia called out to him.
“Major wait!” Chaos stopped to cast a wayward glance back at Celestia. “If you don’t believe in magic then what did you think it was?”
“Some sort of advanced technology, obviously.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint, but Equestria doesn’t have any technology advanced enough to replicate a shield spell. I’m not sure why you don't believe in magic, but would you at least give me a chance to show you some?” Truthfully Chaos didn't want to, he was tired and this encounter and conversation had done nothing to ease his rising irritation at the situation. But for all that, he couldn’t find it in himself to shoot down her chance to explain herself or really go through with turning his back on what might be the only convenient ally here.
“Very well, you have my attention, Princess.” Sighing, Celestia dropped the cloak spell she had placed to cover up her magical signature. Not wanting to startle the humans that didn’t believe in magic she decided on a simple levitation spell.
Chaos watched as a golden shimmer of light, the same as the color he had seen across the window of the aircraft earlier, dance along her horn. He wasn’t exactly impressed until he saw that same glow cover her crown before the damned thing just floated off the top of her head towards him. The light shows a nice touch, but I’ve seen this trick before. When the crown stopped floating in front of him he gave a lackadaisical swat above it, expecting to hit a string. When his hand felt no purchase he rolled his eyes before waving both arms on either side of the floating crown. When that failed he just started flailing his arms all around it. Can’t seem to find the damn string on this blasted thing. Celestia couldn’t help but smile at the silliness of watching Chaos flail his arms all about her crown.
Chaos stopped after a minute of flailing his arms to no avail. Now he was running his fingers through the golden shimmer surrounding the crown, he flinched when he first felt it. It was like a dull warmth that sent tingles up his fingers into his hands. Okay...weird enough, but that doesn't mean anything. Ready to get this over with he grasped the crown with his hands before pulling it closer to himself for inspection.
Celestia watched the Major take her crown, letting go of her magic when he had a handle on it.
“Princess.” Swift Stroke hissed.
“It’s fine Lieutenant, I would not have used my crown if I cared about him inspecting it.” She whispered back to him.
“He’s insulted you, and now you let him get his grubby paws all over the crown. This is outrageous.” Celestia sighed before whispering back.
“They might be from another world, Lieutenant, one possibly without magic. I’m willing to look past a few hiccups from creatures obviously confused and scared by our world. Do you honestly think either of us would be better off in that situation? Besides, this isn’t my worst first encounter with another species by far, and I’m still fairly optimistic about the possibility of us becoming friends with each other.”
“If you say so, Princess.” He hissed. Celestia didn’t bother responding, instead, she made a mental check of his attitude for the rather lengthy conversation she would be having with him later in private. Chaos spoke up, derailing her train of thought on the matter.
“Alright Princess, I give up, how’d you do it?” As he said that he handed the crown back out towards her, she let her magic take hold of it and levitated it back to its rightful spot on her head before continuing.
“I know you might not want to hear it, but magic, a simple levitation spell to be precise.”
“I don’t think you're going to get me to believe in magic just because you can do a parlor trick.”
“Perhaps you’d humor me for another spell then?”
“Why not?” With his consent, she thought real hard about what might be a good spell to get him to believe her. She rubbed her chin in thought about what to use, her first thought was to display how she could move the Sun around. But she quickly dismissed that as too showy, not to mention the alarm it might cause to not just the humans, but the world at large. A lightbulb came on in the form of the translation spell, she considered it doubtful that most spells affecting the environment would break their deep-seated disbelief, but perhaps a show of magic's ability to affect their individual person would be enough to get the ball rolling. So what better way to show she wasn’t lying about magic than to display to Chaos that he wasn’t even conversing with her in his native language.
“Chaos, I’ll need you for a demonstration of this, also I need to come clean about something. When you and your crew first came out here I used a spell to increase the range of my hearing, but what met me was nothing but an indistinguishable language. So I cast a translation spell on you and your crew, right now the medium we're using to converse is our language, Equestrian. I’m sorry about that, and I would normally never cast a spell on someone without their consent, but I felt it was far better to be safe than sorry.” Chaos couldn’t help but smile at how ludicrous this all sounded, but decided to humor her anyway.
“Alright so we are speaking your language, where do I come in?”
“Just tell one of your crew to start talking, and then I’ll drop my translation spell on you.” Chaos looked to Story before gesturing with his hands towards him.
“You heard the Princess. Tell us a story, Story.” The plump engineer couldn't help but beam a smile as he launched into his favorite pass time.
“Alright, so about three years back I went out to the woods with my boys, right?” Celestia had now charged the dispel, and was waiting for Story to continue. “So there we were -andozoril torein zos tuul horthillo por versil cristum o eluundil tii zorchueil.”
“Story? What the hell man are you having a stroke?” Chaos spun back to Celestia, eyes wide at the realization that she had been telling the truth. “Celestia?”
“Avuubeid tuul lorma annurn zar zos iuithannersi.” Celestia responded while holding up a hoof. Celestia’s horn glowed bright for a second before dimming.
“Sorry Major, I didn’t think that would upset you so much. But do you believe me now?” Chaos was slightly shaking.
“Oh buck, this is unreal.” Chaos spun to face his crew. “What happened? Could you guys understand me?”
Struggle just shared a concerned look with Story before speaking up. “Ugh yeah, why wouldn’t we be able to understand you?”
“Because I couldn’t understand you! Or her!” As he pointed to Celestia. “Wait. Why could they understand me, but I couldn’t understand them?”
“Because you were speaking your native language. The spell translates your language into Equish, as well as allows the one the spells cast on to understand it. It doesn’t get rid of the target's ability to grasp their own language, however.”
“So we only think we’re speaking English right now?”
“Precisely.” Chaos closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.
Alright Josh, it’s okay. It’s a lot to take in, magic's real. Other worlds with life are real now too...and so are random interplanetary portals...and talking alien ponies. No, stop, that’s not helping. Okay, focus on what's still sane and normal, still got the plane. Gravity seems pretty normal, still a sun in the blue sky. Fluffy white clouds, and green grass beneath my feet. Got my crew too, my crew… And now I’ve totally lost it in front of them. Right, no big deal, I've seen plenty of insane things deployed. With an explosive sigh Chaos opened his eyes again to the insanity of the world. Since when have I let insanity let me lose my cool before. I’m Chaos baby, I live for insanity.
“Are you alright Major?” Celestia asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine, just had to sort through all that for a second. Just a lot to take in at once, I’m fine now, really.” Chaos looked to his crew.
“Alright guys you're up next, the sooner we accept the fact that this 'magic' thing is real, the sooner we can get down to business."
Celestia had just spent the last few minutes simultaneously dispelling and recasting the translation spell on the humans to much the same effect. Chaos had insisted on his Lieutenant going first, his reaction had been much the same as Chaos. After a while Chaos managed to calm him down before asking Celestia to do the same to Story. The last one Celestia had cast her spell on was Struggle, who had tried to insist that ‘it was cool, and that he would just take their word for it’, Chaos, however, wasn’t having it and made Celestia dispel it anyway. Surprisingly Struggle had been the calmest about it all, even motioning for her to leave it off for a bit longer while he laughed at how the others were talking.
“So do you want me to dispel the translation on your Captain as well?” Chaos shook his head as he responded.
“No, I think we can save that for later. Speaking of which, I feel bad that we haven’t gotten him medical attention yet. I doubt my superiors would understand, but after a day like today, I'm willing to bend the rules a little. I hope your offer still stands Princess.” Celestia couldn’t help but smile, there were still plenty of questions to ask. But there would be time enough for that later.
“Of course it does Major.” Celestia hadn’t seen a smile so sincere come from Chaos the whole time she'd talked with him. Chaos gestured for Story to come over.
“Story I want you to go with Papa Hotel to get him medical treatment.”
“Sounds good to me.” Story responded in an incredibly chipper tone. The Major’s statement, however, caused Celestia to cock her head a bit to the side. Did he think she hadn’t invited all of them to come?
“Of course my invitation extends to your whole crew Major.”
“I appreciate that Princess, I really do.” He paused in speaking to glance back at the plane. “But I can’t leave the aircraft behind.”
“I see... quite a dilemma indeed. So you call it an aircraft?”
“Yep. Why, what would you call it?”
“I don’t know if you saw them, but we have a few flying vessels ourselves that we call airships.”
“Must have missed ‘em, but if they're anything like the Airships back on Earth, then an aircraft is a completely different classification of flying machine.” Celestia couldn’t help but look a little bit harder at the aircraft now, the realization sinking in that not a single thing on it was powered by magic. It must be an amazing feat of engineering, one that she would love to hear more about. That’s when the idea struck her to make a compromise with them. If they didn’t want to leave it behind, they could take it with them to Canterlot. It would save her the trouble of explaining that she needed them to move it anyway since it would undoubtedly cause a disturbance to the rail line.
“Major?”
“Hmm?”
“Would you accept my invitation to Canterlot if I allowed you to bring the aircraft too?” To that, Chaos chuckled.
“I would if I had any idea about how to get the darn thing up there.” To that Celestia merely smiled as she pointed to her horn.
“I can use magic, remember?”
Struggle was watching the scenery drift slowly beneath him as the aircraft gained altitude. He was holding onto a crossbeam for support, mere inches from the end of the plane’s ramp. In all truthfulness, he should have been wearing a restraint harness or parachute next to any open door in flight, but rules, as they say, were meant to be broken. And there was nothing like the rush of adrenaline he was getting right now. It’s the reason he became a flyer, all in the name of conquering his greatest fear, heights. Truth be told it still scared the hell out of him, but that’s why he was still doing it, and why he was inches away from the edge with nothing but a hand on a beam for support. The fear made him feel so alive, and the adrenaline was just another high to be chased.
But like all highs, they never last. As the thousand foot drop was replaced by the ground only a few hundred feet below, he decided instead to take in the details of the city. It was impressive to say the least, as he got his first up-close glimpse of it, stylized spiraling towers some with purple painted stripes running up the length of them. Most towers and buildings sporting golden roofs with enough sunlight reflecting off the top of them to make his eyes hurt. It definitely had a sense of wonder and magic to it that would make most tourist cities on Earth envious.
Giving his corneas a rest, he took his eyes off the city, interested now instead on the slowly approaching world below. Celestia hadn’t been kidding when she mentioned there was room enough in her castle gardens for the gunship. There was enough room to fit at least two more gunships where they were about to touch down by his estimation. Of course, that would be at the cost of at least a few dozen flower beds. Where she was putting them down now, however, the only sacrifice would be to the grass gods. A shame too, since he had never seen a more well-manicured lawn in person.
Celestia had set them down so soft that he hadn’t even realized they’d hit dirt until the golden glow disappeared. He was quick to grab the chocks, letting the pilot know he was going off comms.
“Got to say that was mighty impressive.” Struggle said as he adjusted the straps on his backpack, waiting for the rest of the crew to grab their gear and assist Papa off the plane.
“It’s was nothing, Airman.” Struggle grimaced at that. He hated being referred to by rank, as it meant he was either in deep shit, or someone was being condescending towards him.
“Please Princess, just call me Struggle.”
“How about Jake?”
“The only people who call me that are family and before you ask, I hate my last name. The definition of the word drudge was a serious point of aggravation for me throughout training. Struggle, however, is the only name that I’ve earned, and I’m very proud of it.” Celestia was a bit disappointed at that but was not surprised that he had been mocked by his peers for his last name.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Struggle.” Struggle just waved his hand around in response, before glancing back to the aircraft.
“Yeah yeah, it’s in the past and all that. What’s taking those guys so long?” Celestia was also unsurprised when he shrugged off her sympathy, she had dealt with stallions and soldiers for centuries. Most like Struggle would get defensive and change topics at the first sign of sympathy. Despite all that time, she still didn’t understand why they considered an act of empathy to be a sign of weakness on their part.
Struggle and Celestia waited with her guards for a few more minutes before the other humans appeared from within the jowls of the metal beast. Celestia was actually surprised when they emerged, the rest of the humans including Papa had changed out of their unfortunately ugly camo uniforms into another set of clothes.
“Awe no fair! Why didn’t you tell me we could change into civilian clothes?” Chaos looked up from helping Papa down the ramp.
“Because you get first shift watching the aircraft.” Struggle bit back a snide remark only because they had company, before resigning himself to his fate of watching a parked aircraft for hours.
“Alright Papa, Story’s going to take you to get taken care of, alright?”
“Sounds good Josh,” Papa muttered back to him. With a nod, Celestia called a guard over.
“Take these two humans to the medical wing. Have a guard posted there and spread the word that we will be having a few more guests in the castle.” The guard snapped to attention before turning to the two in question.
“Follow me, please.”
“Now that that is taken care of, I believe I have just enough time to give you a brief tour before the preparations for a wedding I must attend are complete. Just one thing, for now, I ask that you leave any weapons you have with the aircraft. At least until any excitement about your presence dies down around here.”
“Since I already had Co leave his weapon, I believe that is acceptable.”
Celestia smiled. “Right this way, gentlecolts.” The majority of her guard followed suit, except for the red-plumed guard who stopped just long enough to pick two volunteers to help Struggle guard the plane.
Struggle watched them depart towards the castle till they faded from view around a hedge maze. Sighing, he threw his bag on the ramp, before letting out a depressed sigh. I hope someone sends me some food. Sliding himself onto the ramp he noticed his hands were had started shaking. Bringing them closer to his face, he observed just how bad they were trembling. Just great, and I’m about to get one of those headaches.
Chaos silently listened as Celestia regaled him with tales of important landmarks within the castle gardens as they walked. Chaos’ attention was caught by Celestia stopping before a seemingly ancient marble sculpture. It obviously depicted royalty if the scepter and crown didn’t give it away.
“This is one of my favorite statues in the garden. This is a sculpture of one of the descendants from an ancient Royal family that came to Equestria. Princess Ruby Platinum was the last of the main branch of her royal line. She did a great deal of work cementing relations between the three tribes of ponies after the Windigos finally disappeared. The Hearth’s Warming story unrealistically romanticizes how quickly all three tribes were able to set aside their differences. If the myths surrounding her life are to be believed, then she’s something akin to a tragic heroine. Rumor has it she loved a commoner, that alone would have been scandalous in her day. But he was also said to have been an Earth Pony.”
While he found the story fascinating, Chaos certainly felt he was missing a lot of context. However, not wanting to spoil Celestia’s enthusiasm he urged her to continue.
“Knowing what the potential ramifications could be, Princess Ruby set aside her own personal desires for the betterment of pony kind. She was said to have been a great beauty as well, she could have had her pick of suitors, yet she never married or had children. I, myself, like to believe her love for her mystery stallion would never allow her to take another.”
“I take it she was something of a mentor to you, Princess?” Chaos said.
Chaos didn’t know what he said, but it was the first time he had seen Celestia frown since they’d gotten to Canterlot.
“Unfortunately no… She died almost a century before I came to power. However, I think that only makes me admire her more, she was one of the first ponies to envision a truly unified Equestria. One where the three tribes didn’t simply tolerate each other, but where they lived, laughed and loved together. She was truly a mare ahead of her time, though I never knew her, I hope I’ve made her proud.” Celestia chuckled daintily before she threw in a pondering thought, "perhaps she's a personal hero of mine because I never got to meet her."
Chaos didn’t know what to say to that, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence as Celestia once again lead him and Co on. Celestia only broke the silence to point out other monuments.
However, his attention wavered as he looked beyond the hedge maze that now mostly hid the gunship, his gunship. A thousand doubts flooded through his mind about the moves he had made. What would his superiors think? How would his mentor, Heavy Metal, have handled things? What if he had just signed his crew, as well as himself, up for torture and imprisonment and the end to wherever this road led?
These thoughts and more swirled around his head as he stared at the gray tail of the aircraft, reminiscent of a giant shark fin rising above a sea of green. It stuck out like a sore thumb, an artificial conglomeration of sheet metal, steel, and paint dominating the natural world around it. A chill raced down his spine as the plane's name crossed his mind, as well as his predicament. Superstitious nonsense, it’s just a name, nothing more. Besides she’s seen me through plenty of missions.
His thoughts were derailed as he felt something hard make a light rap on his arm, only to turn and discover it was Celestia’s hoof. Snapping back to reality he realized he’d almost walked off the dirt path they’d been following.
“Sorry Princess Celestia, I guess I got lost in thought there.”
She simply smiled before motioning with her head for him to follow. When they had started walking again, Celestia spared only a single glance back in the direction of the statue Chaos had almost walked up to. It may have been roped off now, but she made a mental note to move Discord’s statue to a more secure location while her human guests were here.
“So Major, a bit for your thoughts?” Celestia said.
“That’s an oddly similar saying to one we have back on Earth. As for what I’m thinking...I don’t know; I’m just wondering whether I’ve made a good decision since I got here. Sure according to regulation I know I couldn’t run once you found us. It’s just...I guess I’m just apprehensive about this whole...” Chaos waved his hands in small circles, “thing.” Celestia just hummed quietly before falling into a short contemplation as they walked.
“I… think I understand Major, but I assure you I will do all in my power to safeguard your charges. I know that probably doesn't do much to allay your fears, but in time I hope you’ll come to trust me and my little ponies. After today’s events, a friendship with a new species might do wonders to quell any creeping elements of xenophobia in my citizens.”
A silence lingered in the air as Chaos kicked up a bit more dust from the dirt path than was necessary before responding.
“I’ll just have to take your word for it, won't I?”
“I suppose, for now, trusting the good in each other is all that either of us can do.”
Story sat a few inches away from Papa, the rhythmic beat of a heart monitor singing in the background. The pain had finally overtaken the adrenaline and the only way they had quieted Papa was by forcibly inserting a wooden stick in his mouth layered in cloth and fastened to the back of his neck. To say that he was uneasy with restraints being placed on one of his few comrades on an alien world was an understatement. Story tried to ignore the restraints as he studied the soft floral pattern of the medical gown that replaced the olive drab colors of Papa's multi-camo uniform. Story was at least grateful that the gown covered his upper thigh… and other areas.
“Story, was it?” asked the unicorn sitting across the bed studying his comrade's chart. As an affirmation Story only nodded his head.
“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Sure thing, umm, Doc?”
“Name’s Bedside Manner. Anyways, do you know if the patient has any allergies, magical or otherwise?”
“Umm, I don’t know… actually, wait a sec.” Story rummaged through the bag next to the chair Chaos had told him to grab. After unzipping the top of the book bag and rummaging through several different layers of paperwork he finally stumbled on the red mobility folders. Finding Papa’s, he picked the only thing he needed out of it before replacing the folder in the bag, making sure the name matched up he then passed it to the doctor.
“There you go Doc, it's his medical folder.”
To that, the stallion raised an eyebrow before grabbing it in his magic and unceremoniously tearing the seal off of the brown envelope. The doctor flipped through several pages before clearing his throat.
“I can’t read any of this,” Doctor Manner said.
“Did that spell whatcha-ma-bob not work on our writing?” Story said.
“Ah so you're under a translation spell, that would make sense. And sadly no, that’s not how that type of spell works.”
“Want me to read it for you?”
Bedside Manner seemed to think on the question for a second before shaking his head.
“No, just read through it and tell me anything that seems important to know. While you do that I’m going to draw some blood and run a few tests.” The envelope was quickly returned to Story so Bedside could set upon other tasks.
“Sure thing Doc.” Story replied, only to find the Doctor was no longer paying attention to him as Bedside prepared a needle.
“And the mural to your right is a depiction of me and my sister's defeat of Discord.”
Chaos gave it a glance along with a low whistle to feign approval, to be honest, he didn’t really get why all these murals seemed to be triumphs over figurative villains. Although the mural in front of him was rather impressive, a creature, he could only assume was this “Discord.” Was seated upon an elevated throne. His extended paws covered in strings played puppeteer to ponies and fractured pieces of land. The darker color schemes of the mural certainly added to the foreboding atmosphere it was meant to portray. The mural next to it showed Celestia, and who he could assume was her sister sending a rainbow at this Discord fellow, with a ring that emanated from the two restoring the land in front of it to normal.
While Chaos was busy scrutinizing the window panes, Co was taking everything he heard from Celestia at face value. And with half of the room being dedicated to defeating world-shaking villains, Co was finding himself increasingly nervous about being on this world.
“Psst, Major,” Co whispered.
“Yeah, Co?” Chaos returned in his own hushed tone.
“Do you... Do you think our plane's munitions could take down Discord? What about the...” Whatever Co was about to say was ended with a sharp elbow to the ribs from Chaos. Letting out a low hiss, Co shot a questioning look to him. The only response was a pointed finger that danced between the heads of each of the ponies in front of them. After a few seconds Co got the idea.
The conversation and the tour had gotten deathly quiet as they all silently walked forward, but it wasn’t the silence only broken by footfalls and hooves that was the obvious reason for Chaos’ reaction. Instead, it was the ears of the pony guards, as well as Celestia; a few of the less subtle guards had their ears fully tilted to the humans behind them. The others, along with Celestia, seemed to be struggling to resist eavesdropping, but from the twitching in their ears, it was easy to puzzle out they too had been listening.
Digging his phone out of his pocket, Chaos turned it on silent before typing out a quick message in the notes app.
Don’t discuss the aircraft. I’ll fill them in later as the situation demands.
Struggle stood rigid and indecisive about his next move in the center of the gun deck. His head slightly pounded with every course of blood in his veins and hot saliva pooled in his mouth, only further adding to his new queasiness. He made up his mind and went for his bag on the ramp. Unzipping the top, he shifted through a few layers of his packed clothes to stare at the packaged bottle underneath. For a split second, he thought about opening it to get to the liquor inside before dismissing the idea and instead closed up the pouch after retrieving a white powder wrapped up in a paper sleeve from a smashed blue box.
Unfolding the paper carefully, he dumped its contents into his mouth before cringing at the potent flavor as he chased it with water from his Camelback straw.
‘Hopefully those Goody’s can exorcise that headache long enough for me to get something done.’
“What are you doing?”
The voice from behind Struggle nearly sent him flying out of his skin, making him devolve into a coughing fit as he whirled around on the voice. Standing behind him on the ramp were two of those pony guards.
“Woah, didn’t mean to startle you.”
Struggle wanted to throttle the two ponies in front of him while he hacked up a lung, after a few more moments the coughing subsided enough to where he could speak.
“What am I doing? The more important question is what do you think you're doing?”
The two guards simply exchanged a glance before returning their attention to Struggle. “Guarding you of course.”
“And I’m guarding the aircraft, something that doesn’t involve allowing unauthorized personnel to wander onto it whenever they feel like.”
“That sounds reasonable; we can help with that.” Struggle restrained the urge to scream, but before he could get a word in, the guard on the left that had been talking continued.
“By the way, my name’s Silver Shield, and my quiet partner that you disarmed earlier is Crescent Sentry.”
The introduction elicited an eye roll from Struggle. “Nice to meet you; I’m Struggle.” He responded in his most sarcastic, saccharine voice.
Before he could continue, Crescent decided to break her silence. “So what was that substance you just...ingested?”
“Medicine.” His statement saw both equines throw a foreleg over their mouths.
“You don’t have some strange alien illness do you?”
Struggle really thought about telling them he did, just to get them out of his hair, but decided causing a panic wasn’t in his best interest. “It was just a painkiller, for my headache.” Struggle said causing them both to drop their forelegs before showing varying degrees of embarrassment. “Look, now that we’ve gotten this meet and greet out of the way, I really need both of you to exit the aircraft. I don’t want to imagine how bad my headache will be if Chaos finds out I couldn’t even keep unauthorized personnel out of the plane for thirty minutes.”
“We’re just following orders. We can’t exactly keep a good eye on you from out there.”
‘Apparently conflicting orders is all this day needed to make it better.’ Struggle just stood there rubbing his temples in an attempt to quell the raging dragon in his skull. “Are you open to a compromise?” Struggle said, causing Silver to cock an eyebrow.
“Depends on what it is.”
“So... last thing I need is you guys following me around right this second. You see that ramp I’m assuming you came in through?” To their nod, he continued, “One of you post out back there, and the other post at the other entrance out front of the left side of the aircraft. That way you know I can’t get out of the aircraft without you seeing me leave, even if you can’t see me while I’m working. Before you ask what the compromise is, once I’m done I’m going to lock up those entrances and join you outside. You get to keep an eye on me, and I know no one can slip into the aircraft. So do we have a deal?” There were, of course, other ways to get out of the aircraft, but Struggle didn’t find it necessary to clue them in on that. They both seemed to mull it over before whispering to each other and nodding.
“You have yourself a deal, Mr. Struggle,” Crescent said.
“Just Struggle.”
“Right, you have yourself a deal, Mr. Just Struggle.”
...You know what, just roll with it.
“...and these will be your accommodations in the meantime. I hope they're to your liking,” finished Celestia.
Chaos, taking the pause as an invitation, decided to open the double doors. The sun, cascading into the room from the large floor-to-ceiling windows opposite the entrance, practically blinded him with the light that reflected off the polished white marble flooring. Taking a few tentative steps inside of the room, Chaos and Co couldn’t help but be blown away by the sheer decadence of their new sleeping quarters. The room’s décor was largely purple with gold trim, adding a sense of majesty to it.
A crystal chandelier hung from the incredibly tall ceilings, and a large circular bed seemed to be set into the floor, only rising above it by a few inches. From what Chaos could tell the bedding seemed to be silk. If he had a harem, he could imagine a good deal of them fitting onto the large, posh bed. A sofa was pushed up against the wall on his right and looked big enough to sleep another of their number.
“So, it looks like we’ll be bunking together,” Chaos said after turning to Celestia.
“That’s a bit forward, don’t you think Major? I mean we did just meet,” Celestia said with a sly smile.
After a brief moment of confusion, Chaos paled at what he had said.
“No, I ugh, I’m so sorry Princess. I didn’t mean for you to think I was insinuating that you and I…”Chaos stammered before being cut off by Celestia.
“Relax Major, part of being friends is knowing when to poke fun at one another. I knew what you meant, I was just using the opportunity to make a joke at your expense. Anyways, you won't need to be sleeping with anyone, at least, that isn’t of your own prerogative.”
Deciding to just glance over most of the conversation lest his face get any redder he decided to respond.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you haven’t even seen the adjacent room.”
“Oh?”
“There are two smaller beds in there and another couch. Beyond that is a lounge, if I’m not mistaken about the layout of the rooms in this wing.”
“You're not wrong, your Highness. Besides the bath joined to this room, there is also a smaller bath connected to the adjacent one,” responded a guard off hoof.
“Well, I know it’s not much, Major, but I hope in the interim that this room shall suffice. At least until some vacancies clear up from all the guests we’re housing for the Royal wedding.”
“I couldn’t ask for more, thank you, Princess.” Celestia was about to respond before a scroll manifested from seemingly nowhere.
“Ah, it seems things are ready to commence. I hate to leave so suddenly, but as a presiding official, I’d hate to be late. Before I go though, there are a few things I need to cover. While I’m gone I’d ask that you limit yourselves to this room. I won't tell you that you can’t leave, but you would be doing me a favor by keeping your presence to a minimum for now.”
“I think we can agree to that, what about Story and Struggle though?”
“I’ll send a guard along to ask them to do the same.”
“Alright, what else?”
“When I get back I’d like a meeting with you, Major, as well as with my sister.”
“Well, I’ve come this far. Besides, who am I to refuse a Royal audience?”
“Glad to hear it,” Celestia beamed before promptly leaving.
After closing the doors, Chaos turned to Co.
“Best get some sleep, Co, you’re getting next shift to relieve Struggle when Celestia gets back.”
Struggle had managed to get through sealing up the aircraft. Luckily things weren’t as bad as he would have initially guessed. He’d checked and rechecked the plane, but all he’d had to really rack his brain on was figuring out fancy ways of saying huge gouge in the side of the aircraft, and depleted booster reservoir, so he could write it up in the forms. Luckily in surveying the damage he only found a few hydraulic lines that were completely cut through, which meant a competent welder and some sheet metal could get them back in business on that front. As for the engine, well that would have to be Story’s project.
As it stood though, Struggle couldn’t figure which was in worse shape: him or the aircraft, as he once again purged another round of bile from his stomach into the shrubbery near the bench he had been resting on a few seconds prior. One of the guard ponies rubbed his back in an attempt to make him feel better.
“You sure we don’t need to go get a doctor?” Silver Shield asked for what must have been the tenth time.
“Yes, I’m f-,” he was interrupted as a dry heave found his lips, “fine. I’m sure I’ll get a replacement soon enough and then I can go lie down.”
In the distance, Struggle heard a bunch of cheering.
“Sounds like the wedding is wrapping up,” Silver remarked, eliciting a sigh from Crescent.
“Too bad, you know... I was supposed to be on that detail,” Crescent said wistfully.
“What, no way! How’d you manage to get the detail of the century?”
“I did a few favors for Shining Armor a couple years back when he was a Lieutenant. Good stallion, never forgets the little ponies.”
Having seen the last of his breakfast Struggle stood back up, before making his way back to the bench and his M-4 he’d grabbed out of the weapon box of the aircraft.
“You good now?” Silver asked.
“How many times do I have to tell you I’m fine?”
“Sheesh, he’s just trying to be friendly. Are all you humans so snippy?” asked Crescent.
“Only the ones who hate repeating themselves.” In the distance Struggle heard a loud boom, sending him skyrocketing out of the bench with his M-4. “The Tartarus was that!” he screamed before a tidal wave of colors seemed to be spreading across the sky.
“Oh, awesome! I heard that filly from the best young fliers competition would be here to perform a sonic rainboom, but I didn’t believe it. What was her name again?” asked Silver.
“Rainbow Dash. Honestly, Silver, you think you’d remember an Element of Harmony.”
“Can you guys stop speaking in gibberish and tell me what in the world that is!” Struggle exclaimed.
“It’s a sonic rainboom; no need to worry. Just enjoy it.”
The next few moments were spent watching the rainboom fade away into the horizon before the silence was broken.
“Oh, before I forget. Do you humans name your airships like ponies do?” Silver asked.
“Of all the questions you could ask, that's what you want to ask an alien?” which only elicited a nod from him. Struggle just shrugged before responding.
“It’s Bad Omen.”
“Wait,” Silver said, as he used a hoof to scratch under his helm, “Is it a bad omen to name it, it's named Bad Omen, or is it a bad omen to give strangers its name?”
“No, the plane's name is Bad Omen.”
To that, both guards turned to each other before laughing.
"Just admit it, you guys couldn't think of a cooler name could you?” Silver remarked.
Not even a full day and I think I’m over this place.
Celestia was glowing after watching her niece and Shining Armor exchange vows and kiss to the cheers of her subjects. To say that she lived vicariously through her subjects would be an understatement, after all, living for over a thousand years tended to make one rather susceptible to losing sight of what was truly important. Her hooves clacked rhythmically against the cobblestone street beneath her as she strolled leisurely down one of the main roads of her city. Sure, she could have gone straight to the reception, but she found herself wanting to survey the damage brought forth by the aftermath of the invasion. The streets were bustling, filled everywhere with ponies who were still celebrating, they stopped briefly in their revelry to politely bow to her as she passed, all the while giving her space. She suspected that the excitement had taken its toll and that the streets would be mostly barren before the reception concluded. After all, tomorrow would be an early start, a city wide cleanup for not only an invasion but a rather extensive celebration as well.
As it stood, there seemed to be little to no major infrastructural damage she could spot. Potholes in streets as well as the occasional gouge taken out of an unfortunate building, but in the grand scheme of things they could be repaired within a few weeks. She counted her blessings that there were no fatalities and only a few serious injuries. While particularly troubled by the invasion, she couldn't be anything but relieved at the fact that it wasn't like the changelings to seriously injure potential sources of love, otherwise, today could have been much worse. Instead of being a tragedy, today would still go down as a victory, a monument to Ponydom’s perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds.
The true victory here, of course, was that of Shining Armor and Cadence’s love for one another, and yet her mood soured at the thought of her own defeat. Ponies wouldn’t hold it against her, she even doubted the story of her being promptly defeated would be anything other than a well kept Canterlot secret. It was a testament to her subject’s admiration and respect for her that they wouldn’t even gossip on their ruler's ineptitude. Still, she knew that those who had witnessed it would have their faith in her forever shaken.
She dipped her head letting out a sigh, a dozen scenarios raced through her mind about what she could have done better. Obviously announcing her attack to Chrysalis was a terrible idea in hindsight, she couldn't help but cringe at her own stupidity on that one. How many times had she mocked a villain with her sister after a battle had been won because of their incessant monologuing or an announced attack, only for her to make their own mistakes? Then there was her hubris in using a channeled attack and engaging in a battle of strength with an unknown foe. In her more than thousand years rule, she had met dozens of enemies who outclassed her in magical power, she knew literally dozens of spells she had adopted for those types of scenarios, and she hadn’t even been able to use a single one because of the nature of a channeling duel.
This is your victory as much as theirs. You persisted in the face of doubt, and your actions led to your being able to bring the real Princess Cadence back to us. Learning to trust your instincts is a valuable lesson to learn.
She felt a twinge of guilt as she remembered her words to Twilight. She knew what she had said was true about finding Cadence. The rest however never truly acknowledged her own fault for not trusting her student, she couldn’t help but feel she’d bare the guilt of turning her back on Twilight so quickly, much longer than the sting of her defeat anyways. She thought she had changed, become a better wiser pony over the millennium, and yet she had done the same thing to Twilight that she had done to Luna.
I betray everypony I care for...
Sure the scenario was different, Luna had expressed her insecurities, and Twilight had expressed her concerns. The outcome, however, was more or less the same, Celestia critically dismissing them, only for Equestria to face near tragedy because of it. Celestia wiped at a few stray tears on her cheek before she had really even realized they were there. The second she knew she was crying she became keenly aware of how quiet it was around her. Breaking from her stupor she slowly raised her eyes hoping that she was alone, only to find a packed street with easily a hundred ponies looking on in concern. Horrified at her own break in decorum she donned her regal mask and a soft smile… Judging by the pitying stares, she was doing a poor job of convincing them she was okay.
A small unicorn filly caught her attention as she broke away from two ponies she could only assume were her parents. She watched as the light orange filly with a pink mane made her way off the sidewalk onto the street towards her. The filly’s trot slowed as she grew closer, seemingly taking care in her approach like she might scare Celestia away like a small woodland creature.
“Hello, there little one. What’s your name?”
“Ambwer Wose.”
“That’s a lovely name you have Amber Rose.” Celestia said softly enough so just the filly could hear her.
Celestia was caught off guard when the little filly practically lunged at her wrapping her tiny hooves around her foreleg.
“Don’ be swad Pwincess, ‘is okay.” Celestia’s heart hitched and a lump formed in her throat at the little ones cute empathy for her. Celestia couldn’t help but use her free hoof to gently embrace her back.
“Thank you my little pony, I certainly needed a hug.” When Celestia pulled from the embrace Amber reached behind her ear to pull out a small white lily before holding it out for Celestia.
“I couldn’t, it's yours Amber.”
“I want you to hwave it Pwincess.” Celestia almost chuckled at the determined look Amber gave her to accept the gift.
“Thank you, I... I’ll treasure it always.” She said, before levitating it behind the ear that wasn’t hidden by her mane. “Now get along to your parents little one.” Satisfied, Amber did a little nod before practically skipping back to her parents, obviously proud of her good deed.
“Cute kid.” Replied a presence near her. Celestia was almost startled before she remembered her guards were with her.
“Yeah, cute…” Grunted Lieutenant Swift Stroke. Deciding to ignore him she responded to the other guard.
“Cute indeed, but let's be off, I’m sure the reception will start soon and I’d rather not be the last one to arrive.”
Celestia smiled as she watched from the back of the Pavilion as the new bride and groom received well wishes from the last of their arriving guests. While not last she certainly hadn’t been first, she’d just gotten a cup of punch before taking up a spot farther in the back to watch over the festivities.
No sooner than the last guest was greeted did Shining Armor whisper something to Cadence. Whatever it was, it was met with a short nod from his bride. After seeing his bride nod her consent Shining Armor proceeded to scan the crowd before his gaze found Celestia, and the pieces of the puzzle fell into place into her mind about what was said. If she had any lingering doubts about what the topic at hoof was, the neutral mask he was wearing erased them.
Not wanting to appear overly concerned she casually sipped on her drink as he made his way through the crowd. Dodging the last of the barriers consisting of his guests he cleared his throat.
“Princess Celestia, may I trouble you for a word in private?” A few of the guests nearby perked up, no doubt formulating possible theories in their minds about what the groom could possibly want to speak to her in private about.
“Of course Shining, why don’t we make our way to the terrace.” He didn't bother responding to her as she turned and trotted to the most secluded part of the Pavilion.
They stopped when they reached the railing of the terrace overlooking the market district of Canterlot.
“So, what did you wish to speak to me about?”
“I have more than a few friends in the Guard, Princess, some of them are here tonight.”
“I’m glad your role as Captain of the Guard hasn’t adversely affected the friendships you made before your commission. But lets cut to the chase Shining, I doubt you called me out here to give me a friendship report like your sister does.” Shining Armor frowned for a second as he seemed to mull over his words before responding.
“My friends told me that you took a contingent of Pegasi out of the city.”
“Your friends are well informed...and correct.”
“And you didn’t bother notifying me?” To the amused glance, Celestia gave him he quickly amended. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but I’m your Captain. How could you leave me in the dark?” The question itself was mirrored by an almost hurt expression plastered on his face. Celestia let out an almost shuddering sigh while massaging the space between her eyes. She already knew what route this conversation would go as soon as she responded.
“I didn’t want to get you involved Shining.” If Shining looked hurt before, he practically looked like a kicked puppy now.
“Do you no longer trust me as your Captain because of today?” She reflexively closed her eyes, before letting out a breath.
“No Shining, not at all. I honestly can’t express how impressed I am with you. Few could withstand mind manipulation spells of the caliber you did for a few hours and still function. Let alone be able to cast a shield to protect Canterlot while under its influence.”
“Then, why?”
“To paraphrase something I once told Twilight, there’s more to a young pony’s life than duty.” To his questioning gaze she went on.
“If I had told you I was taking a contingent of pegasi out of the city what would you have done?”
“I would have insisted on joining you,” Shining said without missing a beat.
“That’s the problem, this day was supposed to be yours and Cadence’s. It should never have been about the Kingdom. What would you have had me do? Steal you away from your recently liberated bride? Had her and Twilight’s friends reassemble a wrecked wedding while the groom went absent in the wake of an invasion? No, you and Cadence had been through enough without adding one more thing that would detract from the joviality of what should have been and still should be the best day of your lives.” Shining paused, before shifting from looking over the city to meet her gaze.
“You could have at least given me the chance to decide for myself what to do.” He responded quietly.
“And I have no doubt what you would’ve decided Captain. Then you would have put me into the precarious position of trying to make you stay. I doubt anything short of threatening to strip you of command would have successfully dissuaded you, and you would have pushed it to that point without a shadow of a doubt. No, I made the choice to leave you in the dark because it was the right thing to do. Because taking the matter out of your hooves altogether was kinder than embarrassing my newest nephew.” A long moment of silence passed between them.
“Can you at least tell me you got that no good Queen?” That was the one thing he had said that caught Celestia off guard. He was under the impression that her little excursion was to round up changelings.
“No… Because I didn’t leave to pursue the changelings.” Her response was met by Shining furrowing his brows.
“Then… What would make you take all of those pegasi?”
“A foreign airship was flying outside of the city. I didn’t know what to make of it, so I took precautions.”
“And?”
“As of today, Equestria has made contact with a new sapient species,” A goofy smile spread across Shining's face. “They call themselves humans.” Celestia closed the gap to lay a hoof on Shining Armor’s shoulder. “Not that I want to cut this short or leave you in the dark again, but I think your new bride is becoming impatient Shining.” Craning his neck he saw Cadence giving him a polite but expectant look.
“Guess this concludes our little pow-wow huh?”
“Indeed, if I don’t get a chance to tell you after the reception, enjoy your honeymoon Shining. Canterlot will be as good as new when you return.”
“Thanks, Princess.” With that, the two went their separate ways from the terrace. One to go enjoy the first dance with his new bride, while the other spotted Twilight and her friends to catch up with.
“So you all don’t mind staying for a few days?” Celestia said.
“Iffin you say you’ve got something important here for us to do, then I reckon we’d be happy to oblige Princess.” Applejack responded.
“Yeah, we’d never leave you hanging!” Exclaimed Rainbow Dash.
Celestia chuckled lightly before responding. “Sadly, there’s no more room in the Castle, but I know a pony I can pull a favor with to get you lodging for the night until we get some vacancy.”
“I can’t wait to hear about this discovery Princess Celestia! Are you sure it has to wait until morning?”
“I’m sure it can wait till morning Twilight.”
“Hello everypony. Did I miss anything?” Luna said after she descended on Celestia and her little impromptu group. She couldn’t help but give Luna a little bit wider smile at her arrival.
Did you ever sister.
“Blueblood.”
Her nephew practically spit out his punch onto the mare he was talking to at the sudden invocation of his name.
“A-a-aunty! What an unexpected surprise! What brings you here?” The mare quietly excused herself at Celestia’s arrival.
“Well, if I’m not mistaken this is my adopted niece's wedding.”
“Oh, oh of course! To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“I have two favors to ask of you Blueblood,” She could already see his ego puffing up in self-importance.
“Of course Aunt Celestia, anything!” If only he knew that these favors wouldn’t win him any brownie points in her book, she doubted he would be as eager to do them then.
“You still have a second estate you don’t use on the South side of the city do you not?”
“Of course, though I admit I don’t frequent it as much as I would like. It has a lovely view, but it is just so remote from the inner city. It’s such a shame, but busy ponies like ourselves rarely get time away from the hustle and bustle of daily life, am I right?” She left his rhetorical question go unanswered. She knew the only reason Blueblood was busy was because he spent most of his time getting hooficures and courting naive young mares.
“Would you mind terribly if a few friends of mine used the estate for the night, their lodging was irrevocably damaged for the duration of their stay.” A lie, but quicker than anything that might get Blueblood to go on a tangent.
“Of course not! I wouldn’t dream of turning away a friend of the crown, especially not while I’m apart of it!”
“Thank you Blue, so I can count on you to send word to expect their arrival at your estate?”
“You have my word.”
“Good, and the other favor nephew… In the morning I’d like you to call an emergency meeting of the council of nobles.”
“Does… Does this mean you’ll be re-instating my position on the council?”
“If you don’t embarrass me again, consider it done.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, I won't let you down!”
“Good, see you in the morning Blueblood.”
Love is in bloom, hmmm hmmm hmmm a handsome groom.
“You seem to be in high spirits sister,” Luna said as they made their way down an empty corridor of Canterlot castle.
“What makes you say that?”
“You haven’t stopped humming that song and bobbing your head to a non-existent ‘beat’ as it ‘were’ since we left the reception,” Luna said while smirking wryly.
“I suppose I am, weddings tend to bolster my spirits.”
“And what of invasions?” Luna replied flatly, eliciting a frown from her sister.
“So you heard?”
“One tends to overhear a great many things at weddings, one would also wish to know why they didn’t get informed from their dear sister before hearing it second hoof.”
“I’m sorry, I was going to tell you. I just didn’t want to spoil the mood of the evening.”
“And yet 'tis already night, perhaps on the Equinox you would have deigned to inform me?”
“It's...It's been a long day. Please, don’t be mad at me.”
“I wouldn’t ‘dream’ of being mad at you. The one pony in the world I love, who suffered a defeat at the hooves of a villain I didn’t even know about until an hour ago. Who didn’t even bother to tell me herself.” Luna spat.
“So you're mad?” Celestia stated.
“....Yes! Of course, I'm mad!”
“I’m sorry, okay? I just didn’t want you to fawn over me like a foal who scraped her knee.”
“So it’s okay for you to coddle me, but whenever we have cause for concern it’s demeaning?”
“That’s, that’s not it sister.”
“Then what is it then?”
“I was ashamed, okay! Is that what you wanted to hear? Some Princess of the Sun I am, letting myself be so caught off guard.” A silence fell upon them as they continued their journey through the corridors of Canterlot Castle.
“Oh, Celestia...”
“Can we… Can we just not.”
“I’m sorry, it just hurts when you keep secrets from me. We were always so close. Before...Before I went away we shared everything, even our greatest shames. Here we are, together at last, and yet, it is as if the gulf between here and the moon still exists between us.” Celestia could only sigh and nod in understanding, as she shared in Luna's sentiment.
“It’s hard Luna, I was alone for so long that I forgot what it was like to be able to trust everything to somepony else like we used to. I guess what they say is true, old habits die hard, I’m so happy that you’re back but in many ways, I’m still the pony I was before your return.”
“I’m sure you’ll adjust, hopefully like I eventually will…” And just like that, the conversation died while the two alicorns ruminated.
“There’s somepony I’d like you to meet.”
“Have I not met enough new ponies today that you’d torture me with yet another?” Celestia couldn’t help but chuckle at the return of her sister's sense of humor.
“It isn’t exactly a pony per say.”
“Oh goody…”
“While I’m glad you're picking up modern vernacular, I’m not sure I like that you’ve picked up on sarcasm as well.”
“Pish posh applesauce sister. We for one like our modern colloquialisms as well as the ‘sarcasm’.”
“So about the people I wish for you to meet.”
“Yes, I’ll behave, why after all this time you still bother to familiarize yourself with the ‘lesser’ races is beyond me.” Celestia shot Luna a disbelieving wide-eyed stare.
“Luna! Lesser races is offensive!”
“But no less the truth, it's common knowledge that ponies are the superior race.”
“Common knowledge perhaps before your...Hiatus, but we have surpassed such obvious bigotry in your absence.” Celestia had planted herself on her hindquarters to use the modern air quotes around ‘common knowledge’ before continuing their walk.
“Is that so? How fared the Griffon Empire in our absence?”
“I think you mean kingdom.”
“Precisely my point, they were an empire when we left.”
“Well that’s not really fair, there were extenuating circumstances, even I thought they would bounce back a few times.”
“Then you mistook the death throes of a declining superpower for more than what they were, and the Minotaurs?”
“Again it's rather complicated, but their wars of succession took their tolls, and piracy in their waters became a significant damper on trade.”
"So you’re saying that of all the greatest kingdoms during my departure only ours remains glorious? What would that tell you?”
“That ours had an immortal ruler to steer it from the jagged edges of the abyss?”
“Perhaps….”
“Do not play Luna, you know better then what you are saying.”
“Of course I jest sister, so what manner of creature would you have me greet at this hour?”
“They are called humans,” Luna appeared to be thinking before shooting her sister a questioning glance.
“I don’t seem to recall a species by this name,” Luna muttered.
“Nor would I expect you to, after the debacle... I saw an object flying outside of the city. Upon investigation, I found five of these humans in an airship of sorts.”
“So another nation has caught up to our more unorthodox methods of air travel? Interesting, but I get the feeling you're leaving something out. Like why I haven’t heard of them before, and more importantly from what land do they hail?”
“Unlike our airships, theirs uses no magic, in fact, they had no real concept of magic. I had to convince them that magic was real.”
“No concept of magic? I find that very hard to believe, no matter how far-flung a species we’ve met, they all use or at least have seen magic in some way shape or form. Again, where exactly are they from?”
“Do you recall Starswirl’s research into theoretical rifts?”
“Why must you beat around the bush?" Getting no reaction Luna continued, "Very well, how could I not, he threw his twilight years away on the idea. In the end, he only made that one mirror to another plane before deeming any further research into the subject too dangerous.”
“Well, I believe our human guests came here through a natural rift that connected our two worlds.” Luna let out a loud snort.
“Starswirl’s journals’ suggested that he never found a natural rift in our world large enough for even a bit to pass through, what you're suggesting would be an extremely unlikely anomaly, not to mention a rift that large would be highly unstable.”
“Perhaps you’re right, but nevertheless I’m certain they’re not of this world Luna. Retrieving Starswirl’s research into rifts might at least help us in finding them a way home, if not a reason for them ending up here.” Celestia said as she guided Luna through a side passage.
“Something to be looked into I suppose. I’ll hold my own reservations for now about their potential alien origins, one of us should at least attempt to remain objective, lest we open ourselves up to deceit. In the very least, I’m looking forward to meeting this new species.”
“Great because we're here.” Interjected Celestia as she nodded to the two guards stationed outside the door to the humans quarters. Making no show of it Celestia rapped her hoof against the door. Celestia waited patiently as she heard muffled sounds from behind the door followed by a shout of ‘be right there.’
Celestia listened to the plodding of an occupant of the room moving towards the door, followed by the metallic clink of a lock being undone. Swinging the door open revealed Chaos standing behind the doorframe with Co staring in her direction seated on a couch.
“Hey Princess was beginning to think you forgot about us,” the lack of formality and casualness in his tone caused Luna to raise an eyebrow. She was used to new dignitaries being unnecessarily… pompous.
“Sorry Major, I sort of lost track of time at the wedding. I hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience,” to this Chaos simply let out a ‘pffft’ noise while rotating his hand, not on the door in a small circle.
“No worries there, Struggle may not be happy but I and Brad have enjoyed the downtime.”
“Brad?” Questioned Luna who had decided she wanted in on the conversation. Chaos who hadn’t noticed her looked to her before turning to Celestia.
“Who’s your friend?” Which elicited Luna to mutter ‘friend’ just loud enough for Celestia to hear.
“This is actually my sister, Princess Luna,” Celestia said as she wrapped a foreleg around Luna pulling her closer to the doorway.
“Nice to meet you, Princess Luna,” he said as he extended a hand. Luna regally and delicately placed a hoof in the proffered hand before Chaos shook it once before letting go.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance Major.”
“Please, just call me Chaos,” his name caused Luna to shoot a quick glance to Celestia before her sister simply shook her head signaling everything was okay.
“So I take it we’re still up for that little chat?” Chaos said.
“Of course,” responded Celestia.
“Then please come in,” Chaos said as he moved away from the door to allow them entrance. “You know it’s a bit odd inviting someone into a room they own.”
“I appreciate the gesture nonetheless,” Celestia chuckled. The Solar guards at the door attempted to follow inside behind the duo before Celestia noticed. “Would you mind waiting outside gentlecolts?” Celestia saw them nod before making their way back to their previous posts, she almost felt bad since she knew they probably just wanted to sate their own curiosity. Following their entrance to the room Chaos quietly closed the door behind them.
“Right, so I imagine we have a lot to talk about,” Chaos stated once he turned from the door.
“Indeed we do,” Celestia said before her gaze flicked across to Co sitting on the couch, “although I had sort of hoped we could converse in private.” Taking the hint Chaos turned to Co.
“Just as well, go relieve Struggle, Brad.” Co shot a glance out of the opened windows into the night sky, seemingly unhappy about his impromptu night shift.
“On it Major.” Sounded Co in a defeated tone before making for the door. Silence lingered while Chaos focused on the two princesses before him, before hearing the door shut behind Co.
Luna watched as the human named Brad slid the door quietly closed as he departed the room.
“Alright let’s talk,” Chaos said breaking the creeping silence and garnering the attention of both sisters.
“Very well but first, I imagine this discussion would be more pleasant if we were seated,” Celestia said as she scanned the room, “Ah, there we are!”
Having found what she was looking for, Celestia beckoned with her wing for Chaos and Luna to follow her to a round table near the tall vaulted windows on the far side of the room. Taking a seat on a small cushion closest to the window, Celestia merely flashed an expectant smile to Chaos before she conjured a small worn white and gold tea set that she carefully set upon the table.
“Do you enjoy tea, Major?” Celestia said as said as she watched Chaos awkwardly adjust himself as he took a seat across from her.
“Sure, although I’m more of a coffee drinker myself, but I am from the South so as long as it’s sweet I’ll enjoy it.” Luna perked up at the mention of coffee.
“Verily? I, myself prefer coffee, perhaps during your time here we could share a cup Major-” Sensing a repeating pattern Chaos cut in.
“You guys really don’t care for my nickname do you?” Luna and Celestia both tensed a little expecting they had done something culturally wrong.
“No, I suppose we do not Major,” Celestia responded after a few awkward moments.
“Then please, just call me Josh, although I’m a little curious about why my nickname and not the others' bothers you. Does it have something to do with that mural you showed me about Discord?” Celestia and Luna shared a glance before Celestia smiled wanly.
“It… certainly, plays a part, but perhaps any discussion of Discord could wait; tonight I wanted to talk about other matters.”
“Just as well, I’ll admit I had a few things I wanted to go over myself.”
“I had thought you might Josh. Before we continue, if there is anything you or your crew find that you need, my staff would be more than happy to provide it for you.”
“I appreciate it, Princess, I might take you up on that…” Anxious to move the conversation along, Chaos drummed his fingers on the table before continuing. “I may not be a real diplomat, and I can’t say I’ve known you long, but even I can tell when someone is stalling. So what is it you really want to discuss?” In response, Celestia sighed before using her magic to pour a cup for the three of them.
“You’re certainly not one for small talk are you?” sensing that it was a rhetorical question Chaos decided not to respond, “I want to know more about your aircraft.”
“Anything specific you’d like to know about it?” Chaos’ congenial expression had descended into a somewhat scowling facade while each word was individually punctuated with the slightest bit of chill that took both Princesses off guard.
Celestia’s mask fell neutral as she pushed forward with a topic she hoped to cross sooner than later, “What military purpose does your aircraft serve?”
Chaos let out a brief sigh before he took a deep whiff of the tea provided by Celestia as he scanned the grand window and the moon beyond it for the right answer. On the one hand, he wanted to keep his cards close to his chest, but as confident as he was in his crew he knew how easy it was for them to let pride slip into discretions realm. He was torn, the majority of his aircraft’s capabilities were no secret to anyone in his world with a search engine, on the other hand, this wasn’t his world.
He couldn’t help but feel the capabilities of his aircraft were inherently dangerous to how his crew would be perceived, and potentially to how they’d be treated going forward. He knew one thing, however, eventually he’d have to come clean by circumstance and that he’d make no friends by not relinquishing at least a bit of the truth.
“Initially all C-130’s were cargo planes, the airframe itself, however, was popular and versatile enough that it didn’t take long for members of the military and private sector to experiment with less... conventional ideas about how to use it.” Chaos stopped for a moment as he watched a few stars twinkle in the moonlit sky.
“And I suppose the munitions I overheard Brad mention were one of the less than conventional additions to these cargo planes,” Celestia mused. To which Chaos simply nodded while he drew a sip from his cup,
“Pray tell, what are these munitions?” Luna asked as she jumped in.
“That’s precisely what I was hoping to find out, they’re not the small weapons you wielded earlier today, otherwise I assume Brad wouldn’t have bothered whispering about them.”
“Wielded?” Luna inquired.
“A minor misunderstanding Luna, I’ll fill you in later.”
“If you say so...” Luna grumped.
Chaos politely cleared his throat to gain the two sisters attention, “You're right in your assumption; we do have other weapons.”
“And you didn’t dain to inform our sister earlier... because?” Luna asked as she arched a brow.
“Because… because I wasn’t sure if I should. You have to understand how... discombobulating this all has been for me, a few hours ago I was on my own world, and suddenly I arrive on yours mysteriously, and to top it off I now have a damaged plane and an injured crew member. I was simply doing what I thought best at the time with no guidance given.”
“It sounds to me like you omitted the truth…” Luna responded neutrally.
Chaos polished off the last of his tea before observing his hosts, Celestia appeared disappointed and if the ear flicking coming from Luna was any indication he would guess she was agitated.
“I suppose I did, but I don’t expect either of you to understand the precariousness of my position.”
“Meaning?” Luna questioned.
“Both of you are leaders of your country, I, well I’m just an officer. I don’t get the benefit of exercising the same level of discretion that both of you probably yield, I have responsibilities and they order like this: Crew, Aircraft, Nation. I had reason to fear and still have reason to fear that I might accidentally break my responsibility to one or all of those. When I omitted the truth it was because I was trying to honor my responsibilities with the best information available. When you arrived I had just finished talking with Brad, do you know what we discussed?”
To their negative response, he continued. “We were actually weighing the merits of full disclosure against the cons, it was a stalemate. Understand that we are not diplomats; however, given the circumstances, fate has decided that we must play the role… So, I’m willing to give a little in good faith, but you must respond in kind and trust my judgment on what I decide is safe to disclose going forward. I want this to work... because I do not know what else I can do. But if you push the issue, I don’t care what you’ve done for us so far. I’ll take my crew and we’ll find somewhere else to go to sort out this whole mess.”
After Celestia shot a quick a glance to Luna she decided to proceed. “If you promise not to keep anything pertinent from us, I believe we can accept that.”
Nodding Chaos continued. “Good, my aircraft is called a gunship-”
“And what pray tell is a gunship?” Luna cut in.
“I was getting to that…” Chaos said as he scanned them to see if they’d let him continue, satisfied he went on. “The 4th Special Operations Squadron to which we belong employs the third generation of gunships known as the AC-130U Spooky gunship. It has three cannons: a 105mm, a 40mm, and 25mm cannon. We’re a close air support platform designed to engage ground targets from the air. Wait. Do you know what a cannon is?”
“Of course,” Celestia replied.
“Oh good, but just to make sure we’re on the same page here, you mind going over what a cannon is to you?”
Celestia couldn’t help but quirk a brow at the question, “A simple device that uses cast-iron projectiles and a poured in propellant to lob the round out of the tube.”
“Yeah, I’d say that sounds similar…except our rounds have their own self-contained propellant, our barrels are rifled for greater accuracy, and of course, our rounds are explosive with different functions of the ogive and fuzes to adapt it to specific scenarios.”
“Should we be concerned that these weapons are currently in our capital?” Luna ventured.
“No, the rounds themselves cannot be armed unless they are fired. Without setback and rotation, the rounds are effectively inert, essentially just large metal slugs. Though I would suggest a cordon, if a fire were to break out on the aircraft you’d want a designated perimeter in place.”
With just a little concern Celestia ventured the only question on her mind, “How large of a cordon?”
“About four thousand feet to be safe.”
“How large is a feet?” Luna quipped.
“A foot is about this big,” Chaos said as he held up his hands to demonstrate as both Alicorns in front of him went bug-eyed.
“Sister… four thousand of those lengths would be half our garden.” Luna said breathlessly.
Trying to head off any fears Chaos interceded, “I know that probably is a bit frightening but I assure you, with my crew on fire guard the chances of anything catastrophic happening are minimal. I’m merely suggesting it as a precaution.”
Luna was the first to recover, “if the council gets word of this, we’ll have a nightmare on our hooves.”
“Let me worry about the council Luna. I have a few favors I can call in and with any luck, the reconstruction of changeling damage will be of enough distraction to give us time to prove our new guests are safe.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
“Both?” Celestia responded, “besides I’ve already called an emergency meeting of the Council of Nobles, in part to address the recent invasion but also to introduce our new guests.”
“What do you mean 'introduce'?” Chaos asked apprehensively.
“Merely an acknowledgment of your arrival here, do not worry Josh, your crew's presence won’t be required...yet. I’m merely going to gauge the nobles' reactions so I can get an idea of how to proceed.”
“Is this necessary? I’d rather keep our presence here a secret until I can get a chance to figure out how damaged our aircraft is.” Celestia could tell from his tone and facial features that the idea didn’t sit well with him.
“You have my word that you’ll be safe here. Besides, there’s no way the Crown can hope to keep this a secret for long. Ponies talk, and if I’ve learned anything in my reign, it’s that keeping something like this a secret only invites greater trouble.” Luna who had spent the last few moments massaging her temple with a hoof snorted as she recomposed herself.
“I think you’re forgetting something here, when the press receives word of this they’ll have a field day. I wouldn’t put it past some of the less reputable journals from questioning whether your fight with the changeling Queen knocked a few screws loose, as it were, and I might be liable to agree with them.”
“I will schedule a press conference to head that off Luna; one in which we can introduce the journalists to the humans so they can judge for themselves whether there is anything to be concerned about.”
“I think this is a bad idea sister, but I’ve known you long enough to know when you’ve set your mind to something.”
Struggle blew a puff of smoke out of the side of his mouth as he watched the two ponies scrunch up their muzzle at the smell. “You know if you guys hate it that much you could move a bit farther away. I won’t be offended.” When they didn’t move, he grunted before he dropped the cigarette into the dirt before crushing it with the heel of his boot.
“Are you going to pick that up?” The female guard he’d chatted briefly with enquired to which he chuckled dryly.
“Oh yeah, my bad,” he said as he bent down to pick it up. Standing back up, he pocketed it to dispose of later as he saw both guards ears swivel towards a hedge. Grabbing his M4 from the bench, he waited to see what they heard before Brad rounded the hedge escorted by a couple of guards.
“Hey, Struggle,” Co said as he picked up his pace to meet him, “you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to retrace my steps in the dark. Lucky for me I ran into the next shift of ponies heading this way.”
“A wonder anyone trusts you to fly a plane…” Struggle muttered. To which he saw both guards in front of him swivel their ears.
“What was that?”
“Nothing just glad to see you is all, plane's all locked up. I’ll let you have it from here.” Struggle said as he thrust the M4 into the Co’s hands before turning towards the hedge while grabbing his backpack.
“Wait,” Co said to which Struggle looked over his shoulder. “...nevermind, see you in the morning.” Struggle nodded in affirmation before leaving with both Crescent Sentry and Silver Shield following.
“One second if you don’t mind,” Silver said stopping their little troop as he trotted over to the two night guards before saluting them.
“Private Shield, report,” A gravely sounding mare replied as she dropped her salute.
“All’s quiet on the perimeter, Lieutenant. We did our last sweep about thirty minutes ago,” before he dropped to a conspiratorial whisper just loud enough to be heard by his superior. “These humans are jumpy. I couldn’t get a real good look inside their craft before that one behind me ‘shooed’ us away.”
Nodding she continued, “probably best you didn’t, Private. The Princesses’ are personally handling this matter. Enjoy your night.” They both saluted again before Silver rejoined Struggle and Crescent.
“Alright, we’ll show you back to the castle now, Struggle.”
“Good. I need a stiff drink and some sleep.” Struggle said as he rounded the hedge following his escort.
“Hey, Struggle…” Crescent chimed in.
“Yeah?”
“If you don’t mind me asking, why does it seem like you don’t like that other human?”
“Who, the Co? Don’t really know him enough to not like him, it’s just tradition to give the new guys a hard time.”
“Why? Has he not gone through all the training to be a part of your outfit?”
“Sure he has. But just because he has the knowledge doesn’t mean he has the attitude. It takes quite awhile to get where he is now, it's an accomplishment that can be a powerful and foolhardy validation for some.”
“I’m not sure I understand, shouldn’t he be proud if it's an accomplishment?”
“Sure, and we give them a pat on the back for it… for a minute anyways. But, we have to set up an idea that they have to prove themselves to us, a few of the guys I went through with, myself included, wanted to change the way things were done. We treated the new guys like one of us straight out the gate…”
“And?”
“And we learned why things were done the way they were for so long: failed physical fitness tests, failed flight evaluations, poor attitudes, and critical mistakes. We did them a disservice by not treating them in just the right way to make them push themselves to be accepted.”
Scrunching up her muzzle she replied, “sounds a little cruel.”
“Yeah, but it works for us,” though they couldn’t see him, Struggle couldn’t help but crack a smile and roll his eyes as he tried to walk faster to keep from lagging behind them.
Brad watched as his two new guard friends flew circles around the courtyard their gunship rested in, stopping only long enough to scrutinize a few bushes here and there. In the darkness, he struggled vainly to keep sight of them amidst the backdrop of darkness. He lost track of them in the pitch black after a few minutes only to be jolted when one landed behind him.
“Jesus! You scared me,” To which the night guard cocked her head.
“The area is secure, you have no reason to be frightened.”
Not really knowing what to say Brad tugged at the ends of his sleeves in apprehension before attempting to make small talk. “It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it? Miss…”
“Lieutenant Starry Glade, just Star if you’d like,” she said as she tipped her head before throwing out a hoof to the side and cracking a wide smile at Brad’s confusion until the other bat pony guard touched down next to her. “And this is my partner Sergeant Blue Moon.”
“Aye, but just call me Blue laddy. E’erypony does.” He said with a smile that was just a bit too wide.
“Brad, nice to meet you both,” he said as he took a seat on the bench Struggle had occupied earlier. “Shoot...” He mumbled as he made a mad scramble around his pockets.
“Lose something?” Star asked.
“Yeah, I was going to get something out of my bag on the plane...too bad you might have liked it too,” Brad said before letting out the most pitiful sigh.
“Why can’t you?” Star asked as her ears twitched at the thought of what alien contraption he might have wanted to get.
“Must have left my flashlight on the plane, it’d be a nightmare fumbling around in the dark for it.”
“You can’t see in the dark laddy?” To which Brad simply looked in their direction before shaking his head.
“Not as well as I assume you two can.”
A few hushed whispers passed between the two equines before Star cleared her throat.
“If you promise not to tell anyone, we’ve got something you might find interesting too,” she said as Brad tried seeing what she was digging for underneath her armor. After a few moments of rustling, Star produced a small object that Brad could barely make out to be a small bag.
“What is it?”
“Something very special. It’s the crushed powder from a rare night orchid that only grows in the caves of the Thestral mountains.” Digging just a small amount onto her hoof she lifted it up for Brad to see, he was immediately hypnotized by how it faintly pulsed yellow in the darkness.
“Whoa that’s cool, what's it used for?” he said looking back to Star.
“Here let me show you,” she exclaimed before gently blowing the powdered plant directly into Brad’s nose and eyes sending him into a sneezing fit.
“Gah! Why’d you do that? Oh god, you’ve drugged me, haven’t you?!? Is it lethal? Please tell me there’s a cure!” he said as he furiously rubbed at his eyes in a vain attempt to get the powder out.
Alarmed, both bat ponies had taken to the air and were now hovering a foot from Brad looking on in concern. “Calm down now, laddy. Taint no drug. Jus’ open your eyes and see fer yourself.”
Still panicking Brad followed Blue’s instructions much to the protest of his watering eyes. As he slowly opened them, he was floored by what he saw. Where before he’d seen only the stars in the night sky and the moon, he saw galaxies twirling in the cosmos, and down to earth he saw all the crisp shapes of the plants in the garden surrounding the aircraft. What surprised him the most was that even though he could tell it was night still, he could also just barely make out colors with whatever heightened vision he now had.
“Wow…” To his grin, both guards relaxed, no longer fearing any reprisal for alarming the princesses’ guest.
“It’s not as good as the real thing, but it gives you an idea of what we see.”
“This is amazing, why would you want to keep something like this a secret?” To which both guards sighed in unison.
“The plant is endangered. There’s a bit more to the story than that but, the short of it is we’re only given a little bit of it for guard work. When we work with the day guards it helps them keep up with us in the dark, or sometimes we’ll give it to informants to give them an edge in undercover work.”
“So your superiors wouldn’t be happy about you sharing is what you're saying?”
“That they wouldn’t, laddy,” Blue said with a shrug. “But let’s just call it a welcoming present from us thestrals and keep it between us.” To which Brad nodded before thinking about how to repay the gift.
“So what’s the story on the flower?”
Scuffing the ground with a hoof Star gazed up into the sky. “It doesn’t matter. No pony wants to hear about Thestral history these days-”
“Oh come on...please, I want to hear it.” To which Brad punctuated it with the most genuine smile he could muster.
Shrugging, Star decided to dive into the folklore she could remember. “Back before the days of Equestria and the Friendship Fire, the lands were covered in darkness and snow. If you don’t know, pegasi control the weather, so when the windigos started manipulating all their hard work, they were furious. A group set out to take on the windigos and wrestle control of the weather back from them...and it didn’t work.”
“They flew to a mountain range rumored to be the Windigos' home and encountered a massive snow storm that iced their wings and sent them plummeting to earth; when they came down they were trapped in the mountain range now known as the Thestral Mountains. With no food and no way to brave the storm, they went into the caves to find solace in their defeat. There they found a flower; one that fed them but also gave them the gift of enhanced sight. They stayed there for years in the hopes of finding a way to defeat the Windigos so they could return to their brethren with their honor intact...but they never did.
“Some of us still live there, but the truth is we would probably still be holed up in those mountains wallowing in our defeat if it weren’t for Princess Luna finding us in our dreams and convincing us that our failure was a gift that we could use to restore our honor. And well, here we are.” Brad sat in silence for a time trying to parcel out what could be myth or reality in this strange world before something about the story felt off.
“You said Princess Luna, how long ago was this?”
Tapping her chin Star turned to Blue, “it was about twelve hundred years ago right?”
“Aye,” he said with a nod.
“Twelve hundred years…” Brad said breathlessly. “Wait, wait, wait… Princess Celestia said Luna was her sister.”
“She is,” Star said with her head just a bit cocked.
“Are you telling me that they're over a thousand years old?”
“Yeah, why is that odd laddy?”
“The oldest human ever was barely more than one hundred and twenty… Jesus, they’re older than the Crusades.”
“What were the crusades?” which earned an unintended grimace from Brad at the two's curious expression.
“Ugh, you know what? I think now would be a good time to get what I wanted from the plane.”
Chaos slid his tray with a half eaten cookie out of the way. After a lull in their conversation, Celestia had summoned some refreshments to accompany their idle chit chat. At some point, Chaos had found himself going over in greater detail the events that had lead up to their arrival in Equestria. For the most part, the two sisters had remained completely silent as he regaled them with his little tale of woe.
“So... this Bermuda Triangle is a source of mythos for your people?” Luna asked, as her sister munched delicately on a sugar cookie.
“Sort of? The history of disappearing vessels and aircraft in the Triangle is real enough. But, as for the supernatural mumbo jumbo surrounding it...eh...I’m not really sold.”
“Interesting…” Luna said, biting her bottom lip in thought, before shooting Celestia a knowing grin. “Perhaps I judged your theory too harshly, sister. Mayhaps this Triangle operates on a different set of rules than our own world.” Chaos couldn’t help but have his interest piqued.
“Mind filling me in?” Chaos inquired.
Celestia lightly dabbed at the crumbs on her muzzle before folding her napkin to place back on the table, “what Luna just alluded to is my theory on how you came to be here.”
“And that would be?” Chaos said in rapt attention, as he anxiously twiddled his thumbs near his lap in a quest for answers.
“That a natural rift between our worlds opened up long enough to pull your craft through,” Celestia said succinctly before taking a sip of tea.
“That’s it? And what do you mean long enough? You don’t think it’s still there?” Chaos questioned in a slightly deflated tone.
“Doubtful, natural rifts are notoriously unstable.” At Chaos’ mournful sigh Luna continued, “However… Starswirl the Bearded did extensive research into the field of magically generated rifts, or more aptly named portals. He even managed to create an artificial one contained within an old mirror—”
“I thought you told me you couldn’t create portals to other worlds?” Chaos asked unintentionally cutting off Luna.
“I di—” Celestia said before being cut off by an excited Chaos.
“Doesn’t matter, okay, so we just… I’ll send someone through a portal. Let them know we’re alive, and then we can figure out the logistics of retrieving the aircraft afterwards. Break it down if we have to.” In his revelry, Chaos had gotten up from the table and had started pacing.
“Major—”
“This is great! We can rotate Papa back to the states...”
“Maj—”
“...grab a secondary aircraft and Nav, and bam! Mission’s back on track and—”
“MAJOR!” Celestia’s shout was finally enough to break Chaos from his tangent. Chaos’ deer in the headlights look caused Celestia to awkwardly shuffle in place at her outburst, before she politely coughed into her hoof to gather her thoughts. “The mirror was lost to us sometime ago. Not that it would do us any good if it hadn’t. Starswirl disenchanted the mirror a decade before his death; and even if that were not the case, it only lead to one world.” Not giving Chaos a chance to feel dejected, or enter into another tangent, she continued. “His research, however, remains. Not that myself or Luna could ever figure out the magical cipher he used to encode the most important bulk of his research on the matter. But, I believe, I have just the pony in mind who might be able to succeed where we have failed.”
Twilight watched as Pinkie did a cartwheel around the group with an assortment of leftover donuts from their late night trip to Pony Joe’s decorating her legs like doughy bracelets.
“Pinkie darling, as amusing as it is to see you wear confectionary treats like fine jewelry, as a fashionista I simply can not stand how horribly chocolate clashes with your coat.”
“There’s only one chocolate donut, Rare,” Applejack said while chuckling.
“Which is exactly one chocolate donut too many, Applejack,” Rarity huffed.
Deciding to head off an argument, Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes before taking to the skies just in front of the group, “Pinkie, hit me!”
Cocking her head to the side, Pinkie responded, “why would I hit you, silly?” Which elicited a groan from Rainbow Dash before she dragged a hoof down the side of her face.
“Um, I think she was just asking you to toss her a donut,” Fluttershy responded.
“Oooooooo~!” Pinkie said before giggling, “why didn’t you just say so!” Jumping back onto her hind legs, Pinkie licked a hoof before holding it into the air. After a few moments spent in awkward silence, as her friends watched the bizarre ritual; she nodded to herself, before lining up one of her donut laden forelegs with Dash.
“Ugh... Pinkie?” Dash questioned, before a rocketing donut caught her square in the muzzle, and sent her tumbling backward through the air a few times, before she stabilized herself. The display was enough to cause most of the group to chuckle, save for Dash and Twilight, the former being too busy recovering from being hay-makered by a pastry, and the latter who simply raised an eyebrow at Pinkie’s unorthodox ability to hurl confectionary goods at seemingly supersonic speeds.
“One confectionary faux pas averted,” Rarity murmured, before stealing a glance at Pinkie, only to count seven more. Which was exactly two more donuts than she had counted a few moments ago.
Still sputtering and wiping furiously at a few globs of chocolate, Dash touched down onto the cobblestone street. Applejack caught the telltale sign of irritation on Dash’s face, and as soon as Dash’s mouth opened, Applejack decided to step on her hooves.
“Iffin you’ll recall, Rainbow. You asked Pinkie to throw that there donut,” Applejack drawled before lightly popping the brim of her Stetson to reposition it on her noggin.
Rainbow Dash, for her part, instead of not pretending that she was mad a few seconds ago, took to trying to comb the frosting out of her mane, while she muttered just loud enough for the whole group to overhear her make an off colored comment about Pinkie’s freaky super strength. Which elicited a light hearted giggle from almost everypony.
“-angelings,” Spike murmured in his sleep as his claws dug into Twilight’s withers causing her to wince. Using a bit of magic she gingerly loosened his death grip, before giving him a gentle nuzzle that relaxed him in his fitful slumber.
“Poor Spikey-Wikey,” Rarity tittered in concern before looking to Twilight. “How much farther is the estate Princess Celestia offered us to use, Twilight? I imagine Spike, as well as all of us, could use a nice warm bed right about now. Not to mention, I’d like to get these dresses out of our saddlebags before they get too wrinkled.”
“One second,” Twilight said as she summoned the scroll before pouring over the directions. “According to this, we’ve got a few more blocks and we should be there…” Twilight said, before the last line of directions finally clued her in on just exactly whose estate they’d be staying at, causing her to wince before shooting Rarity a nervous smile. “Heh. Heh. Well, let’s get a hoof on girls,” she said hastily rolling up the map.
“So is this our room or isn’t it?” Struggle asked the two guards stationed outside the door. The corridor carried the baritone of his voice in both directions down the sleepy hall. Struggle’s escorts had departed a while after bringing him to his room, and Struggle had been going around in circles with the two guards placed at the entrance ever since.
“It is,” the guard to the left of the door responded.
“Sooo… can I go in now?”
“No,” both guards responded in unison.
“Again, why?”
“Under orders of her Majesty, Princess Celestia—”
“Yeah, I got that the first time. I just want to know why I can’t,” Struggle said, irritation clear in his voice.
“The princesses are in talks with your leader and don’t wish to be disturbed,” the one on the left responded again.
“Okayyy, but the thing is, I have something urgent to discuss with my leader that can’t wait. So, either you can disturb them, or I will.”
Both guards broke their stoic gaze forward to share an uncertain glance with each other before each barely looked back at the door with a grimace. After returning their gaze front and center, the one on the left that Struggle assumed by this point was the defacto guard in charge continued.
“Are you sure it can’t wait?”
“Positive.”
“What could be so pressing that you need to disturb their talks?” The guard in charge asked, with only the slightest ounce of pleading lacing his words.
“Can’t tell ya. It’s for ‘Muh leaders’ ears only.”
Struggle had to bite back a smile when it became apparent they weren’t going to call his bluff. The perk of being aircrew for so long came with the benefit of knowing how to manipulate the rank and file.
“Al.. Alright. One moment, please,” the stallion in charge said before turning around and taking a gulp to steady his nerves. Even though he knew better, the guard was still nervous about going against the princesses’ orders. He put all his concentration into keeping his military bearing, so he wouldn’t seem unsteady when he inevitably had to interrupt them. With nothing else for it, the guard knocked twice, the metal farrier covering his hoof still reverberating as he mechanically dropped his leg back to the floor.
A few moments passed as the three of them waited for one of the occupants within to acknowledge their presence. Shortly after the door shimmered with a golden aura; the three of them heard Princess Celestia break the silence with a short “Enter.”
The guard used his telekinesis to pry open the door, and took a few steps into the doorway, before remembering the human was behind him.
“Wait here, please,” the guard said before Struggle watched him march into the room before the door closed again.
“You guys need to loosen up.”
“With all do respect, sir, it is our duty to protect the princesses, in every capacity that entails. ‘Loose’ is the last thing we need to be.” The remaining guard said with sarcasm laced throughout.
“You’ve got an attitude on you… I like that.”
“You hitting on me, sir?” The guard in front of Struggle responded.
“Oh, so you do know what humor is?” To which the guard simply rolled his eyes.
The banter spent, both lapsed into silence as they waited for the return of the second guard.
About a minute later, the door opened signaling the return of the absent guard, who looked visibly less tense then he had been going in.
“The princesses will allow your presence; you may enter,” he stated before retaking up his position beside the door.
“See? Was that so hard?” Struggle quipped before brazenly walking through the previously barred doorway.
Upon seeing Struggle, Chaos stood up from the table so seriously that Struggle had a hard time maintaining his composure. No doubt he expected some bad news from him. Imagine how relieved he would be when he found out that he didn’t have any news, whatsoever. He almost felt bad as he beelined past him to plop down on the couch a little ways from the table where they were all centered.
“What is it, Struggle? The guard said it was urgent,” Struggle decided not to respond to Chaos as he pulled his backpack off to rummage through its main compartment.
“Oh, right...that. Terribly urgent. Can’t wait,” Struggle replied as he pulled the bottle of Crown Royal from his bag, before giving the bottle a little shake as he shot Chaos his best shit-eating grin. “I urgently need a drink,” he stopped for a moment as he caught a whiff of himself, “and apparently a shower.”
Chaos’ alert stance melted into one of exacerbation as he massaged his temples with one hand. Struggle watched in amusement as he grabbed a glass from the tray on the table next to the couch, before flicking the paper covering off of it. Taking the silence as consent, Struggle started to unscrew the cap.
Finally organizing his thoughts, Chaos managed to get the first thing that solidified in his mind out there. “You lied to their guards? Have you lost your mind?” Struggle seriously seemed to ponder the question as he poured the amber liquid into the glass.
“I wouldn’t call it lying, as much as an exercise in tactical deception. If I was evaluating them, I’d give them poor marks for situational awareness on that front. Besides, I did need to talk with you— if that helps.” Struggle replied, just as he began to choke the flow of the liquor into his glass.
“Struggle, where did you ge—” But before Chaos could finish, Struggle cut him off.
“You must be the other Princess the guards mentioned. A pleasure to meet you.” Struggle said while making a mock cheers to Luna with his glass.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Luna drawled out dryly. Sensing the waters and realising no one was amused as he seemed to be, Struggle finally decided to switch tracks.
“Alright, so I really did have something serious to discuss,” as he pointed over the rim of the glass at Chaos. “You look like you're dead on your feet, Major. I know how you get when you're stressed, so I didn’t want to leave things up to chance by sticking it out, out there.” Struggle paused to take a swig from the glass.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not stressed.”
“Sure you are. Take a look in the glass over there.” As Struggle indicated the vaulted windows on the far side of the room. Not believing him, Chaos took a hard look at his reflection, the man that stared back at him wasn’t his usually well-kempt self. His blonde hair was wild from the amount of times he’d run his hands through it, and there was a certain weathered crazy look about him that made him exhausted just looking at it.
“...okay, maybe I’m a little stressed, but I’m fine.” Celestia took in the transpiring scene and came to the conclusion she thought Struggle was getting at.
“I think I agree with your crewman, Major. Perhaps we got ahead of ourselves, but we made good progress tonight. It’s been a busy day, and maybe the best thing we can do now, is simply get some rest.”
Chaos closed his eyes before exhaling slowly. He knew they were right, but as exhausted as he was, he still felt wired. Perhaps that was a sign he should have paid attention to earlier.
“As much as it pains me to say it, you're right, Struggle. I need some rest, and god willing a chance to clear my head.”
“I know,” Struggle said with a genuine smile, as he poured another glass. “Just like I’m sure the next thing you’d say is about how hard you’ll re-attack it tomorrow.” The last line actually managing to make Chaos chuckle.
“Well, I think that’s our cue, Luna,” Celestia said, while shooting her sister a expectant look, only to see her sister staring intently at something near Struggle. “Ahem, Luna? Our cue.”
“Yes, yes, go ahead sister…” Luna said, waving off her sister before finally deciding to ask a question she’d earlier held off on. “Kind Struggle, may we perchance try that spirit you have in your possession?”
Struggle was confused, until it clicked, exactly what she was asking for. “Oh, uh, sure, just let me get you a glass princess.”
“Bit early for you, isn’t it sister?”
“Hardly, and as if I’d pass up the chance to say I was the first to try an alien spirit.”
“Fair enough. Goodnight Luna.”
As she turned to go Struggle called out to her, causing her to turn slightly. “Sure you don’t want one for the road?”
Celestia chuckled before responding, “bit past happy hour for me, thank you though.”
Struggle had taken a shower and was settling into the couch Chaos had told him would be his in the interim, when he heard a knock from the Major’s adjoined room. “-ome in,” he called.
Slightly cracking the door, Chaos peaked in enough to make eye contact with him, “don’t think you were smooth enough to weasel your way out of talking to me tomorrow. We’re going to discuss where that bottle came from, and about you lying to their guards.”
Struggle simply barked out a short ‘yesh sir,’ before the door closed and he was alone again. His head swimming from the half bottle he’d polished off since the princesses left. With only the thoughts of how he’d hold onto his liquor swirling around his head, he began to nod in and out of consciousness.
Twilight yawned as she stared out from beneath satin sheets of their guest room into the starlight. The room she was in, was shared by her five best friends and Spike. Sleep, however, wasn’t coming as easily to her as it had the rest of them, as she tossed and turned to get comfortable to no avail. Thoughts of the day, and what Celestia had in store for them tomorrow bounced around her head every time she thought she was close to slumber.
Currently, she was thinking about how lucky it was that the ‘double b,’ on the gates hadn’t clued Rarity into whose estate they’d taken refuge for the night, or that Blueblood thankfully had enough estates that he hadn’t chosen to stay in this one.
A yawn broke through the noise of Twilight’s thoughts long enough for her to realize one of her friends was awake.
“Everythin’ okay, Sugarcube? You’ve kept me up for about an hour now.”
“Sorry, AJ,” she whispered back, “just thinking is all.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
Twilight thought about it for a minute, before she thought it was silly.
“It’s alright, AJ, I’m fine.”
“Iffin you say so, Twi. See ya in the mornin,” Applejack whispered, before turning over in her own twin bed to go back to sleep.
The morning, and what that had in store for her was exactly what was keeping her awake. As she finally closed her eyes, she silently prayed that it didn’t involve changelings... or worse still, a test.
Chaos laid on his side perfectly still as he imagined he had for hours before consciousness returned to him. The fog of sleep still hung oppressively about him like the silk sheets he was draped in as he finally mustered the will to open his eyes to a world he hoped was his own, but already knew wasn’t.
Beyond one timidly cracked eyelid he confirmed what he already knew, and worse yet the first rays of a foreign sun had begun to invade his guest room; taunting him with the knowledge that time and tide wait for no one. The memories of his actions the day before caused him to restlessly turn away from the window and it’s reminder of a new day. What could he have done, what could any man have done except follow the path of least resistance that lead him to this bed? He knew it was a cop out as soon as he thought it. A smarter pilot wouldn’t have pressed the mission with a storm on the way, a smarter officer wouldn’t have let an enlisted man so easily sway him into taking up an orbit next to an unknown city, and a smarter man would have looked a gift horse in the mouth. No matter how accommodating that horse seemed.
In a bit of a dawning epiphany he knew he’d taken a very passive stance during yesterday’s events and steeled himself to be a bit more assertive for the coming one. Celestia and her sister had held the reins while he was disorientated, but now was the time to establish that he had as much of a say in how events would pan out as they did, and the first thing he’d need to do is establish a clearer understanding of why they’d brought him here. Barring that, he’d at least attempt to give them a clear reason, he didn’t trust altruism, and the last thing he wanted was to become indebted to their kindness. Debts, even imagined ones don’t make willing friends, they make slaves of them.
Mustering his resolve he threw off the blanket to set about a semblance of his natural routine. He ignored the bathrooms automated lights when he couldn’t find a sensor, and he tried to be grateful of the indoor plumbing even if it was just a squat toilet. After all, it wasn’t the first one he’d used in a foreign country.
After his routine was complete he spent more time than usual clipping strings off one of his spare uniforms, and spent maybe five minutes more making sure his velcro patches were on just right before he donned his uniform and inspected himself in the mirror. He couldn’t say he was all that displeased with the results of his incessant grooming, but what he really wished for was a dress uniform in lieu of his… more combative looking multicam flight suit. He took one last roaming look over himself in the mirror, briefly meeting his own steely blue gaze before it wandered over his perfectly coiffed blonde hair and gave a small nod of satisfaction before he set out to deal with his first order of business...Struggle.
Struggle woke up unceremoniously to the sound of shades being drawn and an ungodly amount of light assaulting him. Grunting in exacerbation he drew the sheets higher and tighter as he turned so his head was facing the back of the couch.
“Get up Struggle,” Chaos demanded.
“Mmnnn.”
Struggle actually thought he’d be left in peace when Chaos didn’t say anything else. The only thing letting him know that Chaos was still around was the sound of a faucet and a glass being filled.
“Last chance Struggle, get up.”
“Don’t do it.” No sooner then he responded was he doused in cold water. “What the heck man, I was awake,” Struggle said, as he threw the wet covers off and glared at Chaos.
“Watch your tone, you don’t get to be angry at me after what you’ve pulled. Presenting false statements to a foreign sentry, insubordination, smuggling alcohol on the aircraft, and drinking in front of not one but two foreign heads of state. I’m sure I missed something in there as well, but it’s clear you’ve lost your ever loving mind. If this situation was in any other circumstance I’d be forced to recommend an immediate investigation on grounds for a Court Martial.”
Chaos let what he said hang in the air for a few seconds before he went on. “That being said, I don’t have the resources required for a trial. I don’t even have the manpower to dull out proper Non-Judicial Punishment. I can’t confine you to quarters without increasing the strain on the rest of the crew, and I can’t dock your pay here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have any recourse.”
“Come on man, I’m sorry alright,” Struggle said, as he stretched before cracking his knuckles.
“That’s not going to cut it Struggle, I put my neck out there for you when you begged me to go on this deployment, I went to bat for you when leadership said you weren’t ready to go back downrange, and now I’m sorely regretting that.” Struggle for the first time that day hung his head.
“I know, and I’m grateful. I really am, it’s just…” Struggle trailed off as his eyes lingered on the nearly empty bottle next to the table, “I hoped getting away from the Squadron would clear my head. Help me get back on the right path. Give me a chance to prove myself again, you know? I was hoping to leave my problems behind, but instead I brought them with me.” Struggle looked back to Chaos who’d taken a seat on the Co’s unused bed as he struggled to find anymore words.
“This have anything to do with how you lost Staff Sergeant?” Chaos said in a fatherly tone.
“Yeah, not that I care about losing the rank. Although, losing my Lead Gun certification stung, especially after all that praise I’d gotten for being the youngest in Squadron history,” Struggle said, as his eyes unfocused on the swirling memories.
“Go on.”
“Why? I’m sure you heard about it. There’s no secrets at the Fourth.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t hear your side of the story.”
Struggle sighed as he looked out of the windows only for his head to start pounding, “The deployment I had after ours was eventful… It was during the surge and when we’d just started doing daylight operations deployed. Taliban weren’t aware that we’d started flying in the light. We were escorting a few Marines doing village clearing in Helmand and they started taking accurate fire from a house on the East side. The Ground Force Commander was afraid to sign off on us striking the building so he passed it up to HQ to make a decision on. Whole time we’re listening to our guys scream over the radio, begging and pleading with us for help, and we just had to sit on our hands while the mud brick wall they were hiding behind was being turned into swiss cheese. I was seeing red and I kept telling the Pilot and FCO to declare self-defense so we could schwack the dudes. They didn’t listen to me. Good thing too. HQ came back twenty minutes and one friendly body bag later with approval and we started shelling the building.” Struggle stopped to massage his aching head.
“I’m waiting for the shoe to drop.”
“Well, it certainly did. We didn’t get more than six rounds out of the plane before a ceasefire call came over the radio. Bunch of women and children squirted from the building. Turns out there were more than just Taliban in the building. About two dozen women and children peppered with frag and torn up by the blasts. The Taliban had taken them hostage to ransom off later, at least that’s what I figure. Can’t see why that many would have been in that building otherwise. Or maybe that’s just what I want to believe.”
“Wait, this isn’t anything like the story I heard.”
“Course not. You heard about the mission afterwards. The one where I lost it and wouldn’t let my gun crew arm the guns. The one where they had to knock me out to get rounds out of the plane. One bad day is all it took to destroy my reputation as the golden boy. No one gave me the benefit of the doubt or bothered to ask what happened. Nah, they just packed my bags for me and sent me on the next flight back stateside.”
“I’m sorry Struggle, I didn’t know.”
“How could you? It’s not the story people like telling behind my back. It’s what the sycophants who had been jealous of my achievements loved telling people over a beer. The “rogue gunner,” ”section 8,” “pacifist,” and when I lodged a complaint with the IG for hazing they settled on just calling me Struggle. Well, at least after they stopped calling me Snitch.” A silence dragged out when Struggle didn’t go on.
“How about this Str...Jake-”
“It’s Struggle.”
“Alright, you take the punishment now and keep your nose clean for the rest of the trip, and I’ll leave out everything that’s happened so far. I knew you before all that happened and I know one things for certain. You’re one of the best gunners we’ve ever had, and I don’t see why you can’t turn things around. A second chance Struggle, you just need to take it.”
Struggle didn’t know when it happened, but he’d moved closer to the window. It didn’t matter that the sun was punishing him for his hangover, the pain distracted him from the pity wafting off Chaos.
“What’s the punishment?”
“Twelve hour shifts watching the aircraft.”
“That’s...mighty generous.”
“One more thing, I’m putting us on General Order 1, no booze from here on out.”
“Figures the shoe would drop. I’m not looking forward to the shakes.”
“Sorry, but that’s just going to have to happen to dry you out. You got anything other then this bottle on the table?”
“Just one other in my backpacks largest compartment.” Struggle said, as he heard Chaos grab the bag and the bottle.
“Mind if I check?”
“Go for it, just leave my toiletry bag and a spare uniform out.”
“Oh, and when you’re done getting ready get something to eat and relieve Co.”
“Understood.” After a few moments Struggle heard the door separating their apartments close. Struggle stood silent for a second as he turned his gaze to the sun. It burned his retinas and it felt like his head was about to explode. He didn’t understand what he was doing, or why he was suddenly drawing out the pain. But it felt right. For some reason the pain felt transcendental, it felt empowering.
Chaos was currently trying to type up a report on his laptop of yesterday’s events without making himself sound insane. He’d only got a sentence into the report.
A knock at the door gave him a convenient excuse to put it off for now.
“Enter,” he shouted.
When the door opened he saw Celestia standing with a bright smile at the doorway.
“Morning Princess, you’re up early,” he said before standing up to greet her.
“No earlier then the Princess of the Sun should be,” she replied chuckling, causing Chaos to silently mouth “Princess of the Sun.”
“Anyways, I was hoping you’d join me for breakfast. There’s some things I’d like to go over with you.”
“I’d love too. I don’t know what your schedule is like, but do you mind if we swing by to see Papa?”
“Papa? Oh right, sorry I’ve had a lot on my mind recently. I believe I can set aside a few minutes to visit your wounded crewmember, but it will have to cut into the time I have allotted for breakfast. Perhaps we could chat on the way?”
“That works. One second.” Chaos shut the laptop and grabbed his personal ipad from the table.
Chaos walked out the door of his suite followed by the princess until he slowed down.
“Something the matter, Major?”
“I...I don’t know where you put up Papa.”
“Oh, right this way,” Celestia said, as she turned to walk down the hall.
“So I’ve got a Press Conference after breakfast to address concerns about the changeling invasion, as well as what the country will do to recover from and address the threat. Now, I was thinking that instead of fielding questions at the end, I introduce you and your crew. With any luck the invasion will take the front page and your presence will turn into more of a upbeat fluff piece. The added benefit is that I won’t have to dodge any leading questions from any dubious reporters. What do you think?” Celestia said with a bit more pep then usual when talking about Press Conferences.
“Hmm?” Chaos winced as he realized he hadn’t been paying that much attention. “Sorry, I think that’s about the best that we can hope for if you believe it’s necessary to announce our presence.”
“Everything alright, Major? You seem apprehensive.”
“It’s nothing, just hit me that with everything going on I didn’t even know where my crewmen were. Does that make me an awful leader?” Chaos asked.
Celestia stopped trotting and put a comforting hoof to his chest, “No, an overwhelmed leader, certainly, but not a bad one. Don’t worry Joshua, things will settle down.”
Chaos nodded a bit reassured as they walked on a bit further in silence.
“Before I forget. I summoned a special session of The Council of Nobles for this afternoon.”
“You mentioned something like that, but you said we wouldn’t need to go.”
“I did, and you won’t. However, there’s always the odd chance the political infighting will cease at the mention of your arrival. If that happens it would help if I had a short speech written by you declaring your good intentions towards Equestria, a point here and there about what we stand to gain from each other, and an anecdote about who you are as a people. Nothing complicated, just some reassurance if they take any immediate interest. I suspect that they’ll be far too busy squabbling over the invasion to give you too much attention, but it’s important to grease the wheels of bureaucracy sooner rather than later.”
“I thought you and your sister were in charge?”
“We are administratively speaking, but we’re not a Traditional Diarchy. The Council is the Legislative arm of our government. Normally, I could grant you and your crew ambassadorial status on my own, but since we’re not in talks with your nation, I’ll need the Council’s blessing to make an exception.”
“And if they don’t?” Chaos asked slightly alarmed.
Celestia’s ears folded back as she thought about it. “Then you’ll be branded as Stateless.”
“And what would that mean for us?”
“Well,” Celestia said coming to a stop as fluffed her wings in irritation, “Normally, refuge status would be open to a Stateless people, but considering your parties military background… I’d expect they’d levy a formal notice of Expectant Departure. You’d be effectively exiled, and returning would be considered an incursion.”
“Great, just peachy, so much for things ‘settling down,’” Chaos said, before Celestia cut in front of him.
Laying a wing on his shoulder Celestia did her best to give him a reassuring smile, “I wouldn’t worry just yet Chaos. My Little Ponies are rarely so cruel, I have faith they’ll welcome you with open hooves like I have. In fact, I’ll be shocked if they don’t.” Celestia said, puffing out her chest in just a bit of pride.
“I’ll take your word for because I’d rather not think about it if they don’t.”
As they continued walking Celestia finally started to get curious about what Chaos was holding.
“Major, what is that?” she said, pointing to the black ipad tucked under his arm.
“What? Oh, it’s called in ipad. It’s basically a miniature computer.”
“Really? It seems a bit small…”
“That’s the only time I’ll think I’ll be happy to hear a woman say that.”
Chaos and Celestia had entered the Medical Wing of the palace a few minutes ago. Long enough for Chaos to dismiss Story who’d fallen asleep on a hospital recliner. The Doctor on call was currently giving Chaos a run down of the various treatments Papa had been given while Celestia seemed to be busy between listening and playing a game of candy crush on his ipad.
“The patient is responding well to the treatments for his burns, and I expect that we might be able to avoid grafts barring any unforeseen developments or infections.” The Doctor said, before dropping to a conspiratorial whisper as he drew the privacy curtain around Papa, “There is, however, a more concerning matter I need to bring to your attention. I don’t know how Doctor Manner missed it, but the patient suffers from a rare potentially fatal disorder,” Chaos’ eyes had gone wide and he felt like he’d been punched in the throat, “the worst case I’ve ever seen in fact. I fear what would have happened had I not caught it in time,” Celestia had put the ipad down and was now doing her best to comfort Chaos with a wing. “I assume you’ve heard of manaphilia?”
“What?” Chaos asked, befuddled.
“Now don’t get hysterical, modern medicine has come a long way in the last few decades. I embedded a thaumaturgical metastasizing coagulant into a dead space in his chest cavity to slow the mana hemorrhaging, and I’ve got him started on an intravenous mana regiment.”
Chaos was looking at the pony doctor like he’d grown a second head and was busy sawing the old one off.
“With any luck and a bit of restraint given the revelation about his medical condition, he should be back to using magic in a few days and living an almost entirely normal life.”
“I don’t understand...Celestia,” Chaos said as he turned to Celestia who looked somewhere between laughing and shedding tears of joy. “Remember when you said your people don’t have magic?”
