> Mobile Suit Gundam: Alicorn
>  by Alines Reinhard
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Pilot
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the middle of the non stop whistling wind, there is a group creature who are trying to battle it. A pink unicorn, a gray kirin, a yellow stallion, a yak and a griffon, all are doing their best.

“I think we should find a place to hide tonight! We can't stay out here for too long!” The pink unicorn said. The wind is trying to overwhelm her, but her friends still can hear it.

“She is absolutely right! No creature could withstand this kind of weather. Remember when we are on the way to Yakistan? Butter Burger” the black griffon followed.

“Yes! Best. Journey. Ever!”, the yellow stallion replied, “And I love to stay with the Gift Givers too!”

“I don't… think that… is… any funny, BB. The road to… Yakyakistan is way more… pleasant… than… this… Argh!”

She speaks hardly, while the wind just keeps getting stronger. They know no matter how much optimism they have, they are running out of time.

“Is… Is that a cave?”, the yak asked ,“I think… we… should inspect it!”

“No! That cave… seems to be too small!”, the kirin answered. “It seems like it`s no larger than a hole!”

The wind just slowed down, allowing them to talk easier.

“But I think Yolinda does have a point!”, the pink unicorn said, “Okay! You guys stay here, I will see if we can stay inside tonight!”

“Ohhh… I`m hungry… “, the yellow stallion exclaimed, “hope it does have some food!”

But they quickly change their mind when the wind… just getting their power again, this time as strong as a hurricane. In addition to that, the sky keeps getting darker.

“Hey guys! We can stay here!” the pink unicorn, named Luster Dawn, screamed to the team.

They quickly ran to the cave, to where Luster had screamed.

“They are not as spacious as a cave, but at least it has some light inside.” she said “It even has heating, perfect for this weather!”

“But… But… I don`t think I like this…”

“Aw come on, Spring Garden!”, the black griffon exclaimed, “We are nearly freezing to ice, and you complain that this is not big enough?”

“No! No! I… I mean… we could find a REAL cave, not a hole like… this one.”

“Nah, I prefer to call it a capsule!”, the griffon said “A big capsule is all we need now.”

“Guys, stop! It's enough!”, Luster yelled, “Sorry to say this to you, Spring Garden, but we don't have much time left!”

“Fine, we`ll stay here…” - Spring Garden sighed.

…

Surprisingly, the gang fit into the cave perfectly. There are some strange features they have never seen before: some monitors that lighten up the cramped place, the wall is made of some kind of smooth material, and there is a very strange looking chair in the middle.

“Hey, Luster, how about you take the chair… I mean… we don`t know much about these weird technology…”

“Arrrgh… Fine…” Luster exclaimed

She took the seat. It was strangely comfortable. After a quick inspection, she think the place they stay is some kind of cockpit.

“Why do ya think this place is a cockpit?”

“It`s seat belt, and these controlling sticks… I really think this is actually some kind of cockpit!”

“Hey can we talk about how to cover this… cockpit you say?” the griffon asked “Even with the heat of this place or our heat, the wind outside still can freeze us to death!”

“Oh… I forgot that!” Luster Dawn said “But… Do you know how to close it`s hatch, Grisela?”

The beeping on one of the monitors constantly reminded them to close some kind of door. On the main surface, it read: "Open hatch."

"A hatch? I… I honestly never heard of that before…”

But after that, Luster hooves touch the monitor itself, causing the hatch to close.

“Phew… We solved it! How do you know?” Spring Garden asked.

“I… I just touched this thing…” Luster Dawn answered calmly.

…

The gang can comfortably curl up themselves. The heat from their bodies has made the place become warmer. Meanwhile on the seat, Luster carefully inspected the place.

“Woah… These technologies are incredible!”

She then touches another monitor, and suddenly everything lightens up. Through the wall of the cockpit, she could see everything outside.

“Woah… What is that?”, Butter Burger exclaimed.

“I don`t know, I think I just made it like this…”

But after that, they can also feel the air is running out. Contrary to their beliefs, the heat generated from the cockpit itself don`t provide any air.

“There must be an air conditioner in this place. Trust me, we will survive together!”

Luster said while searching all over the place in panic. The whole group also starts demanding to go out.

“I… I can`t… Where is the open button?” , she asked herself with panic. When she looked back to the monitors, there`s no one that show the familiar caution sign that she need to close the hatch.

When things couldn't be worse, they started to feel they were rising up: the wall of the cave showed that they were getting higher. Luster`s horn is lighten up, she has moved the control stick, as well as pushing the pedal below.

"Oh no!" she screamed "It's moving!”

During her panic, she has left the gigantic machine that they are stuck in running wild all over the vast snow desert. When she looked through the panoramic cockpit, all she saw was the gray sky with white snow and ice below it. The machine movement causes every creature inside tossing around like they are clothes in a washing machine. 

Spring Garden and Yolinda have already fainted away due to the movement. It also makes Butter Burger nearly vomit.

A few minutes later, the machine crashed down the snow, causing every creature to bump into the cockpit wall. Griselda and Butter Burger bumped their heads, while Luster bumped her face into the main control monitor.

But there is another issue: she started to lose control of her magic: her horn is getting brighter to the point they are all blinded by it. They now can feel not only it is flying, but they can feel they are being consumed.

“No! No! Luster, do... do... something...”, Grisela screamed as she held her head "Your... magic!"

She doesn't know why, but Luster has a strange feeling that her magic resonates with another kind of magic that, strangely, comes out of the machine that trapped them. But, feeling dizzy and painful after what she and her friends have gone through, she doesn't have any mind to think about it.

After about half an hour of suffocating, pain and panicking, Luster Dawn realized they don`t have any choice but to find help. Her uncontrollable magic caused by the thing they are trapped in as well as her magic don`t give her much time. She finally figured out a way. She started to sing a spell which she have learned from a rare magic book she have read and memorized:

“If a creature, full of greed, touches this, an endless curse will come. His mind will be full of darkness and his soul might be consumed. He must find a way to free us all at one. If he can't do it, the curse will last… forever.”
> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“No, please! No!” Flash screamed and woke up, startled. He's breathing was heavy, as much as how he was sweating.

He dreamed of a bunch of strange ponies and other creatures with no eyes and nose, with just a creepy grin on their face, chasing him down a dark hall which looked like it had no end. Just when a black griffon tries to reach him with its claw, the nightmare ends.

That terrible dream has happened for 4 days straight.

“Awe man! What's happening to ya?”, his roommate complained. “Can't ya give me a good rest?”

“Sorry, just a little nightmare…” he sighed. “This is the fourth time I have had it. Not sure why…”

“Our base has a therapist. Why don't ya just ask her?”

…

After breakfast, he and the other mobile suit pilot of the base come to the mission room to discuss a secret mission.

Flash, now using another name called Brandon Cultrich, was an officer at the Federation`s Antarctica base. At the age of 24, having a rank of Ensign was quite late to him. He lives in the base all of the time. In fact, he doesn't have any home here on Earth.

He was used to being mocked or even bullied by some of his comrades just because of how his fake name was shortened: Brad. They say his name sounded like a douchebag’s name, but he never mind that most of the time.

He was saved by a few personnel of the base just outside of it`s main gate about a few kilometers away. He was considered to have a coma, after a little study and everyone in the base really has no idea how he can survive such a harsh condition, especially that he doesn't have any special kind of clothes to keep him alive.

“Maybe Antarctica itself creates a perfect condition to make him hibernated?”, an officer said. He himself was stunned as much as his soldier

“What's your name?” another officer asked.

Suddenly his head comes up with an idea that he shouldn't give them his real name, so he just simply answer:

- Brandon. Brandon Cultrich

…

He was brought into the base. It took just for a week to make him wake up again by the base`s doctor, and another two months for him to fully recover. But just when the base going to let him out, the commander has another plan: he decide that the base should kept him as a part of the base since his impressive survivability to stay out of the Antarctica snow for a very long time (they found him just lied inside an ice cage for up to 20 years).

Actually, he had nowhere to go, so when the commander offered to let him stay, he simply just nodded. The time when he stayed at the base proves that his decision is both wrong… and right.

They torture him for several experiments to find out what inside his body that help him bearing the cold climate of Antarctica. The commander really wanted to find out one factor to enhance human ability to stay in very cold conditions. He even thinks Flash was a Newtype, a type of human that they described as “the next stage of human evolution” with superior physical strait (stronger resistance, ability to telepathy or even talk to the dead is how they saw it). His blood was extracted, being left starving, a few times nearly drowned in a frozen tank where the scientist can test his ability to survive. Flash does try to escape a few times, but fails.

But tortures only last for a few months. The base`s commander was fired after he was seen drunk while doing some paperwork. So the base, as well as Flash Sentry was left with a new commander. He ordered the scientist to end the experiment and Flash became a part of the base crew. Flash was even offered to be an MS pilot, due to his incredible story the commander has heard. He successfully passes the test and eventually has the ability to be a pilot.

“Man! I hate to say it but that guy does have some skills!” the commander said.

…

“Okay pilots, listen up!” Lieutenant John, his team`s commander, speaks to his subordinate.  “As you have known, the military will conduct a mission to find a missing MS that might be still somewhere here in Antarctica. 4 years ago there was a report stating that the Titans had made a psycho frame test. They pulled a full psycho frame unit, as far as I am concerned, to find out it's reaction with psycho waves. The unit somehow went crazy and just messed up their base. The military doubt that the unit is somewhere in a radius of just 30 km with our base in the center. I guarantee it's not outside this circle.”

He then stopped for a while, looked at the screen and then continued:

“The reason we are here is for me to give a job to y`all: Nguyen and Robson will take the Jeagan. Era and Joshua will take the Zeta Plus. And finally you, Barnum, take the Strike Zeta. That's the special offer from the commander himself for you. Y`all got it?”

“Yes Sir!” the whole room saluted all together.

“Ok, now come to the hangar. Those suits really need your care.”

Suddenly, Flash`s mind linked to a strange discovery he made just 3 months prior

...

He was walking with a comrade that day, trying to look into the snow if there are anything suspicious. The wind was not very strong that day so the vision is very good, compared to the weather during most of the year in Antarctica. Actually, the forecast said that there will be a snow storm the night after his shift.

His eyes suddenly landed on a strange cave-like structure with a curved roof, rising above the snow. He slowly walked toward the thing, carefully inspected with his eyes. Finally, he looked inside. In the middle of the cave is a chair-like object. Then, he decided to touch it.

After that, in front of his eyes is a site to behold and a place that, to him, is impossible to exist: a giant hall, filled with golds, diamonds and other gems.

As far as his concern, there's no need for him to take them all. In the base, despite his exceptionally bad condition, it is enough for him to live. And it also opens a wound that takes a very long time to heal in him…

But there is a mysterious urge that he has taken, at least, some of them. His hand started to take the gold and gems. He put them as much as he could into his jacket, as if he could use it when he somehow escaped the base successfully.

“They will make me rich in no time!”,  he mumbled. “Diamonds, rubies, pearls… even sapphire! They're all in perfect shape!”

Suddenly, the lights all turned off all at once, and there are winds that blow harshly into the hall. He stopped, looked around in fear.

“What… What just happened?”

A voice from the darkness then said:

“Hello there!”,  the voice blows towards him like a wind. “I heard you are stealing something from us, right?”

“Wh… Wh… What?”. Flash was terrified, he immediately dropped all the gems and gold he had. “You… You… say I`m…”

“Don`t lie!”, at this point, Flash could hear distant hoofsteps that seemed to walk nearer and nearer. “We saw you took some stuff from our precious treasure. It's just a very small portion of it, but it says a lot about yourself!”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen up shameless thieves: tonight you will start to face our punishment. These gems contained a terrible curse that we have cast on. From now on, you will have a forever lasting nightmare!”

“But… But just… just…”

“Happen to take some piece of our treasure intentionally?”, she said with full of doubt - “Anyway, the only way to free yourself from this is… to free us!”

“Free? Free who?”

“Brad, Brad! What are ya doing there bro?” his comrade yells to bring him back to reality - “Why do you take the ice and put it in your jacket?”

“Huh?”, Flash confused

“I said why do you take the ice and put it in your jacket?”

“Oh… I did that?” Flash said while looking at his pocket nervously.

But at that moment, all he saw was just ice and snow.

“But… But… Those are precious…” , Flash gibbering.

“I see ya just took those useless things. I have called you a few times but you just don't answer back! But, what's in there?”

“The whole little cave was covered in snow.”, Flash mumbled. “Something has forced someone else to leave this place. I don't know… These things make me feel like I`m in an MS cockpit.”

The pal then just carry on there jobs

He left it without any concern. He really doesn't know why those things happen, and what she means about the nightmare.

“I may have just... gone crazy after all.”

But in the night after the mission, the nightmare that he has been warned about, began.

…

“Suspension system, check. Monitor A, check. Monitor B, check…”, Flash mumbled when he climbed down. He and other personnel of the base have spent more than 2 hours making a final check before they will carry out the mission on the next day. He just walked to the cafeteria alone, scanning through his MS profile and mumbled.

“Looks like everything is fine!” he slowly closes the profile.

The cafeteria is where he frequently comes. He was described by his comrades as “a weird guy who has trouble with calculation”. He actually has spectacular skill piloting, even Lt. John (he kind of hates Flash) has to admit “How can he gain much skill? Look at how he dodges shots and missiles!” when he and several other officers inspect him for their first time in the base`s simulator. But he has some difficulty in calculating some difficult physics calculations. He simply leaves the difficult task for his engineer before fighting and just following orders.

He mostly used his lunch time and some others free time to eat and enhance his calculating ability by doing math and struggling with formulas and equations.

“Hey blue hair!” Jarvis, his roommate, came to his table. “What`s up man? Doing math?

He gave a slight nod and answered:

“Yup… Just some casual free time activity…”

“Well… about the nightmares that you have these nights… - Jarvis scratched his ears – “I guess you the therapist gave ya some sleeping pills, right?”

“‘They’ prevent me from using it!”

“What do you mean by 'them'? Those creatures from the nightmares?”

“Yeah. I ignored them and just got used to them. The nightmare is worse than before.”

Both signed.

Suddenly, the siren goes off. Both of them looked at each other for a while and quickly ran to their position.

“Alright! A few minutes ago there were reports of a green light flash outside of our base!”, the base commander said to Lieutenant John while he checked out the map. “We estimated that the flash is about 40 km from Gate No.1 of the base. Whatever happens we should deploy now! I also allowed our search team for this mission because I really want to see your friend's performance. Do you get that, Lieutenant?”

“Yes Sir!”, replied the Lieutenant.

…

“Alright y`all, listen up!”

After a little stretching and checking, the whole team – called Company J – was ready. Lt. John now tries to boost up his soldier`s morale and give them details about their mission.

“According to the most recent report, the green flash is about 40 km from here. The flash is reported to happen continuously for 3 minutes before dying out. Our job is to investigate what that thing is. The flash could be something that could threaten our base.”

The suits carefully rolled out of their cage and entered the launch pad. Lt. John continued his speech:

“Okay, here is the deal: Nguyen and Robson will stay close to me, you guys are guard units that will make sure our team is safe. Era and Joshua, you guys and your Zeta C1 will be searching the area, along with Flash`s Strike Zeta, alright?”

“Yes, Sir!”

“Lieutenant John Mitchell, Jesta, coming out!”, the commander shouted.
> Chapter 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Does that green flash just go up?”,  Flash asked himself.

The group kept flying for about 14 minutes before landing on a fairly flat area. The snow started to fall thicker and thicker.

The snow is actually not a big concern for the suit. What Flash cared of the most is the cave. Something had told him that the cave shouldn't be found out, but also told him not to find it. He still have only one choice anyway.

“Okay guys, we`ll land here!”, Lt John said to his team. “We will scatter our team a bit more for more efficient searching! I could smell it's not far from where we are standing!”

“Hey Brad!” he yelled at Flash. “Guard us with your oversized shield, brat! Don`t do anything other than guarding. Just looking around!”

“Yes… Yes Sir!”

But when the commander just turned away, he disobeyed it. The white Zeta slowly walked around the site, it`s eyes inspecting every square cm to find everything suspicious. He decided that he should also join the search.

“What a pity that I have not reported that thing!” he mumbled. “That could look like a normal cave, but…”

Suddenly, after a blink, he suddenly went through a strange phenomenon.

He is standing on the snow, all by himself. His comrade`s MS now looked like giants roaming freely in the snowfall. He stood still, asking himself what just happened.

“Where is my suit? Why am I standing like this?”

But soon, his eye landed on something. It appeared to be a pink, fluffy object, covered in the snow. He also saw some strange furry object lying just like it.

“What is that?” he asked himself, slowly wiping out the snow.

It was a pony, a pale pink unicorn pony to be exact. 

“Poor her. She looked like she was just sleeping…”

There are some furry things lying around her as well. As Flash could see, there is a pale brown yak, a yellow earth pony, a black griffon, and a kirin.

Flash started to feel some fear when he first saw the kirin. When he was a foal, he was told to never get close to a kirin...

"Seems like they are sleeping too!" Flash mumbled.

He looked back to find his comrade, but the snow storm has blurred them away.

He looked back to the sight. While he still wondering what have bring them here, to the Earthsphere, the creatures that surrounded him slowly moving. The yak was standing up, her eyes were covered in hair. Flash looked back to where the others are lying, now there are 5 of them staring at him with a lifeless face.

He looked back and suddenly, the pink unicorn also stared at him.

Suddenly, one of her hooves rapidly catches his arm, bringing him back to reality.

“NO!” he screamed

…

The Lieutenant`s Jesta kicked it`s leg constantly on the snow. Lt. John was famous within his unit for his aggressive fighting style, the famous “The Kick”. During the One Year War, he and his GM took out several Zeon`s suits with the skill to make his opponent off guard and ended him with a blast in the chest. It might not be known as Char Aznable kick, but it is still a notable thing to determine whether it was him or not.

But the only thing his aggressiveness might help him in Antarctica is he can speed up his subordinate searching.

“Come one! Show yourself!” he mumbled. “We promise we are not gonna hurt ya!”

But as soon as he did it, Robson suddenly screamed at him.

“Captain! Look at Brad!” his Jeagan pointed to the Lieutenant's back.

When he looked at where Robson had pointed, he was shocked to the core.

-“That…That… Brad found the Alicorn… How?”

Standing in front of him are two mobile suits holding each other's hands. Look closer and he saw the Alicorn is standing upright, and as he had seen before, holding tightly to the Zeta.

Both suits are just standing there, sticking together silently.

“Brad! Are you blind?” the Lieutenant shouted. “Do something!”

His shout seems to bring him back to reality. The Zeta started to try to release itself from the pure white mobile suit, but all of it`s attempts failed.

“I said capture it, idiot!” the Lieutenant yelled. “You have the advantage!”

But instead of trying to capture the prey, Flash`s suit is the prey. The Alicorn rapidly grabbed the Zeta and started to flee from the site.

“Are you blind? Follow them!”, the Lieutenant yelled at his team, still standing there in shock.

In his cockpit, Flash struggled to get his Zeta out. The mysterious white mobile suit grabbed him as tight as a giant metal claw.

The Alicorn almost shows no sign of slowing down or changing its course, despite Flash`s effort to knock it out of him. His team finally catches up with the team a few minutes later.

“Useless brat, how dare you disobey my order!” the Lieutenant yelled at him.“We`ll kill ya once we take you out of that piece of crap!”

“What an incompetent pilot…” - Brando mumbled why tried to aim the Alicorn`s arm.‘This should be easy for me”.

He carefully adjusted his target scope, aimed right at the white arm, the one that exposed to his shot. But the suit rapidly dodge that and changed its course to an ice cave.

“No way!” the Lieutenant shouted. “Block that cave, immediately!”

“But… It's good for us, Sir!” Johnson said. “Making it stuck in the cave isn't easier for us?”

“Don`t you see how big that cave is? A scientist once said to us that it has a crack on it`s floor. Both of them may fall down the crack and it will be harder for us to salvage both suits and rescue that brat.”

The team fired a few shots to the cave to make it`s roof collapse. The Lieutenant meanwhile tried to buy his team, sometimes fired the Alicorn to lure it away from the cave, despite the fact that Flash`s Zeta is still in its hand. If they don't want both to fly in because the cost of taking them out is too high and they would have to abandon them forever.

-Brandon! Sargent Brandon Cultrich, do you hear us?”, Era yelled to the Zeta a few times,

She received no answer.

“Is the com link on the Zeta’s dead?” Lt John asked her. “Try again Era, he may be panicking a little bit.”

But just after that, the Alicorn reached the cave. It's back hit one of the ice walls while flying more than 200 km/h and causing the cave roof to collapse, just when Era tried to grab the Zeta legs with her Zeta Plus. The avalanche buried her suit in half.

“We`re… We`re lost?”, Nguyen asked.

“Yes! We`re lost!” Lt. John yelled. “And we`re dumb enough to not fired any capture net round to it!”

“Crap… I forgot that!” Robson and Nguyen exclaimed.

“Now just go back to the base. We`ll request them to dig em up!” the Lieutenant said at the end.

“But… Why did the Alicorn choose that brat?” - he asked himself.
> After the chase
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flash finally woke up. He looked around with a feeling his body was floating above the ground.

"What… what on Earth… is this?" – he asked in shock.

The pitch black space is completely silent. After floating in it for a couple of minutes, it's started to drive him crazy.

“Is anybody here?” he shouted. His voice turned into an echo as he looked around the empty space in panic.

Suddenly, his feeling turned into a feeling that he is falling rapidly. There is no sign of the ground, making it like he is falling in a hole with no bottom.

And it stunted him again with a thud on his back. He has touched the ground, but there is no kind of pain that he could feel, despite the fact that he fell for a few minutes.

"What the…" - he mumbled – “the bottom is solid…”

He slowly sat up and looked around. There is still no sign of life… yet.

“Hahahaha!” an evil laugh spit out, and a few others also do the same. They sound exactly like the villain’s laughs he has heard when he was still a foal, hearing an actor on the stage playing an evil witch in a fairytale story.

"Who are they?", Flash mumbled. The laugh continued for a couple more minutes until it suddenly stopped just like another hand shut their mouth off.

"Seems like you just fell for our traps!" a female voice speaks up. “Just look at how poor you are, right now…”

"What… What have you done?". Flash asked in fear, mixed with frustration.

"Well, remember that time you fall into a small cave covered in snow?" a griffon figure leaned towards him “Well, that's the moment we met each other for the first time!”

"Sorry because of this, but we have to place a curse… on you!" a yak squeezed.

"What do you mean 'a curse'?" Flash asked in confusion.

"I, a power full unicorn of Equestria, Luster Dawn the Great, with her closest friends, will give you a curse: From now on, we will be the five ghosts that will haunt you. This haunting curse will tie us together until you, our victim, find out a way to free us all. Do it or choose to let this curse last to the end of time. This curse will stand still and no kind of magic can break it! The curse will be in force from… now!”

As soon as she shouted “Now!”, Flash was brought back to reality. The Zeta was falling, rapidly.

Looked out to the dark sky of the winter, he could see the Alicorn falling with him for a couple of minutes, and then fly away.

"Remember, we will visit you every single night!" a cheerful voice said to him before the Alicorn faded away in the cloud.

"Wait… What?"

Just after that, his suit hit the ground. His vision quickly faded into darkness.
> The situation at Equestria
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The year is Harmony Year 0026

After the first documented mobile suit encounter about 20 years ago, the breed consisting of gigantic humanoid shaped machines is still largely a mystery to the majority of creatures in Equestria. But not to some military factions that stretch across this beautiful magical world.

One single noticeable human that contributes to this change is Martha Vist Carbine. She is a noble woman who works for a huge corporation called Anaheim Electronics, in her world that is called the Earthshepre. She has brought mobile suits to Equestria and introduced them to some Equestrian officials, after countless expeditions and meetings with Equestria’s government, she’s finally had a deal with the kingdom’s Chancellor, Black Wine.

However, one notable thing about him is he has a view that creatures from all over Equus are ruining Equestria, so his party is seeking a solution to kick every creature, other than the pony race, out of Equestria. In the mind of his party, called "The Ponykind", ponykind is the superior race in all of Equus and all other race must bow to them. 

This is the reason why he Council of Friendship, although passes the contract, still make sure Anaheim selling mobile suit to some of Equestria’s allies as well as handing one of Black Wine’s ship to S.M.I.L.E, an organization that primarily hunting monster all over Equestria. When the Pegasus class ship Canterlot was commissioned into the S.M.I.L.E’s fleet, Lady Rainbow Dash, Minister of Defense, told the organization’s two director Sweetie Drop and Lyra Heartstring “S.M.I.L.E is officially hunting corruption now and make sure you treat the Canterlot well!”

But, a strange phenomena happened, which required S.M.I.L.E to solve it immediately.

Also as mysterious as how Martha Vist Carbine and her corporation ended up in Equus, there is a strange mobile suit that is just flying across the sky of Equestria. Every creature assumes it may come with “the mysterious mobile suits”. But no creature, not even S.M.I.L.E themselves, know why it was here, who it belongs to, and why it could fly for so long. S.M.I.L.E has classified the strange white mobile suit that leaves a five-color rainbow trail everywhere it goes as an unexplained magic phenomenon (UMP) and started research on it. Depend on Equestria's situation, they might want to store it far away or simply destroy the mysterious white MS that they called: Alicorn Gundam. But regardless of what outcome will happen, they have to capture it fast, because Black Wine have another plan in mind: he is currently running a secret military force within the Equestria navy that serve exclusively to him and his party, dubbed Unit 265. Their goal: to capture the Alicorn and use it as a weapon to force all other creatures out of Equestria and possibly, invade the kingdom's allied countries and stole their resource.

However, the event in which they have rescued a strange mobile suit that have a professional trained pilot in it (in the time when the creatures in S.M.I.L.E are still in training with humans and they still not professional enough), in the day when it was report to be the day of the first white MS encounter, have changed their minds.

After a month, when they considered that they had enough equipment that could help them catch the mysterious MS, the pilot waked up from his coma.
> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Clear sky! Perfect for an alicorn hunt!”  Haystack said from his cockpit while his squad chased the mysterious white MS from behind. “Yes, you hear that right!”

“Sir, we have the Alicorn in our scope. Should we open fire now?”

“You are free to go, Sargent!”

The group consists of 5 mobile suits, riding on 3 base jabbers, rapidly pursuing the white MS. The commander, Lieutenant Haystack, is possibly the most experienced mobile suit pilot at the moment, though he had just started to sit in an MS cockpit 2 years earlier. His suit, the Jesta commander with a custom antenna on it’s head, is his pride as a pilot, and also what he carried to that mission. The rest of the team have 4 Jegans, 2 on each base jabber. 2 of the subordinate suit carried with it a custom net gun built by a weapon company at Manehattan, which have an effective range of 10 kilometers (according to the manufacturer themselves). This is also shown that their suits are severely slower than what they are trying to chase. However, according to what he has known, the jabbers that he was given are the fastest machine currently available within the Equestria military, as well as in allied kingdoms.

One of the Jeagans starts firing the net gun at the Alicorn. In total, they have fired 5 rounds, and none of them hit. Haystack was ordered to fire at the Alicorn with their beam rifle.

“I don’t care if that thing is destroyed! Fire!”

The group fired 11 times at the Alicorn. But again, the mysteriously fast humanoid machine dodged them all, although one of it nearly hit its shoulder armor and another one also nearly hit it’s head. Then, one of the most breathtakingly beautiful but also extremely dangerous phenomena occurred: the suit, using a magical wave that could have its origin from its glowing “psycho frame”, attacked the team. They have to dodge the attack twice and one of the suits unlucky have the wave hit it’s left hand, causing it to disassemble itself and fall down the sky.

After that, what they see is just the rainbow trail that many creatures have seen before. The suit has flown away into the sky.

“Darn it, another failure? They will defund us if we just keep it like this!”

At the moment, the mission is the third failure since “Operation Rainbow Chaser” started.

“Arrgh! Just… back to the ship!” Haystack ordered “We gonna fix Blue Thunder’s Jeagan later!”

“Hey! That Gundam pilot has woken up! You should check him out!”, Sweetie Drop, the operation director who most creature like to call as Bonbon, said through the com link, “I think you should check that guy out.”

…

“It's… it's painful…”

“Are there any creatures?”

Those mystery voices are screaming in fear and pain.

Flash was terrified. He can't do anything to get those voices out of either his head or at least blocking his ears.

“Please save us, we are here! PLEASE!”

“No… No… NO WAY!”, he screamed and quickly sat up.

“Woah woah dude, you are traumatized!” a yak doctor tries to calm him down. “Relax my friend!”

Flash looked around. He was now lying down on a white bed, it seemed like he was in some kind of hospital. Working along with the yak doctor was a creature that seemed to be a… changeling nurse!

“What… what is this place!” he asked in exhaustion.

“You are just being saved, my man. Relax!” the doctor said. “You just sleep for at least one month straight counting from the day we rescue ya!”

“Just let him rest here for at least a few days. Take care of him, Mirax” The doctor then said to the changeling nurse “The coma has hit him hard.”

“Oh and by the way, there is an officer waiting for another month just to meet you. He will ask some questions. I`ll guess it is time to let you rest in here for a bit.”

Then, they walked out of the room.

“A yak and a reformed changeling? I remember Princess Twilight showed me some of her stories about them.”  He mumbled,  “So this means… I`m home?”

He started to think of the chase that brought him to all of this. Everything seems to happen very quickly, Flash barely recalls anything that he saw during the chase, except the illusion that those weird creatures have shown to him…

“Those creatures… the curse… what is all of this?”

After a while, a brown stallion stepped into the sickbay. He has a bunch of hay for his cutie mark, a grey uniform and he seems to have a scar on his face. Following him is the changeling nurse that has taken care of him.

“Miss Mirax, you can rest now.”  he said with a thick tone to the nurse “I can deal with him on my own.”

She slowly closed the door as the stallion took a quick glance at Flash and sat down.

“Well, unfortunately for you, you will stay here for a very long time, my man.”

Flash looked back with a sharp look to him.

“Don`t look like that, I have waited for ya for a month, as that doctor has said before. Don`t worry, he is one of the best in all of Equestria.”

“So I'm really back to Equestria!”, a quick thought goes through Flash's mind.

“Now, pardon me. Since we have rescued you from a mobile suit, we have to ask you some very important questions. Who knows? Maybe you stole it?”

“Ok! Now let's start asking some questions!” he pulled out some paper . “Where do you come from, though?”

Flash looked around for a while before answered

“Equestria!”

“Equestria? Ok, let's say you are honest.”  the pony wrote down  “And you seems like you come from a military units, right?”

“Uh… I serve in a faction called the… Earth Federation. Londo Bell…, Antarctica legion to be exact, Sir!” he answered

“Good to know that, despite the fact that I don't know any of them. What do you do there?”

“I`m a mobile suit pilot, Sir.”

“You are a pure treasure, dude!”  he exclaimed and started to write again. “Well, there are some more things I want to ask you but I don't have much time. I may ask them personally if I have time. Now, for the best part: what's your name?”

“Brandon Cultrich!”

“Brandon? Fits perfectly for a douchebag like you! I thought your name is Flash Sentry?”

“How… How do you know?”

“Ya don't remember me? It's me, man, Haystack!”

“Haystack?”

“Yeah, I still remember the day you won us all and went to Ponyville to be her majesty`s guard, personal guard! It`s must be hard for ya, right?”

“Yes, yes, Haystack! I remember you, man! Let me remember… You work for the Prince himself? Prince Shining Armor!”

“Yes! I serve under him!”

Suddenly, a hoof just flies straight into Flash's face, causing his head to fall to bed rails rapidly.

“You shameless bastard! You realize me, yet you just acting like you are innocent!”

Haystack squeezed his word into Flash's ear.

“What… what do you mean?”

“You stole Her Majesty's crown, my man! You nearly caused a national crisis! Shoot! I still remember the day I read a newspaper that said you are caught. YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THE ROYAL GUARD!”

He yelled and made a second slap to Flash.

“Okay… “ he went back to the papers. “Just presume your name is Brandon Cultrich. Be careful, your look may be different, but there are a lot of people who know your name. Just hope they don't notice you here, man!”

“But… how can you understand me?”

“My brain is pretty strange, I don't know why I`m not even your close friend but I still realize ya? May be because your voice, or your ice…”

When he looked into Flash`s eyes, his pupil was just an icy cold color with a little black spot in the middle.

“Man, your eyes scare me! And why do you look so… young?”

“I don't know… But when I woke up there I felt like I had gone through a very long sleep!”

“Hibernation I guess? I don`t know… But listen again: since you have a very high strategic value, you will stay here until the war is over. Be careful not to let any creature you are Flash Sentry and finally: welcome aboard the Canterlot!”

After that, Haystack just slammed the door, leaving the human-shaped Flash Sentry alone again.

“Dang it! How could that bastard be here?” the Lieutenant mumbled “And why did he pilot the mobile suit?”
> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Black Wine carefully reads through the paper he has left from last night.

It was almost a habit he had developed when he started his position as the Chancellor of Equestria: checking some papers with a hot little cup of coffee right next. He feels like it was something nice and it fit well to someone who works in a high ranking position in the Government.

“Let me see…”, he mumbled “The Diamond Dogs complained that they can’t meet any of the officials? Ha! What a joke! They have stolen some lands at Appleloosa and now they want to meet us to steal more?”

Also working as the President of “The Ponykind” party, a negative view on other species other than ponies is something you would expect from a black coated stallion like him. To him, the creatures have “bleed the ponies dry for 2 decades' '.

He was well respected among his party by successfully closing the School of Friendship. His reason: closed for investigating multiple magical incidents that occurred with creatures doing inappropriate actions. He has addressed that the school would close for just a few months, and he hoped that would be long enough for his party to make some preparation to kick the creatures out.

The masked pony takes one more little sip from his hot coffee.

“Too strong. Guess I over do it yesterday!”

His ears then pay their attention to the door as somepony knocks outside.

“Come in!” he ordered softly.

A pale red unicorn with a perfectly tied bun comes in with some more paper levitating slightly above her head. She carefully closed the door and walked in.

“What is that?”

“The papers from the 265, Sir! They said that S.M.I.L.E has failed again.”

“For the third time? Good! How about Zeta's pilot?”

“It’s in the report. They haven’t told me about that yet.”

“Okay…” , the Chancellor sighed, “You are dismissed”

She bowed slightly and came out. The Chancellor checked the new reports and he was greeted with some special news.

“He has just woken up?” he mumbled. “Guess we should bring them out now.”

Although he was delighted to find his opponent unit failed and “Operation Rainbow Chaser” was threatened to stop permanently, the recovery of the mysterious Gundam that was called by his reconnaissance department as the “Zeta Gundam” . It’s pilot seems to be a fully experienced human that was directly trained by the Earth Federation itself, but this does not worry him since he has more human pilots in the 265’s complement.

“Joseph Barn, Nikita Govarich and Mark Ester. That’s the Black Tristar of the Federation, my favorite pilots!” he said to his subordinate when they were having a party with his Anaheim Electronics (also known as AE) friends. “Those scumbag creatures won’t stand a chance facing them.”

Although the 265 are pushing harder than ever to train ponies to be fully experienced pilots, reliance on AE’s human pilots and technicians. This also makes his strive to complete freedom from creatures a nonsense movement, if the public somehow finds out what his party is really doing.

But still, he still wants to start capturing the Alicorn. At least to him, it would be a machine that will make some weight on the negotiation table when he wants the creatures to hand over some of their “stolen from the ponies” mines.  

“Red Velvet! Call Lieutenant Thunderstruck! We’ll capture that thing!”

…

“Wait! I think I know who he is!” a female voice speaks up in the distance “Maybe he is Flash Sentry?”

“Flash Sentry?” another voice said “Who is that?”

-Well… Princess Twilight once told me…

Within the shadow, Flash could hear their voice pretty clear, and it kept getting louder as he moved. The pitch black prevents him from seeing, but he has a weird yet familiar feeling that he is walking on… hooves?

“I`m… I`m a pony again?”

“Who is there?” another voice asked in a rather uncomfortable voice.

But strangely, he could realize that`s the voice of… a kirin.

“But… a kirin was just in legend… No way!”

In the dark, a four legged figure appeared and walked toward Flash. The creature seems to have whites eyes and her mane and tail look exactly like a kirin, the mythical creature he saw in a fairytale book as a foal.

“Yes… We exist! And not only the kirin, but the nirik too!”

“Ni… Nirik!”, he gasped.

Only at that moment, she fully revealed herself: her eyes were bright white and her body was nothing but red flames.

Flash can already feel the heat come from her.

“Awww… is this the pony who fell for us?” she said.

“No! Don't touch me!”

And then, he ran, his mind was nothing but fear. In panic, he tried to find the best way to run, but the heat from the creature just kept getting closer and closer. Eventually, the nirik pushed him to a dead end.

“Save us out, fast!” the nirik demanded with the creepiest voice Flash has ever heard “Or I will burn you alive!”

“No… No… NO!”

Flash screamed and woke up on another strange bed.

“What… What just happened?” Flash asked himself.

“Hey, wake up!” Haystack comes to his bed “You’ll have to meet some important creatures today!”

…

It was a hangar that he knew but he had never seen it in person before.

The Canterlot is a Pegasus class warship, which means it was a fairly old ship compared to the more modern Clop class or the famous Ra Cailum, which Flash has personally seen. But according to Haystack, the ship’s versatility is the reason why S.M.I.L.E chose the Canterlot for their operations.

Another thing that captures his eyes is how much Equestria has changed after 20 years through the scene in the hangar alone. There are creatures working together: mechanics, marshals, even some pilots, and there are no humans like him.

“Guess you are the only human here. Come along and enjoy this sight!” Haystack said.

“Good morning Haystack! Glad you are recovered, Cultrich!” some creature said in the distance.

A pair of middle aged ponies came to the pal and shook their hooves to Haystack before turning to Flash.

“How do you feel now?”

“I’m fine, ma’am!”

“Good, then! Anyway my name is Sweetie Drop, you can call me Bonbon!” she gives her hoofs out and shakes Flash’s hand. “I’m the General Director of S.M.I.L.E as well as the commander of Operation ‘Rainbow Chaser’.”

“And I’m Lyra Heartstring, Co-director! Nice to meet you too!”  The magic-mint coat unicorn said. “Welcome to S.M.I.L.E!”

“So… have you shown him the Strike Zeta, Lieutenant?”

“Oh… Yes! Come with me!” the Lieutenant waved at Flash and started leading him to the mobile suit he had piloted in.

“Can I ask some questions?” Flash said “Why do you have these things? I mean the mobile suits, this ship, the pilots…”

“Well… that’s a long story! But it could be said like this: basically there is a business woman from another world who offers us to buy these things. The Council of Friendship, which currently has Princess Twilight Sparkle herself and her friends, rejected. But after some convincing, they agree, only after they find out those guys that corporation called Anaheim signed some contracts with Chancellor Black Wine.”

“So… where is Princess Luna and Celestia?”

“They have retired! Anyway Rainbow Dash has offered this beautiful old lady Canterlot and some nice polished mobile suits to us! She may be old, but she is never outdated, at least to us!”

“How do you train…”

But his questions were cut short when his eyes met the Strike Zeta again.

The 19.85 meters tall mobile suits were carefully covered with military cloth all over some of its area of armor, indicating that it sustained damages after the crash. There are dents, scratches and some exposed electrical wires all over its body. Flash could also see some creatures working around the suits.

“Honestly this is a mobile suit we never see, let alone doing maintenance on it. Lucky for you some of these mechanics are already trained with suits similar to you. I don’t know what are they, but… yeah, it should be identical to this!”

“Lieutenant Haystack!” a hippogriff mechanic called “Glad to see you here! Are you this thing pilot?”

Flash nodded slightly.

“There are dents on its torso, the right shoulder armor, it’s wing… Well we are doing our best, even with magic to fix this. Do you have any instructions for this?”

“I have maintenance as well as some pilot instruction. They are all in the cockpit.”

“Okay, we have seen it.” she said “But we have performed overall maintenance on your suit and it is perfect for battle now! Now we just wait for fixing the armor a bit!”

“Good!… Let’s go to the mission room now, shall we?”, Haystack said.

…

The mission room is getting more and more crowded with creatures. Flash could spot some ponies, hippogriffs, griffons, yaks,… gather in groups, chattering about some nonsense as well as serious topics, and he found most of them are strangely familiar.

“20 years! Equestria sure has changed a lot since I was banished!” he thought to himself.

But they start to change their eyes on Flash when they notice him and Haystack get into the mission room. He could hear some of them talking about him.

“A human? Long time no see!”

“Is that Anaheim’s mechanic?”

“That’s the guy from the Strike Zeta, idiot!”

“Good morning every creature!” director Lyra comes into the room and starts. “Today, I wanted to talk about some hot topics. As you have heard of…”

He could see the creatures are getting bored of how much failure they have to see over the time. As the co-director of S.M.I.L.E has stated, they have failed to catch a strange machine called “Alicorn Gundam”. They have concluded that the mysterious MS that is spotted flying occasionally in the sky belongs to no one, and they are the one in charge of catching it.

Suddenly, a strange feeling ran down Flash’s spine, saying that something familiar is in that strange machine.

“Can… can it be…” he mumbled, but couldn't say the whole sentence.

“And finally, I want you to welcome our newest member of our ship, Brandon Cultrich. He is the Strike Zeta pilot that you are waiting to meet!”

The room clapped their hooves and claws when he and Haystack came on to the stage.

“Thank you for all of your support!” Haystack said calmly “So this is him, Ensign Brandon Cultrich, he'll fight those fitthy ponies with us from now!”

Then, the feeling that he has felt before comes to him again. He feels like there are creatures that, being unfairly imprisoned, wanted his help. It was indescribable and unexplainable.

“Thank you everyone, and now here comes Captain Discord!”

The Lieutenant's words pulled him out of the thinking when he said the name Discord. He knew him well, since he was the one who had been redeemed by Fluttershy, a member of the Council of Friendship. He both had some surprise as well as happiness when he saw the draconequus get on to the stage.

Flash and Haystack come down the stage as the Canterlot’s captain starts his speech.

“Hello every creature!” he said with his normal un-formal voice “Nice to meet you, again. And hello to you too, Mr. Cultrich…”

Flash nodded slightly when the Lieutenant said to him.

“Come to the hangar, I’ll show you your new team.”

…

A group of 2 ponies, a yak and a hippogriff standing near a Jegan, waiting for the pal to arrive.

“There they are! Cultrich!” the Lieutenant said “Meet my team: Blue Thunder, Sparkle Shy, Watervapor and Yamina! How about your Jeagan, Blue Thunder?”

“They are going to give me a spare hand for it. Oh and nice to meet you, Cultrich!”

The blue pony gave his hoofs out and they were shaken.

“I guess that’s an unfortunate situation for you to randomly get to another world like this!” Blue Thunder said jokingly. “And getting a job right after you wake up, but I guess you are too valuable to us!”

“I… Yeah…” Flash mumbled.

“Haystack! Where are you?” Discord yelled in the distance. “I thought you should show up at the bridge!”

Suddenly, from the other side of the hangar, Discord shows up. He waved at the team and came to them.

“Good to see ya still safe and sound, Cultrich! We will have a tour with this ship later with you!” Discord shaken Flash’s hand again “So, what are we talking here?”

“Just a team gathering, Sir. We are discussing what we should…”

All of the sudden, the siren in the ships goes up, and then the speaker announced:

“The Alicorn has been spotted travelling just 10 kilometers from us. All personnel go to the battlestation!”

“What? We just…” Haystack mumbled.

“Okay! Gather your team Lieutenant! I’ll go to the bridge!”

“Yes Sir!” Haystack replied before turning to Flash. “You should also come with us too, Cultrich! I know that the Zeta hasn't been perfectly polished yet, but as that mechanic has said, it was basically battle ready! We want to test how fast that thing is as well!”

“Yes Sir!” Flash replied. 
> Chapter 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When he finally got to the Strike Zeta, it was already waiting to be deployed with it’s cockpit hatch open. The dents and scratch are partly fixed, but to him it is battle-ready enough.

The strange feeling that he had felt before suddenly came back again.

“It should be them!” he thought to himself.

“Hey Brad! Make sure to catch up to us!” Yamina said “We never wait!”

“Copy that!”

…

After leaving the catapults for a couple of minutes, Flash and the team started to see the rainbow trail.

It was an undesirable bright trail with five colors within the trail itself: light cereis, pale brown, grey, light yellow and black. Common creatures will told there is seven color in the rainbow and some occasion, six , the six color rainbow that have inspired countless of creatures in Equestria and beyond that was made by the Council of Friendship themselves when they defeated a bad guy. Some said it was just pure science, that it was just some kind of light bending “malfunction”, some said it was a magical phenomenon and urged the government to investigate, and end it.

But now, every creature knows that it comes from a mysterious unmanned mobile suit called “Alicorn Gundam”.

“The one who said this is a magical phenomenon should be praised, though!” Blue Thunder said jokingly. “And by the way, nice to see that thing can transform. Is that a plane or something?”

When he turned to the Strike Zeta, it’s already in the Wave Rider mode, which is when it attached its giant shield into the front and turned into a plane-like craft.

“Thank you, Blue Thunder.” Flash said through the com link. “This will make sure it flies at a higher speed!”

“Okay! Here’s the plan!” Haystack said through the com link “First thing first: Blue Thunder and Yamina, you still have that one base jabber but Yamina will operate the net gun instead, Sparkle Shy and Water Vapor still don’t change. And you, Brad! You will follow me! They have said you are the fastest so I want you to show off all of your abilities! Do y’all understand?”

“Copy that, Lieutenant!”, replied the team.

After a few more minutes, they finally reached the point where Haystack thinks they could engage, based on his personal experience as the fourth time commanding a similar operation. He then ordered:

“Open fire!”

The two special operation Jegans that belong to Blue Thunder and  Sparkle Shy fired their net gun towards the runaway white machine. It turned and dodged them perfectly.

“Hey Brad, do something! We are buying time for you!” the Lieutenant yelled.

That strange feeling just came back to him, but this time it was more describable: he feels like there are a bunch of kids screaming for help, and somehow he could feel their fear and confusion of why these strange guys keep firing at them while they do no harm.

“Please… we… we don’t harm anyone!” a voice said miserably.

But Flash has to shake them all out and starts his own engagement by flying straight at the white machine. He then transforms his suit back to MS mode and tries his best to shoot it down. The Strike Zeta come to the white closer and closer until it was just a few hundred meters away.

At this point, through the camera that zoom into his target, Flash could saw the mysterious machine that had pulled him back to Equestria again, but in better detail: the white armor, apart from some visible dent and scratch that was possibly due to the crash with his Strike Zeta, was decorated with some red lines all over. The right shoulder armor was painted with a lines of word that read “RX -0A ALICORN GUNDAM”, while it’s left shoulder armor was decorated by a white Alicorn with pink mane and tail.

“This is why they call it the Alicorn Gundam!” Flash mumbled.

But it's not all perfectly white. The suit feels like it was unfinished with some exposed psycho frame part and some black armor piece on it shoulder and leg armor. But above all, the psycho frame generates a kind of bright pink light but it is still not enough to cover the whole machine, which is also the reason why he could see it in detail. The light then becomes a trail of pink sparkle and slowly transforms into the five-colored rainbow that was reported by countless eyewitnesses. To make the rainbow even brighter and larger, two shields was added on the back-pack, and there are bright pink cracks amongst the white armor that was also psycho frame, like the rest of its body. The two shields also have some sort of tail on each of them, which Flash speculated that they are flight stabilizers. The "tails" swinging like they are wires in the strong winds, adding the majesticness to the suit when it was flying. 

Flash carefully brings the Alicorn into his scope and presses the fire button. It just dodged like usual. After a few shots, Flash realized that his strategy didn't work and transformed to WR mode again.

“What the… Brad! What on Earth are you doing?” Haystack yelled. “You nearly hit it!”

But Flash had another plan in mind: he wanted to hug it.

“The armor is completely fine for this, Sir!” Flash explained when he was asked why he chose to do that. “I’ll try to punch into its cockpit until the computer is completely disable!”

When the Lieutenant hasn't spoken up yet, Flash decides to carry his plan on his own.

The suit suddenly transformed back into an MS as soon as it reached Alicorn’s leg and rapidly grabbed them. The Alicorn quickly tries to free itself while Flash still holds it with all of his strength.

“Come on! Lend… me… your… power…” Flash said with his voice barely can hear.

The Alicorn struggled to free itself for a few minutes. Flash has managed to carefully climb up to the point his suit hugs it’s torso so the Alicorn's hand was locked as well.

“For Twilight’s sake! Reply to my, Fl… I mean Brad!”

“Fire the net gun!”

“What? Hey you jerk! I don’t want this suit to be ruined like last time again!”

“I know, Sir! But y’all should…”

His speech was cut short by strong feelings running down his spine. His brain now feels like he was just drinking a large amount of brain freeze drink from the straw. When he nearly passed out, the familiar voice that he have heard when he first met those ghost said to him:

“Aww… Look who has surrendered yourself to us!”

“Surrender myself?”

Flash vision suddenly went black and that feeling when he floated amongst darkness came back again.

“Flash. The. Stealer. Sentry!” the voice said with all of it’s angriness. “Where have you been all this time?”

“Huh?”

“You haven’t paid off what you’ve done! Release us!” she said “Or we will haunt you for live!”

“Come on, just fire already!” Flash thought.

“A shock will end this pain soon, huh? No way! I’ll never let anyone harm us, and you too!” the voice said with a softer voice.

“Just save us out fast and you will be rewarded!” the voice of the kirin comes up “We’ll be friends forever!”

“Release you so your evil spirit can terrorize Equestria? No way!” Flash screamed.

“What? We’re not evil spi…”

The speech was cut short by a loud bang. The sound has pulled Flash back to reality.

Then, what he saw was almost complete chaos. The Alicorn pushes him out and dodges beam shots firing at both of them. Then, the Lieutenant said to Flash panically:

“Brad you dumbass, can you hear me!” he screamed to the com link “The 265! They’ve come!”

The 265, he’s heard that name before. It was Chancellor Black Wine’s personal military unit that he created to follow his wish. In this case, they are being deployed to catch the Alicorn in order to satisfy the Chancellor's greed to create division in Equestria and rule the world.

“Flash, be careful!” the mysterious voice that he has heard when being pulled into the limbo comes up.

A beam shot that was supposed to hit Flash’s suit was blocked by one of Alicorn's shield-like wings. The mysterious white machine was hovering with Flash just about 20 meters from each other, and both were struggling fighting the incoming enemy: three black suits with three individual base jabbers, rapidly flying towards Haystack team and the pal, while continuously firing at their target.

The Strike Zeta pulled its gigantic shield up and began its own struggle to fight one of them. One of the suits that turned out to be a Jesta has come to him close enough to stop the Zeta from transforming and getting away, so what Flash has done is pulled out his beam saber. The Jesta also pulled out it’s beam saber and made a bright pink spark when it clashed with the Strike Zeta’s blade. Flash could see apart from it’s customized atena on the head, this Jesta Commander has a burning wolf head paint on it’s right shoulder armor and the number “265” right below.

“That Alicorn is mine!” his opponent said through the com-link while holding his sabers. “You dirty creatures will smudge that thing with beautiful armor!”

“Who are you?”

“Lieutenant, Joseph Barn. Just call me Joe!”

He performed a kick right after, making the Zeta nearly fall off the base jabber. Flash rapidly retains his balance and makes his own move by trying to cut to the Jesta torso.

“Amatures!” Joseph laughed after dodging the strike “You think you creature can even scratch my armor?”

“Yes we can!”

Then, while Joe was still laughing, Flash made his own kick into the Jesta torso and his opponent fell down into his subordinate base jabber.

“What the…”

“Good work Brad!” Haystack said.

The two of them then exchange fire continuously and most of the shots are missed, due to how fast both base jabbers maneuver. The Jesta commander tried to take back his jabber once but failed due to one of the shots from the build-in beam rifle mounted in the Zeta’s shield hit it rifle, causing it to explode.

“Darn it! And the Alicorn has escaped!” Joseph groaned while maintaining his position on Nikita’s jabber “I have severely underestimated that thing’s skill!”

“Hey Brad! The Alicorn has gone!”

Flash looked around the fight scene and the mysterious RX 0A-labelled MS flew away, leaving the five-colored rainbow trail as every time it appeared.

“We’ll retreat now! Leave that jabber behind!” Haystack ordered.

The Strike Zeta rapidly transformed into WR mode and left Joseph's team behind.

“We got a lot to report today, my friend!” Haystack said to the rest of the team.

But, on the way back to the ship, Flash could heard a voice echoed, which he presume it was come from the Alicorn itself:

“Try to find a way to save us, prince charming!” a voice said happily which Flash strangely felt it was coming from an Earthpony. “Remember there will be a reward for ya!”
> Chapter 6
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What the heck is that?” Nikita asked “And how it was here!”

“The Zeta-like MS? Man, do you know how much performance that things have in it’s engine?”, Ensign Mark commented. “And Joe held up for like about 6 minutes?, that’s a pretty long time, especially when most of it was a fire exchange!”

On their way back to their base Joseph checked his data bank that was installed along with his suit. He found there is no MS that matches what he has fought with.

“This is perhaps a classified MS project . That means AE has probably sent it here to test! Filthy elites…”

“Why care about AE! They don’t care who they sell to most of the time! They just care about money!”

“Or maybe they’re not! At least this time…” Joseph said “I remember seeing a decal on it that said ‘MSZ-006-3’, I’ll tell them what they are? After returning to the base, just follow the protocol, is that clear?”

“Clear, Sir!”, both of them answered.

“He’s probably a human! No, a special one like us!” Joseph thought “No way a dirty creature can be given with such an MS.”

If you are standing on the ground and looking up at the sky on that Wednesday evening, there will be a group of three dish-shaped objects flying with three trails behind them. Joseph's squad is flying in a triangular formation to where the is setting. The creatures below were shocked by what just happened right before their eyes, the sight of seven gigantic human figures, riding on something that looked like a giant circular shaped carpet fighting each other.

“Is… Is that some type of magic?” a filly asked her mom.

…

“Hey! I’ve never ordered any to “do on your own”!” Haystack scolded Flash when they finally got back to the Canterlot “And is your com link dead or what?”

“I… I don’t know…” Flash answered “I guess there is some malfunction…”

“And we just piss off the Chancellor, dude! He’s a bad pony, yes! But he’s still S.M.I.L.E boss!”

“Cool down, Haystack!” Lyra came and said “He did a great job today!”

“Urgh! At least you are the one who solves the mess later!”

“But, as always, y’all should write a report of what happened in the last mission for us. And don’t forget to tell your mechanics to give us your combat data! And about you, Brandon…” she turned to Flash “You can beat the opponent right in the first time you were deployed with us! That’s good news! Now you will do exactly what I have told your squad!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Then, Flash just gets lonely by himself, among the busy creatures doing their business in the second MS hangar.

…

“There’s your room, buddy!” the Lieutenant pointed at Flash's personal cabin “I don’t know how long this will last, but make sure to enjoy this cozy place!”

It was one of the smaller cabins compared to the majority of cabins across the ship, which he had learned after a short tour of the Canterlot, but he is a pilot so he has been given the opportunity to have his own personal space with everything a particular human like him needs to have.

“Well… this one is for one of the humans who used to train us in the time we still need them to operate these things. They have left now!” Haystack explained “Since this room is not refurbished for the creatures , you can use it freely!”

“Thank you, Lieutenant…”

“Nah! That was Bonbon’s order, we just followed what she said! Honestly, living in a cell will be more appropriate for ya!”

Flash quietly inspected his cabin. The soft bed, cool conditioner, a little wardrobe,… and even a personal bathroom. That’s really everything he needs:

“That’s a hard day for you! Just wake up and you have to climb up to your own suit and fight!”

“Yeah…”

“Lyra said she will tell her subordinate to prepare the luggage for ya! I’ll meet y’all at 7pm, in the cantena!”

“Yes, Sir!”

…

After a refreshing bath, Flash put on his new coffee brown Federation uniform.

“How… How do they have all of these things?” Flash asked the soldier who gave him the luggage.

“Well… Turns out there is an EFF officer who recommends leaving these stuff back for the future soldier. We don’t know when there will be another EFF deployment here, but just wish they do not come again. Some of them are down right racist, but you are certainly not one of them. Anyway, enjoy!”

He keeps thinking wild when he walks down the little white-painted alleyway somewhere inside the ship’s main hall. It was a clean looking vessel, both from the outside and the inside. But he heard Lyra say they are lacking resources.

“Lady Rainbow Dash will solve this for us soon, as long as that filthy Chancellor doesn't stand in the way.” she added.

Some of the lights inside the alleyway are flickering, indicating that they need to be changed.

Then, a blow of cold wind suddenly hits Flash’s back, which makes Flash go goosebumps. He turned around where is standing. It was completely silent and there was no one else but him.

“That's strange…”

After a few more seconds walking in panic, he reached a door. But, no matter how hard he tries, the door just keeps its position.

“This door should be replaced…” Flash mumbled.

“Nah! It’s fine.” A cheerful voice comes up “You just have to do it a little harder.”

He purposely lengthens the word “little”.

“Who… Who’s that?”

Flash rapidly turned his back, only to see the normal silent alleyway, as it should be.

“Who is that?” Flash asked out loud. His mind told him there may be a spy hidden in the ship.

“Awe… You know who I am!” the voice answered back.

Suddenly, he could feel he knew the owner of the voice. It seems like it came from one of the creatures he had seen back in Antarctica, during his first ever encounter with the Alicorn.

“Is that…”

But then, the door suddenly opened.

“Ah, there you are!” Haystack appeared behind the door “I just intended to come to your room! Get to the canteena ASAP!”

…

Just as the mission room when he was first introduced to the ship, the cantina was also crowded with creatures.

“The kirin? Don’t worry, dude!” Blue Thunder said when he noticed some fear on Flash’s face when he saw a couple of kirins walking nearby “As long as you don’t enrage them, they’ll do no harm.”

This has reminded him of the mysterious kirin he had seen previously, as well as his foal hood, when one of the “mothers” told him about the legend of the kirin.

“The kirin is beautiful, but don’t let it fool you!” she said “As soon as you fall into their traps, they can fry you with their unquenchable fire in their nirik form and make them their lunch!”

When they get to the team’s table, Haystack and the rest of his squad are already there.

“So… Do you know anything about the suits we encounter?” Yamina asked, “I mean… their commander’s MS is almost identical to yours.”

“I’ll ask Lyra and Bonbon for more. But they just said they just came here a few earlier to train the ponies and try to capture the Alicorn, just like us! And they come from a unit called the Blue Guards.

“Blue… Guards?” Flash mumbled. He has heard this name before.

“Hey human! Ya know anything about them?” Blue Thunder asked.

“Uh…  Actually not much. They are just another small EFF’s unit… I suppose…”

“And we also have the name of the three guys we encountered today!” Haystack pulled out a sheet of paper “Let me see… Joseph Barn, Nikita Govarich and Mark Ester! They formed into a team called the Trio of Terror. How arrogant!”

“Beaten by our new friends the first time deployed!” Blue Thunder laughed “Just don’t take them seriously!”

…

That is the first night he spent as an official soldier fighting for S.M.I.L.E. After his first mission with the team, he have sometimes to to be alone, thinking wild about what he have gone through: the hibernation in the middle of somewhere like the Frozen North for decades, wake up, being found and get tortured in a military base only to work at that same place, encounter a mysterious machine and get pulled back to Equestria only to see how much as changed,…

“And Twilight…”, Flash unconsciously mumbled.

“Flash. Sentry. The shameless pony who stole Her Majesty's crown , is that guy?” some creature said grumpily “Do you see the consequence now, Luster?”

“Luster?” Flash mumbled “Who’s that!”

“Yeah…” the voice that Flash said belonged to a pony named Luster said “I… I don’t know if it will turn out like this…”

“Come on Grisela!” another voice comes up, which Flash found very stylish “We can find another one… Hopefully we can find a better and a more handsome one next time!”

“Found another?” Grisela replied, this time with a higher voice “Don’t you even see how powerful the curse Luster cast on that pegasus?”

“Enough guys, enough!” Luster said to both “We may rely on him!”

“She’s right, guys!” the voice that he had heard in the alleyway before came up “He’s a nice guy, kinda…”

“Oh come on! Not you too, BB?”

He has listened throughout a conversation that he presumes he is just making up. He shakes his head a couple of times, but the voices just keep going and going, and what he hears is crystal clear, like a group of creatures talking right next to his room.

“Please… please just a dream…”

“Hey! You heard what we say right?”

Luster's voice comes up, followed by a knock on the door “Hello?”

“Don’t be shy, my friend. Open the door!” another voice yelled.

Then, more and more knocking followed, and there were some more voices. However, Flash could distinguish them all and that helped him assume that there are five of them.

The voices and knocks ended after a few minutes. Flash wondered what happened and decided to go check for himself.

The door opened, and when he looked outside, everything was still normal. Empty, silent, and that one light still flickering. He decided to get back inside.

Then, something happened in his own cabin which shocked him to the core.

A group of creatures, the group that he had seen when he first encountered the Alicorn, standing a row staring at Flash. They don't move an inch, nothing on them seems to be moving.

Flash could feel the cabin get colder yet the moment he saw them, he started sweating like a bath.

The creatures are still staring at him with that same lifeless face he has seen before. But this time, they decide to go further: the group walked toward Flash all together. They even walk through the beds and stuff in his room with no problem.

“Gh… Gh… Ghost!” Flash sputtering while slowly walking back to the door.

Flash falled down once, but he still managed to touch the door handle. When he try to open it, the door stuck again, just like when he encountered that voice.

“Bring us live! Bring us live! Bring us live!” the creatures demanded while slowly walking towards him.

They keep walking for a few seconds before deciding to stop before him all at once.

“Please tell me this is a dream…” Flash mumbled in fear.

“Oh! It’s no dream.”  The kirin said, her mane and tail started to emit fire. “You have taken our gold and gems, now you have to bring us out from this Tartarus!”

“What?”

“You will find a way to free us! That Alicorn Gun… whatever it is, harms us, tear us apart day by day, and you not only steal gems from us, but also stand by and watch us dying day by day! You're selfish!” the pink unicorn said “If you don’t free us from that prison, we’ll promise to come and visit you like this every night!”

Then, after having some maniacal laugh, they decide to jump into him all at once:

“Surprise!”

“Ah!”

Flash suddenly sitting up, breathing rapidly. He then looked back and saw he was still sitting on the bed. His bed nearly got wet because of how sweet he was.

“Save… them out?” he sighed “Luster, Grisela, BB…? Who’s the other two?”

 

 

 

 
> Chapter 7
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Chancellor! I heard your new pilots are going good, right?” Princess Twilight Sparkle, the ruler of Equestria, asked Black Wine through the monitor.

Another pleasant evening came to his office, raining down it’s late daylight on the floor.

Black Wine is having a conversation with the kingdom’s ruler herself, chatting about some political stuff. Since Black Wine makes his way into the Chancellor office, intense conversations such as this are more frequent. As much as he have known, the Princess, as well as the Council of Friendship as a whole, don’t like the concept of having a fleet of extraterrestrial weapons being used in their military, even if Lady Rainbow Dash herself has already nodded to have a fleet of gravity-define warships and about 100 MS.

“So, tell me Chancellor, is your “Alicorn Gundam” research done yet?” she asked with a sarcastic voice.

“Sadly… we haven’t even catch it yet. But we’re pushing ourselves hard to research eyewitness accounts and pieces of… that thing that have fallen out. It is an MS, princess.”

“Good! How about that new… Strike Zeta Gundam? I don’t remember when we purchased it!”

“We have research on it. Turns out it originally belongs to a faction in that Earthsphere world that is called Karaba! Those humans have told me so. We are still figuring out why it is here and why it was used by the S.M.I.L.E!”

“And why do you decide to attack S.M.I.L.E?”

The Chancellor was stunned at her question, as if she had touched his deepest part in his soul.

“Well… I guess it was just a… misconception!” he replied “There are some incidents that… the creatures… using a mobile suit against us! I think S.M.I.L.E are up to something, also! I’ll investigate it further!”

“Okay! I’ll take note!” she said to him, adjusting position on the throne “Oh, and make sure to remind our human guests that Princess Twilight Sparkle wishes them good luck!”

“Yes, your Majesty!”

He bowed and the large screen hanging on the wall in front of his table  turned itself off.

But, after just a few minutes trotting around the room, the Chancellor decided to turn it up again and called his personal squad.

“It’s an honor for us here, Chancellor!” Lieutenant Joseph Barn said “What’s going on, Sir?”

“The first thing is I want to congratulate you for the phenomenal performance over those filthy creatures…”, the Chancellor said calmly “Yes I know you are beaten by that thing quite fast, but that is a high performance suit, don’t you think?”

“Ya… Ya…Yes, Chancellor…” Joseph answered “But… are you sure you want us to attack someone from your army. Yes I mean they are creatures and they also want to take you down, but trying to destroy them may cause backlash.”

“Don’t worry, I will outlaw them soon.”

“Out law them?”

“S.M.I.L.E has taken the Strike Zeta to them without permission. Perhaps Lady Rainbow Dash allows them to, but remember that I am the one who really commands them, at least by the law. Because of attacking you guys, I will accuse them of trying to revolt against the kingdom and the Princess herself. You got that?”

Joseph blinking his eyes, indicate that he still don't understand much:

"But... I thought S.M.I.L.E is yours?"

"Princess Twilight have stripped that from me and give it under Rainbow Dash command. This mean that I can make them my enemy and accuse them , as well as Rainbow Dash, of doing what ever I want! So I will say that they are trying to revolt against the kingdom and Princess Twilight. You got that?"

"Yes... Yes... Sir!"

“And by the way, do I say with you that you will have another member in your team next time?”

“No Chancellor. But I’ve heard the ship is preparing for another suit to be transferred to us. I hope it will help catch the Alicorn…”

“Exactly!” Black Wine said “It will have the state of art Psycho Jammer with it, don’t worry!”

“Psycho Jammer?”

“A kind of weapon, I suppose!” said the Chancellor with uncertainty “But I guess you will know what it is when you see it. AE recommend me to buy it with your Jestas. Oh, and have you know your new pilot’s name?”

“Until this moment, no Sir!”

“I think you would like to welcome… me, to the team!”

“Sorry, Sir…” John said in disbelief, “… you said you wanted to…”

“Joining your team! Don’t you know that I have quite a huge experience in piloting these things?”

He’s not lying. Although he has been personally trained by some Federation’s personnel, he has cut the training short just by the fact that he is half clone: he was injected with some genes from one of the ace pilots at the Earthsphere and he also has a suit that will drastically enhance his ability.

“Yes. You will command me. Don’t be shy, my man!”

“Yes… Yes Sir.”

“Also, catching the Alicorn by myself will help improve our reputation. That thing is wreaking havoc in Equestria! I hope with me, those magical spell that the thing cast on our power lines will end with this…”

The machine rarely appeared over urban areas and heavily populated places, but every time it did, the electricity was cut off “all at once”. It was also reported to cause some damage with its occasional crashing on houses and buildings, which is the reason why Black Wine mentioned the “pieces” with Princess Twilight.

“When will arrive here, Chancellor?” the Lieutenant asked nervously.

“Next week!”

…

“Do you know any pony. Any unicorn pony to be exact…” Flash asked his team mate at the cantina  “… named Luster?”

“How does he, or she, look?” Blue Thunder replied.

“Well… bright orange mane, pale pink fur…”

Flash has started his own attempt to find out what those creatures are.

Ever since the first encounter with the Alicorn, he always saw them, or heard their voices. When they told him about “That Alicorn Gundam '' in his last nightmare, they confirmed his doubt that they are indeed being imprisoned in that Alicorn Gundam. This makes him believe his attempt could help capture the Alicorn.

“Nope… And why do you ask me anyway?” he said with a slightly grumpy voice “You can ask the identity department… or a random police station when we… Oh! I’m afraid you are not even allowed to leave this ship!”

“Why?”

“Or at least going somewhere without someone supervised! You are a human that was saved in an MS that came from nowhere! So you have to… just do what the Lieutenant said!”

Flash makes a slight sigh.

“And why do you ask? Who are Luster, Grisela and BB anyway?”, Yamina asked.

“Well… I saw them in a nightmare last night…” he answered “They are starting to visit my sleep more frequently.”

“Ah… I guess you are having some stress, don’t ya?”, Blue Thunder asked “Sorry, Brad, but we don’t have a therapist here.”

The whole table cracked up laughing at his joke.

After nearly a week on board, Flash started to feel that they don’t like him much. He doesn't know why. Some might say the name “Brandon Cultrich '', which they prefer to call as “Brad”, sounds like a douche bag’s name (such as Haystack). Some say that his reckless act and how he disobeyed Haystack cost them the most precious opportunity when he literally grabbed the Alicorn from behind. “And that things slow for him!”, a creature who somehow knows the details of the chase once said.

It’s been a week since his first mission with S.M.I.L.E  in Equestria.

“How often do you see that kind of nightmare?”, Yamina suddenly asked.

“I…  I don’t know… But I have seen “them” twice this week!”

“Oh… That’s… bad, I suppose.”

“Any details that you remember from them?”

Unfortunately, and also fortunately for him, he can remember those nightmares quite closely.

“A unicorn pony with pink coat, named Luster… as I have said… A yellow pony that called BB, a kirin that called… Spring Garden…”

“Enough! How many of them?”

“Five!”

“Why are you so interested in that, Yamina?”

“Well… dreams are interesting to study!” she answers casually “Maybe Flash has gone through some kind of lucid dream, or he misses some creature so much…”

“No no! I have never seen them!”, Flash cut speech off “I just saw them…”

“Or maybe you are just making that up! Don’t be ridiculous! Lady Rainbow Dash will help you right in your first nightmare, not waiting for more than a week like you!” Blue Thunder commented “You should feel okay right now!”

“No… No… I…”

“Well… Honestly I think Blue Thunder have a point!”  Yamina replied “But in case this is real, you should see a therapist instead, or when we landed at Farasi…”

“Farasi?” Flash asked in confusion.

“A kingdom, about an ocean away from Equestria. Lady Rainbow Dash said we should go there to resupply. It’s not safe to land at Everfree base anymore, we are now hunted by the Chancellor!”

“How… How do you know?” Blue Thunder asked.

“I just heard the Lieutenant discussing with Bonbon and Lyra this morning.”

“Okay…  And how about Brad?”

“Well… about you…” she turned to Flash. “There is an orange hut somewhere in Zebrat, the capital city of Farasi in case you don’t know. Ask the locals where Zecora is and they will point you there.”

“But wait! I thought Brad can’t leave the ship!”

“As long as he is with Haystack, he’ll be fine…” Yamina answered “Bonbon and Lyra have allowed them to get out of the ship but should never go out the 5 km radius of the base, and never leave his side of course! If my memory’s right then Zecora’s hut is in this circle… Hopefully…”

“Ze… co… ra…” Flash thought “I think I’ve heard that name before…”

Flash nearly blurted out asking something, but he remembered that he had to hide his identity, so he just sat there quietly for a while.

“In case Haystack wants you to do what he wants and decline all your requests… Just sneak away!”

“Wait… What?” Blue Thunder gasped “Haystack is a very strict guy, you know?”

“Haystack himself was a law breaker, you forget that?” Yamina said “He just really knows how to get away with it and how to hide himself from the protocol.”

“An orange hut, Zecora…” Flash mumbled.
> Chapter 8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

To make his story more credible, the creatures have visited him once again on the night before the ship landed on Farasi. The only thing that different that he got to know the rest of the group as well as distinct who they are, which is the result of him listen to their conversation longer: Luster Dawn the unicorn, Butter Burger the earth pony, Yolinda the yak, Grisela the griffon, and Spring Garden the kirin.

“But don’t let you be fooled. They could be real demons…” Flash thought to himself “They could shape shift to anything they want.”

The nightmare also makes him stay up for the rest of the night, allowing him to experience the first time he is not floating when the Canterlot herself touches down on Farasi soil with a bump.

…

“Welcome to Zebrat, capital of Farasi!” Haystack said when they walked out of the base “First time ever going somewhere else other than Equestria?”

“Yes… I guess!”

When they first got out of the base, they were greeted by the hot sun and heated air around. Every creature around, as well as them, wears a headscarf to hide the heat.

Downtown Zebrat is a dynamic place and also an interesting location to explore around. Flash could see there are zebras, abadas and kelpies all around selling all sorts of stuff: fruits, vegetables, daily use objects,… Haystack himself also helps Flash distinct between those three creatures as well: zebras have stripes on their fur, abadas have fins instead of manes, and kelpies have are just like earth ponies but with shape shifting ability that is related to water.  

He could tell that the creatures are having their best, normal life possible: a group of kelpies are chatting, some small zebra and abada are chasing each other through the street, a salezebra are shouting as she is marketing her products that she sells (“finest Farasi fruit”, as Flash heard). He once remembered that he had to ask some of them about the location of Zecora’s hut, but since he saw them just staring at a human walking around with a suspicious eye, Flash was hesitant to do what he wished.

Finally, the pal reaches a drinking stall where some kelpies are selling some of their delicious drinks. The stall was large enough to hold dozens of creatures sitting inside and enjoying what they call “a relief” after a long period of time cruising down the hot street of the Shakira Market, a Zebrat’s specialties.

“Two special Zebrat lemonade, please!” Haystack called “Some extra ice!”

“As you wish, Lieutenant!” a blue kelpies shout back.

Flash thinks back to when Yamina said that he can go out as long as he is on the Lieutenant side. He has asked Haystack about Zecora’s hut, but he refuses to let him get there.

“Creatures say that you can see the whole base when you stand there!” the Lieutenant said “Which means it was too far away. Remember that? No more than 5 kilometers.”

Flash looking around. The stalls are getting more crowded which he assumes it is because of the hot weather. The chairs and tables are large enough for both of them, even though Flash is still a human. A blue cloth cover was used as the stall’s roof, dotted with some little fans that help make the stall a bit cooler than the outside.

“Wait, I have two see some of my friends!” Haystack said after finishing his drinks “Stay here and don’t get anywhere!”

Haystack then comes to a group of ponies and starts chatting around.

After looking around for a while and seeing if he would be just fine asking them, he started to ask a kelpie that sat alone next to him.

“Sorry… Miss…” he started “Do you know where it is… Zecora’s hut?”

“Zecora’s hut?” she asked back “Of course I know! She’s my friend!”

“Yes... but can you point me where she is?”

“Not far from here. Let’s go!”

Flash looked back to the Lieutenant. The conversation is still going across the stall, which makes Flash think he could get away with him not noticing.

“Then… What's your name, human?” she asked.

“Brandon… Brandon Cultrich…”

“Ah! A human!” she opened her head scarf to reveal an icy-like mane and black eyes “You know what? I know some of us might don’t like creatures like you, but every time a human asks about something or someone that no other humans know, it's totally worth it!”

…

The kelpie that guides him announces her name as “Crystal”. The kelpie with the snowflake-shaped cutie mark started to ask him some questions while on the way.

 “Let me guess, you are from that ship?” she pointed to the Canterlot.

“I…I was a mechanic on that ship…” Flash replied “We’re basically taking re supply…”

 “You can thank Princess Twilight for that!”

“Princess Twilight?”

“You don’t know? She’s currently the ruler of Equestria! She got to the throne when Princess Celestia and Princess Luna retired about 30 moons ago, which is 25 years in human time, I guess…”

“How do you know?”

“Well… Your director Lyra Heartstring teaches us some human knowledge…”

Finally, the couple reaches where they want to go.

The orange hut sits comfortably on the top of a hill that is not quite far from the base. Flash could see his ship docking on Zebrat base tarmac. He made himself look around the city for another time. The sun is still shining all over with it’s bright light and hot solar flare.

“Typical Farasi’s weather. You’ll get familiar with it, in case you decide to stay here in a few months.” She commented when notice Flash just kept sweating.

“Hey Zecora! Some creature one to see ya!” she shouted into the hut.

“I thought this was Sunday!” the zebra that called Zecora shouted back.

“So you don’t want to talk with some human?”

“What do you mean, Crystal?”, the middle aged zebra walked out. She nearly wanted to speak up something, but then had to stop when she saw Flash standing with her.

…

“You humans are always bringing trouble, huh?” Zecora started the conversation by pouring some water to all “What’s his name, then?”

“Brandon Cultrich!” Crystal introduces him to Zecora “Ensign! He’s from the Canterlot!”

“Ah… I see!” Zecora exclaimed. “Don’t worry, we’re friends with S.M.I.L.E! We know a thing or two about what you are currently doing!”

Zecora poured some more water to Flash before asking some more “So what’s bringing you here?”

“Well… I have some terrible… nightmares, recently…” Flash replied while taking a sip “There are a bunch of... what should I say…”

“Ghost?”

“Ghost, I suppose!”, Flash continued “Having them keep coming into my sleep as nightmares is sort of something no one would like. They keep demanding me to release them…”

Then, he starts telling them what he has experienced, ever since he started to work on the Canterlot. He told them about what they have done to him, how each of them behave, and how often their “visit” was. When he started to talk about the names of the creatures that “visit him”, Zecora cut him short:

“It could be just nightmares, simple as that!” she said “Wait a few nights until Lady Rainbow Dash and her dream team visit you…”

“But… it was linked to the Alicorn, and I haven’t told you about those creatures…”

“Maybe you just stressed out, don’t you?” Marini commented “I’ve heard from some Canterlot’s crew member is that S.M.I.L.E have to give extra guarding on the them, especially if you are one of the pilots.”

“But… about the Alicorn…”

“Your brain might just have made that up, my friend!” Zecora said “Anyway, do you have to overwork these days?”

He is thinking again. Zecora and Marini might have a clue, because beside some night shifts he has to do, even without catching up on sleep, he also has some unhappy memories that he has to face and back when he serves in Londo Bell, he even has nightmares about them occasionally.

“Yeah… I think you do have a point there…”

 

“And you are lucky to come all the way here my friend!'' She said “Creatures in Ponyville know me quite well. They still can recognize me when I come back there occasionally, even when I have ended speaking rhymes for many moons now… Oh, sorry! I’ll give you some sleeping pill, as well as some anti-depression potion…”

“Thanks, doctor!”

When Zecora is still preparing the medicine, Haystack and one another zebra come into the hut.

“There you are, bastard! I thought I'd told you to stay where you are!”

When he looked to who Flash is talking to, his angry attitude suddenly gone away.,

“Oh! Hello Ms Zecora… And you too, Miss Crystal…”

“Hello there, Mayor!” Zecora and Marini said “What’s up?”

“Well… I help him find this guy, and I honestly don’t expect to see him right in your hut!” , the zebra with half pink, half black mane said “Oh… Nice to meet ya! My name is Marini!”

“What are you doing here?” Haystack whispered with a grumpy voice “You know this place is beyond the 5 kilometers radius?”

“No creature has enough mind to measure that accurately, Lieutenant…” Crystal said “But… why does he have to be like that?”

“Well… military protocol, Miss!”

“By the way, we are looking for some… doctors to join the Canterlot!” Marini said “I saw him talking to some pony. I offered him some help when he mentioned that.”

“Uh… Sorry for disturbing your day, Mayor…”

“No problem! You are fighting Black Wine, right? If S.M.I.L.E doesn't run fast he might declare war!”

“Wait… How?” Flash asked.

“I’ve heard creatures said that Black Wine and his cabinet changes the laws so he has total control over Equestria’s military. And, hopefully I’m wrong, he even plots to overtake Princess Twilight herself!” Marini replied “Any idea, Zecora?”

“Well… I think I can help with this…” Zecora raised her hoof “Can I have a hoof in this?”

“Miss Zecora, I think you can leave this for us…” Haystack replied “We can find some other doctor, you don’t need to come to the front line like this!”

“I hate when creatures underestimate my skill, Lieutenant!” she replied casually “Not many creatures know apart from being a doctor, a potion maker, I can be a mental health therapist, too!”

“Uh… I think you should accept her offer, Lieutenant!” Marini said “You don’t know how much she want to join S.M.I.L.E, especially in stuff like this!”

“Uh… Uh…” the Lieutenant muttering “Thank you then… Miss Zecora!”

“And you can just tell me Zecora, we’re friends now.” the wise zebra then nodded to Flash “So do you, Ensign!”
> Chapter 9
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The mobile suit that the Chancellor had mentioned was finally delivered to the Cloudsdale, a Clop class cruiser that was operated by the 265 and where the Federation's Black Tristar stationed on.

The suit made a huge impression towards the crew when it was unloaded onto the main hangar. It’s dark blue paint reflected the lights of Equestrian sun, while the Gundam face made it look like it concentrated all its power to prepare for a fight.

“This looks like a Mark II Gundam, but on steroids!” Nikita said “Extra armor, different heads,…”

“It’s the Psycho Mark II Gundam!” the Chancellor came and said. The black coated unicorn, now with a strange metallic mask on his face, comes and meets his most favorite pilots.

“Have a good morning, gentlemen?”

“Yes, Sir!” Joseph said “We are checking on our suits. But… why do you want to do this yourself?”

“Having some thrill yourself is harmless, don’t you think?” the Chancellor answered while facing his MS, “this thing gonna help us a lot! Don’t you see there is some more stuff coming along with it?”

He pointed his hooves to a particular container being transported into the main hangar.

“That’s the psycho jammer…” he said “A kind of weapon that creates a psycho field. Anything that gets into the field will be disabled immediately. Have you all heard about this?”

“I… I think I’ve heard about that?” Nikita said “Do you know about the story of the Damascus, Lieutenant?”

“The time that they try to catch an MS running wild fails?”

“Sounds like it!”

“What do you mean?” Black Wine asked.

“It's just some failed Federation mission, Sir! I’ve heard they use a weapon that was named just that…”

Suddenly, he realized something.

“You… You gonna use it here, Sir?”

“Exactly!”

Joseph still remembered his shock when he saw the battle video that one of the MS, stationed on Damascus, recorded. Two gigantic flying gun suddenly turn into a claw, rapidly grabbing a gold-painted mobile suit and bring it down. The suit that was captured looks like it has some kind of pain, and when the field with it crashed down, the powerful golden MS was nearly disabled, under a bright rainbow-colored field.

“I’ve also saw it performance from AE themselves!” the Chancellor said. The weapons that John himself is going to see in person, slowly revealed itself “…AE said they have gone through similar cases in their world, so my assumption is this gonna go exactly as planned.”

“But… I’ve heard they failed…”

“The pilot who operated that thing didn't even know his weapon's full potential, and he was also forced to do it. I think with me taking the helm, it should be just fine!”

…

In that evening, the ship decided for Haystack and his team to hold drill, just outside of Zebrat shores to test the suits as well the pilot ability.

It was a calm flight for Flash in his Strike Zeta. According to the mechanics, the drill will also test some navigation and weapon systems on the suit, so he will have to concentrate on the statistics that are shown in order to make sure all of them work well.

“So this is the twilight of Zebrat…” Flash mumbled.

“Hey Flash, does your suit work well?” Haystack said “We’ve just replaced all of the unfixable armor on that thing. Thanks Celestia. All suits, maintain course!”

Back on the bridge, Discord brought with him a cup of tea and casually drank it. Farasi's tea is one of the most delicious to him, despite sometimes being ``a little bit too salty”, as he describes.

“These are the salt that can help you concentrate, Discord…” Zecora told him when first tasting the tea that was made by her “I know you are easily distracted, Captain!”

“Nah… It’s just Twilight who tells you that! If I’m being distracted that easily, S.M.I.L.E have not qualified me to sit on that chair.”

And yet he still buys some packs of it. He thinks it would be a fun experience if he could prank some of his friends with this kind of tea with some extra salt.

“Pinkie gonna love this…”

But, his thought was cut short when a dragon communication operator reported.

“Captain, we’ve just received a distress signal!” she said “… It was an airship, 20 kilometers at 9 o’clock!”

“What do they say?”

“Please help us! We have VIPs on board!”

“Send the message to the Haystack team and tell them to check that airship!” Discord ordered. “But be careful, it could be a trap.”

It was an old looking flying machine, floating in loneliness above the ocean. It’s sails were torned, some of it’s hull pieces were lost, and the ship looks like there are no creatures on the helm.

The ship also happened to be titled to the port side, which meant it could fall down into the sea at any time.

“It looks like a dead airship…” Flash mumbled.

“We should get to that thing as fast as we can! Canterlot, request assistance!”

…

After just a few minutes, with the airship being tidied to the Canterlot starboard side, the crew can safely embark the ship and bring back the creatures.

Turns out, it is carrying the one who ordered S.M.I.L.E to carry out Operation Rainbow Chaser herself, Lady Rainbow Dash. She was not in good shape, since the airship was “probably attacked by pirates” , as Discord said. She and some of the survivors were instantly brought to the sick bay.

“Pirates attack? Could be… But do you think there are 265 involved in this?” Haystack asked Lyra and Bonbon.

“Well… I doubt that!” Lyra answered “I’m asking our inspector to check out the ship and make further investigation. Anyway, Lady Rainbow Dash will have to go back to Equestria. We’re calling the Royal Guard at the moment.”

Meanwhile, Flash decides to have a look at the airship itself. Right from the Zeta, he jumped on to the roof of the starboard side hangar and inspected the wreck.

This gives him a clearer view of the heavily damaged airship. The wooden flying machine sustained multiple machine gun shots. His speculation is that they are shot with a large caliber machine gun, the 60 millimeters Vulcan gun to be exact. There is even a long burn mark that goes all the way from the front of the elevator to the nose cone baetens,indicating that some beam weapon has been shot as a warning to the airship itself.

“Pirates in this world can have mobile suits?” Flash thought, as he looked to the burned patch on the balloon itself, revealed the frame of the balloons.

“So this is why it is titled to the port side? Guess some of the gas has gone away…”

Then, when he saw nobody was noticing what he’s doing, he decided to jump onto the main deck. The wooden platform made some grinding sound as he landed. Then, he carefully opens a large door that leads to another deck below, and he checks again whether another creature is looking at the ship: the guards are busy chatting with each other on top of the starboard hangar. Right after he opened the door, a power smell came up, going right into nose, causing Flash to cough. 

“Mus… Mustard?” he mumbled

But it did not last for long. Then, he had to open another door that led to a hallway. The lights flickering above as he opens the heavy metal door. 

However, there are some voices that immediately catch his attention.

“Come to the navigation room…”

It was Butter Burger’s voice ,come at him like he his whispering right behind his back, but as Flash turned around, no one is standing on the main deck.

“Who’s… who’s that…”

Then, the source of the voice changed from behind to in front of him. He could see no one doing it, despite the light inside still shining.

“Come to the navigation room… Come here… now!” the voice whispering, trying to call Flash to step further inside as if he is in trouble. At this point, Flash could no longer hold his urge to go deeper inside the broken airship.

It takes not long for him to find where he is speculating as the source of the voice, as he reaches the navigation room that has the door let open. The room is located in another deck above, which requires him to climb up to a stair. 

The mustard-like smell was quickly replaced by a strange rose perfume as soon as he came in. 

Again, he can see no one…

The room was suppose to be a second bridge for the airship when the closed main bridge on top was heavily damaged. The main bridge is what distinguishes the airship compared to older models as they only have an open bridge, which could easily be exposed to harsh weather conditions, let alone some fights.

But suddenly, the voice came up again, this time, it came from every corner of the room.

“Look down your feet!” the voice said. It emphasizes the word “feet” and lengthens it.

“Look down your feet!” the voice repeated, this time with a more urging accent. Flash decided to do what the voice said.

A normally look, brown covered notebook lying on the floor, it’s spine facing one of the radars. He carefully took it up and flicked off some of the dust on the cover. With his curiosity gradually increasing, he opened it.

It was a diary that was written by not just one, but several teenage creatures. He could see with his eyes some photos of creatures that have their looks exactly like the creatures that he has seen in previous nightmares. Right after the first image, he had to close it.

Then, realizing he shouldn’t be here any longer, he immediately left the airship by the same he had got in. The airship is really unstable, according to some engineer that survived the attack on it as well as some mechanic of the Canterlot, leaving it as soon as possible is a wise choice to him.

In that late night, the Pegasus class cruiser decided that it have enough supply, decide to head off to Equestria again, hoping it can take another opportunity. Flash decided to look at Zebrat for another time before the clouds could hide the city skyline with it’s thick moisturized water.

After the dinner, Flash sighed in relief to find out no creature realized his absence. He was supposed to present at the hangar for a daily maintenance check, but in that evening, no creatures decided to check attendance, so he was free from punishment.

He decided to keep the diary a secret. He had once kept in mind to study the diary further, but that night, the Lieutenant required his crew to supervise the maintenance of the suits, so he had to keep it for tomorrow.

…

“What’s… what’s going on?” he asked himself while looking around the hallway.

The Canterlot Castle hallway is one of the sites that he has been familiar with since he started his career in the Royal Guard. The first time he worked there was to guard Her Highness, Princess Cadance, on a trip to see her sister in law, also the then future ruler of Equestria, Princess Twilight Sparkle. He remembered the shock and awe as he trotted along the hallway, decorated with colorful stained glass and bust of famous ponies. But the hallway he is seeing is a little bit different than the one he remembered, indicating that he has gone to another time which can be far away into the future. He could tell by seeing some of the stained glass are portraying creatures defeating villains or the life in a diverse Ponyville.

At the moment, in the middle of his dream, he is questioning whether or not the creatures are pulling out another trick on him.

Then, finally, they appeared. They ran past him in a hurry, breathing continuously as they ran in panic and desperation. Flash, realizing he is in some sort of lucid dream, decides to run after the panicking creatures.

“Luster, this way!” the griffon named Grisela said “There is a secret passage that could lead us out of the castle!”

“What’s… What’s going on Luster?” Spring Garden asked “Aren't they the Chancellor’s Guard?”

“Yes, they are… But, why do they decide to chase us?” Luster replied “Didn’t you know about Black Wine pretty well, BB?”

“Well… My family did some business with him…” the yellow earth pony answered in nervousness “What happened?”

They finally reached a secret door and every creature climbed out. He followed them outside to an outdoor walkway. While they are still trying to find an appropriate escape route, another group of Black Wine’s Guards appear right behind them.

“Oh no! They know where the secret door is?” Grisela asked.

“I don’t know! Just… keep… running!” Luster Dawn replied, her voice has already shown some sign of exhaustion.

After a few minutes, they finally reach a bridge that goes through a waterfall . However, when they came to the middle of the bridge, a few more guards appeared right in front of them. They don’t hesitate to charge at the poor creatures.

“Oh no! What should we do now?” asked Spring Garden.

Just after she finishes her question, the guards have nearly reached them. Luster quickly teleports the whole gang to another place, but it turns out to be an unstable wooden platform right next to the waterfall.

It immediately collapses under the pressure of every creature. They screamed on the way down to the deep water below.

Then, the sight turned from a picturesque yet dangerous waterfall to thick woods. At that point, he was supposed to have woken up, but the dream just kept moving, just like that time he tried playing a digital reality game back when he was still at the Antarctica base.

“Why… why don’t you just bring us back to the castle?” asked Spring Garden, who, along with her friends, was completely wet, from mane to tail.

“I don’t know… when I’m… panicking, I usually use magic spells wrong…” she answered with exhaustion.

“So… what do we do now?” Yamina asks “Do you still have the evidence?”

“What evidence?” Flash mumbled.

“Here…” the young light cerise unicorn pulled out a paper from her hand bag, which is the first time Flash ever saw her carrying “The… papers… Thanks Celestia, it's all fine…”

The paper contains some sort of documents. Flash guesses they contain the “evidence” that Black Wine is up to an evil plan.

“This will help Princess Twilight and her friends catch that filthy unicorn and bring him to justice!” she said while holding the papers in front of the group.

“Okay… I think we should go somewhere secret to dry ourselves. Then, we can go to Ponyville!” Luster continued.
> Chapter 10
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Much to his surprise, the dream seems like it will never stop.

It is also important to mention that Flash can not interact with any of them. A few times he tries to talk or ask “What’s going on?” but none of them react, as if he was completely invisible.

By following the group, he has come to a large dark cave. But when going deeper, he find out there are more than just rock:

“Gems, gems everywhere!” Butter Burger gasped in joy “Spring Garden, look!”

“Well… I think these could be a fine addition to my dre… I mean potion…” she said while carefully touching the gems, with her eyes sparkling with happiness “… they are so magical!”

“Guys… we don’t have time for them right… wait a minute?” Luster suddenly gasped as an idea came up “Is this… Is this the shortcut to Ponyville?”

“Short cut?” the rest of the team asked in confusion.

“Discord once said there is a shortcut to Ponyville somewhere outside the castle…” she said while looking around the cave “He said there is a river underneath that flows at a very high speed! If we can find a tree trunk that is big enough to carry us, we would be at Ponyville in no time!”

“But, why should we go back to Ponyville?”

“I have some magic book back in the Sunny Oak Library…” she explained “I remember there are spells that will free Princess Twilight from the throne room!”

“All right!” 

“Yee hoo!”

The team cheered.

“Twilight is imprisoned?” Flash mumbled.

Then, the scene changed to the moment when the gang finished their own boat, carved into a tree trunk that is not far from the cave mouth. They hop on to the boat together before launching it.

“Grisela, you should come too!” Butter Burger said “You wouldn’t catch the speed of the current!”

However, feeling something is not right, Flash decides to just fly above them.

Just after the whole boat gets into the water, the high speed current takes the boat away like a hurricane. It just soaring through the air and with the current like a roller coaster, yet Flash still somehow catches it.

They screamed as the boat just kept flying with the water. Their hair and fur flowing violently through the wind.

After a couple of minutes, the scene changes to not the town of Ponyville, but to another cave, an icy one to be exact, leading out into a desert that has nothing but snow, ice and wind.

As he looked back to the boat, it had already faced down on the ice. The whole group lying, scattered all across the snow.

He once wanted to lay them up, but he remembered that he can not interact with them, so he took his hooves back.

After a few more minutes, they all woke up.

“What… what happened?” one of them asked “We should be at Ponyville now, right?”

He looked outside with them and realized something.

“An… Antarctica!”

When he looks back at the gang, the scene changes again, this time back to the nightmares he had seen months ago when he was still working at EFF’s Antarctica base. He could again saw the gang struggle through the snow and strong wind, how they find that one “cave” that was actually some kind of cockpit, and hear again when Luster Dawn herself make the curse:

“If a creature, full of greed, touches this, an endless curse will come. His mind will be full of darkness and his soul might be consumed. He must find a way to free us all at one. If he can't do it, the curse will last… forever.”

…

There were tons of questions that appeared in his mind the next day he woke up. He tried to ask some creature around, but again this could result in him being laugh at because of how silly it might sound. He tell himself to “leave it for another day.”

The breakfast in the morning is the first time he ever opened the diary’s cover, after a few days busy checking his suit and doing patrols to “strengthen discipline”, as Haystack said.

The first thing that he saw was a group photo of the creatures. They were all smiling in happiness at the camera. It gives him some unnerving feeling, especially when he knows who they really are.

“It’s like the moment before disaster…” Flash thought.

Flipping to another page, he encounters some words that are written as advice. The moment his eyes hit the words, he feels like he has seen it somewhere else.

“Dear Luster!
I hope this diary reaches you. As I write these words, you have already arrived in Ponyville, preparing for your first day at School of Friendship.

This diary is a gift from me to you. You can use it to write your thoughts on everything, from the life around, the creatures you will meet, and especially, friendship lessons. Beside the letters that you will send me, you should make a copy of those letters into this diary so you can look back to it, seeing how much you have grown.

I’m looking forward to seeing you have a beautiful time with your friends as well as this diary, and also witnessing how much you have achieved “as much as I am”, like you have said before.

Best regard.

Princess Twilight.”

As he moves his finger across the page, the pen marks are clear and visible.

“Twi… Twilight writes this herself?” Flash shocked.

One thing that should be mentioned is that some of the pages have already gone missing, while the majority of paper have wet. The cover itself also shows that it has already shown signs of rotting, meaning it has been soaked in water for a relatively long time.

But somehow, the words that he saw in the first few pages at the moment still have not faded, meaning they used high quality pens to write.

He turned to some other pages and saw some of the stories about how Luster Dawn, who he guessed was the writer, was making friends and having adventures with the gang.

A few minutes later, Haystack comes to the table, seeing Flash still chewing the food with the diary opened right on his hips. He came and tapped at the blue hair human-shaped slightly.

“Hey bud, what’cha reading?” he asked.

Flash swallowed the food then answered.

“Diary.”

“How do you get this?” the Lieutenant asked while getting his seat next to Flash.

“Well… I got this at… a market…” Flash answered while making up a reason so he didn't find out he was sneaking onto the wrecked airship “…back in we're still at Zebrat.”

“Really?”

“Yes… Yes… Sir!”

“I don’t think there is a stall that sells stolen objects in Zebrat, Brad…” he said. “I think this thing should be thrown by some creature, or, you steal it!”

“What?”

“Or, you sneak on to that airship earlier, don’t you?”

“Ho… How can you know?”

“I asked some creature and they said you hop on that thing 2 days ago!”

“Wait, who told you?”

“A kirin. He said he saw you through the security camera! And do you have any idea what that airship is?”

“No…”

“That’ s the Flash and Dash, the VIP airship that was built just for the Council!” he answered rapidly. “And Lady Rainbow Dash is on that thing before we rescue her…”

“Rainbow Dash?”

“Yeah…” he looked around “The pony that helped the Royal Guard find out you still Princess Twilight’s crown, right? Anyway her airship was attacked by a mobile suit. They still figure out what is that and why, but creatures tell that the MS chose the wrong target, I think: it was taken down by the Alicorn.”

“How… how do you know?”

“I’ve just said that creatures told!” the Lieutenant answered grumpily “If this is secret then you will never see me talking like this! Anyway, where are your comrades?”

“I don’t see them anywhere. I just picked this place so I can have my meal…”

“And about that diary?” Haystack jerks up his chin to the thing Flash was holding.

“Some pony named Luster Dawn wrote about her… what should I say… friendship lesson in this…” Flash replied while flipping some more pages “There are photos, status, stories… she even sticks some letters into this…”

“Luster… Dawn?” Haystack gasped “Don’t you say…”

…

“Does this really belong to Luster Dawn, Princess Twilight’s missing personal student?” Zecora gasped when she first saw the diary. “In case you didn’t know, the Princess has ordered her diary as a book. Her wish is that through publishing, she could find her…”

Inside her room somewhere in the ship, Zecora carefully studies the diary that Flash has found previously, along with Haystack and him right on the room floor. Although the air conditioner is running, both Flash and Haystack are sweating, due to the fact that they have quickly ran to her room: Zecora has told Flash if he has something that he thinks is related to his nightmares, he should come to her.

Both of the stallion's eyes went wide when they heard “Princess Twilight’s missing personal student”. What is even more shocking is that the diary is the original one, which means Luster and her friends really have used it to write their thoughts and tell stories.

“So… that explains the Dear Luster letter at the beginning!” Haystack said in surprise, “That really was written by Her Highness herself!”

“Where do you find this?” Zecora asked.

“The navigation room in that wrecked airship!” Haystack answered “…some creature dropped it there…”

“That’s strange…” said Zecora in suspicion “Can it belong to Rainbow Dash herself?”

“I doubt that!” Haystack said.

Three of them looked straight into the diary for a few seconds, thinking about how the diary ended up on the Flash and Dash.

“And… Do you know anything about Princess Twilight?” Flash questioned.

“I don’t know, at least till now…”

…

“Make sure to give me the diary when we meet at lunch.” Haystack said to Flash when they traveled along the hallway, not far from the sick bay “It’s too valuable for some nameless creature, especially if it was  you. I don’t want you to steal it and sell it somewhere else and escape this ship. There are tons of consequences that could happen if you do that.”

“Yes… Haystack. But what are we gonna do now?”

“Go to the hangar and help maintain the Strike Zeta!  You are the star of the ship now!”

From a corner, a pegasus pony with blue coat and rainbow mane walked towards the couple. She still has hospital clothes on, but she still looks completely healthy. Walking alongside her is Lyra and Bonbon, guiding the blue pegasus through the ship as they take a tour.

“It’s a pleasure to see you here, Lady Rainbow Dash!” Haystack bowed and ordered Flash to do the same.

“Good to see you here too. Hay… Haystack… if I’m not wrong…” she said. “And just call me Rainbow Dash. I’m not that special, soldier!”

“Yes, Rainbow Dash.” The Lieutenant replied.

“And who is this human?” Rainbow Dash then turned to Flash.

“He… He is Ensign Brandon Cultrich, the Strike Zeta pilot that I have told you about before!”

“Yeah, just… saw his photo…'' She looks at Flash slowly with a suspicious eye.

Flash bowed for a second time.

“Lady Rain…”

“Just Rainbow Dash, like I said with Haystack!” she ordered with a slightly grumpy tone.

“And you are the Strike Zeta pilot? Good for you!” she said when Flash standed up right again. “This guy is the star of our operation, like it or not.”

Then, her eyes changed to the diary that Haystack is holding. She gasped when realize what it was.

“Woah! How can you find Luster Dawn’s diary? I find it everywhere!”

“The diary… yes… yes… it was found by one of our soldiers…” Haystack answered by give the diary out “He simply sneaked onto the ship and took it!”

“Ah! I guess I dropped it somewhere in the air…”

She makes a few coughs when trying to say “airship”.

“Rainbow Dash, you’re still…” Lyra tries to calm her.

“Don’t worry, just some anesthetic gas…” Rainbow Dash said while recovering.

“Sorry Lady, but can I ask: why do you bring this along?”

Flash asked. His question makes Haystack angry and attempts to stop him.

“Brandon…”

“Ah… Twilight gives me this as a way to help cure my boredom, as well as if it helps finding Luster Dawn and her friends, this will also be useful too. Those publishers don’t include the photos which were in the original diary.”

“But… sadly” Rainbow said while signaling Haystack to keep the diary “I don’t think this would help, but you…”

She then stared at Flash. Her looks make him feel like she knows every secret he keeps.

“Ensign Brandon, you can keep the diary! Don’t question it!”

 Her strange decision shocked every pony. 

“M…m… me?” asked Flash as he pointed to himself. 
> Chapter 11
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the bridge, Discord started his day by making his own tea right on the Captain chair.

“Ah… what a morning… Sclerite, where are we now?”

A changeling combat operator named Scarlite reported.

“25 kilometers from Manehattan shore. I guess we should stay away from this place a bit…” he said “…I’ll contact our friend at Fillydelphia Base!”

“Good to know that.”

He decided to get out of the chair and walk around the bridge.

The Canterlot’s bridge was said to be “a little” different from other Pegasus class ships: the two radar officers don’t have to sit above the captain, below the radar dome. They all sit in a row, which makes the ship more like modern Clop class, which he saw himself when the Cloudsdale was delivered to the military.

But a few minutes later, Sclerite reported.

“Sir, we just caught an MS approaching our port side! It has a base jabber with it too, Sir!”

Discord teleports himself to where Sclerite sits and looks into the radar.

“How fast is it?”

“350 kilometers per hour, Captain!”

“Do you know what model is that?”

“Our data bank detected it was a modified Geara Zulu, Sir! I guess it was on a drill or a patrol suit…”

A few minutes later, the suit had diverted to another direction and gone away. But still, Discord orders me to stay focused.

“Pardon me, Captain!” Sclerite said again “I’ve… I’ve just discovered four suits, 3 of them are the Jesta Commander, the other one… I don’t know what that is…And the Alicorn is also here, Sir! It is flying above Manehattan!”

Right after that, Lyra and Bonbon also arrived at the bridge. After a brief summary from the captain of what have happened recently, Lyra asked:

“So… Do you know what that new model is?”

“We… we are still finding it in our data bank, Lyra…” Discord answers with uncertainty “But with the Alicorn like that… I think we should do it fast!”

“Okay, tell Haystack and his team to go out. But be careful not to harm the city below!” she said.

…

“You gotta answer to me why Rainbow Dash gave you that diary, Brad!” Haystack to Flash on their way to the hangar “…she may know who you are already!”

Jumping right on to his cockpit, he was met with a message right from the bridge: it was Discord talking.

“Hello Lieutenant, here is the thing…” the captain started “…the Alicorn is flying right above the city, and there is the 265 approaching our ship rapidly. I want you to keep in mind that there is a city with millions of creatures living right below your battlefield, so if you can, lure it out to the sea. And about the 265…”

“The 265 is also here, Discord?” Haystack gasped.

“Yeah… That’s also why y’all should do it fast, but we’ll block their way as much as we can.”

In the meantime, his team had already finished setting up their suits. Haystack started put up his gear while Yamina ask through the com link:

“Sir, should we launch now?”

“Do it!”

A few minutes later, the whole squad was already on their way to intercept the Alicorn Gundam. The Strike Zeta came out last. It immediately transformed into WR mode right after it left the launch pad.

“Just execute the plan like last time, mate…” Haystack said to the group “…but Brad has to go faster and block it’s way: we’ll lure it to the sea. Oh, and do we have a name for our team yet?”

“I always wanted to tell you about that, Lieutenant!” Watervapor said “We have already used the term ‘Haystack’s team’ for a little too long.”

“Okay, then we’ll call ourselves ‘The Phoenix Hunter’, from now on!” he replied with a smile.

“But… Sir… We are catching the Alicorn…” Yamina said.

“Nah! ‘The Alicorn Hunter’ sounds lame! Using the word ‘Phoenix’ sounds a lot cooler!”

After a few minutes following the five colored rainbow with the mysterious white MS on its end, they team have met with something that could dramatically make their hunt less effective. The clouds were getting denser and darker, and the rain started to fall down.

“Hey bridge! What’s going on?” Haystack asked with a grumpy voice “I thought we were gonna have a sunny day today?”

“Sorry Lieutenant, but the weather forecast says the opposite: we might have heavy rain for the rest of the… d…day…”

The signals are getting flickering, meaning that the Minovsky particles are getting denser.

“…I… I think you are on your own now… Phoenix… Hunter…” Sclarite said “Good hunting, Sir!”

A few more minutes have passed. As Strike Zeta is closing the gap with the Alicorn, Flash could see it’s leg swinging slightly in the air, which makes him guess it is gaining balance.”

“The wind is getting stronger…” he mumbled.

Suddenly, the Alicorn accelerated into the clouds, making a bright light in the process. Flash covered his eyes for a second before realizing it had gone away.

“Just follow it’s moves, guys!” Haystack said “Accelerate!”

Flash pushes his throttle into the clouds, following the rainbow trail it leaves. But he soon feels that his attempt could end in nothing, as the rainbow trail is getting dimmer.

They finally reached a sky section where it was clear of clouds. The Alicorn is nowhere to be seen, as they looked around the endless sea of dense gray clouds. He looked on to the camera and saw that some of it was covered with water, meaning that it is raining underneath.

Suddenly, from one of the clouds, a beam shot went straight into the formation and made it lose its balance. Fortunately, it hit none of the suits, but Haystack could see the Canterlot had failed to stop Black Wine’s personal military unit.

And just a few seconds later, they finally saw their opponent: 3 Jesta Commander flying with each individual base jabber, as usual, and a mysterious dark blue Gundam with a new weapon on it’s backpack.

“A new… model?” Flash mumbled when he saw the suit fly pass the fight zone.

Meanwhile, in the Psycho MkII Gundam, the Chancellor is happily pursuing his own mission with another new weapon in his cockpit: the Psycho monitor.

“The pain of the ponies will end, start with this!” he yelled while charging toward the Alicorn. He got into the clear sky section and encountered the white MS, which was still flying in a steady straight course. The INCOME then deployed, charging up itself with some electrical noises and bright pink light, before firing straight at the Alicorn. The white MS successfully dodged it, but it was left with another burnt on the right leg armor. The machine tries to fight back, but it meets with another strike from the dark blue MS with a beam shot. Although it has yet again dodged it, the machine is still struggling to get out of the fight: the INCOME flying all around it while the MkII was threatening to make a headshot.

“The Alicorn… Do… something about it… Argh!” Haystack screeched through the com link while trying to fight Joseph’s Jesta. He nearly received a blade cut to his torso, but he then successfully blocked it with his own blade.

When Flash heard about it, he rapidly made a kick into one of Jesta's torso, making it nearly fall off of the base jabber. The Strike Zeta transformed into WR mode and came to where the Alicorn was fighting, struggling to defend itself from the MkII.

“Flash, come… come over here!” the voice of Yolinda came up in his head, begging for his presence. The INCOME flies around like flies, while the Chancellor is still firing with insane laughter in his cockpit, making punches, kicks and firing his rifle at the confused machine.

Some of the shots can be seen hitting the city below.

“That machine is panicking, but…” Joseph mumbled while fighting Haystack’s suit “…that pony is insane!”

“Darn it Black Wine!” Flash yelled and charged right at the dark blue MS. It successfully hit the torso and made his opponent fall down to the city.

“What the… Hey! I thought you were fighting those guys!” the black stallion said with great anger “…you filthy creatures, you ruin my perfect hunt!”

He pointed the rifle at Flash and fired some shots at him. Flash successfully dodged them all and pulled out his beam sabers, as soon as the transformation finished.

“Eat this!” Flash screamed and charged. The beam sabers changed its blade right into the MkII torso, threatening to get right through the cockpit. However, his opponent successfully dodged the charge while his INCOME was still chasing the Alicorn around, blocking all it’s path by an invisible circle created by the INCOME’s flight path.

“You fool! These things give me power! Not even the Magic of Friendship can pass it’s agility!”

“Not this time!” Grisela's voice came full of confidence.

Suddenly, the Alicorn’s shield flies straight to the MkII, sets it’s target to the dark blue machine. The INCOME nearly twisted into each other, as it’s controller was busy fighting those luminous flying shields.

“Flash, are you okay?” Yolinda asked in concern.

“We’re not gonna let a pony like you get into trouble, especially since you will save us from this!” Luster Dawn comes up.

“It… They… They try to protect me… again?” Flash mumbled in surprise, but his eyes soon turned into anger as he looked back to the white machine “…or you are lengthening my suffering?”

“No! We might hate you for how greedy you are, but since we are also trapped, we must go through this together!” Luster’s voice explained in sadness.

“What?”

“We have no choice but to collaborate with you… You have that diary, right?”

“Wait, how can you know?” he asked in surprise.

“Flash, look out!” Grisela warned “Behind you!”

Just as he turned his head, one of the 265’s Jesta had already deployed some kind of wires from his hand. He is so close to Flash that it doesn't allow him to turn and dodge the wire: it reaches his torso and electrifies his suit.

Flash screamed in pain, as the electric sparks shut down the suit gradually.

“Haha! What a stupid creature!” Joseph while electrifying the white MS. He has previously taken down Blue Thunder’s Jegan, making him fall down to the sea and destroy his base jabber. Now, as the Zeta lost it’s thrust, both suits also started to fall, but into the city that still had all it’s light on below.

“Good work man! Shows those amateurs scumbag what real pilots can do!'' The Chancellor complimented his team. Then he notices the Alicorn has stopped attacking him as it looks at Flash’s Zeta falling down, he brings his suits back into its primary mission.

“Psycho Jammer, deployed!” he yelled.

The two INCOMEs turned into 2 giant grips with a luminous screen between claws, rushed towards its prey and grabbed it as hard as it could.

“No! They got the Alicorn!” Haystack yelled while still fighting one of the Jesta. The battle was paused, as every creature looked at the white machine struggling to get out.

Then, the claws open up a bit, but the Alicorn is still stuck inside: it has created a gigantic octahedron cage, trapped the white machine with pain. It’s two shields have fallen down to the ground, plugged on the streets of Manehattan.

Most of the ponies and creatures have been evacuated the moment the fight broke out above their heads. The six famous ex-students of the School of Friendship have come in time, luring the city’s citizen out of the danger, along with the police and many other. Gallus, the Equestrian Royal Guard’s Captain at the time, have reported in his writing when he saw the battle “…the mysterious machine, trapped in a colorful cage, was brought down by one of the 265’s suit. It was a brutal sight to see: it’s back was dragged merciless on the side of a building, crashes down the street. I could feel the dark blue MS, the one behind the capture of the Alicorn, make sure it fall as hard as possible. The white machine try to get up, looked at the dark blue Gundam as a prey begging for mercy from the hunter. But it not stopping right their: multiple flashes of electric brought it down again. It was electrify for a few more minutes before it was completely stopped. Some of its opponents try to stop, but it’s comrade suit also blocked all of their attempts. A white suit can be spotted lying down on a street near the sites.”

After the battle, creatures could see the caged mysterious Alicorn was brought away onto one of the base jabber, and the white Gundam that had previously seen fighting the MkII was also pulled away by some of other MS from the Canterlot later on.

After successfully catching the Alicorn, Joseph and his team deployed the giant net, wrapped around the defeated machine.

“Chancellor, our ship has reported that it’s shield has already been recovered by the local military unit. They will bring them to us later!”

“Very… good!” Black Wine said while still breathing heavily. “Hopefully we can do something with this… We… We can have a berry punch tonight, shall we?”

Meanwhile, Flash has successfully restarted the Strike Zeta. Some of the spark still came up when the monitors lightened up again.

He could see himself lying in the middle of the city.

However, his team has come back to take the Strike Zeta back to the ship.

“Blue Thunder said he is okay. His Jeagan has lost the right limbs and the left leg.” Haystack said. The Two of the suits pulled him up to a base jabber.  

“So… what should we do now?” Yamina asked.
> Chapter 12
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Please help… please help… please…”

The voices of all of the creatures are getting weaker and weaker.

Flash could hear them while on the way back to the ship. He tries to listen to it, he even mumbling as if he is in contact with them.

“Please… help.”

The voices finally ended, making the blue haired pilot think that the nightmares he had with them had ended. However, he still has to file some reports because the mission has been a total failure.

“Darn it Brad! You should push yourself harder!” the Lieutenant complained.

…

The Chancellor and his pilots party very hard the night after the hunt. The press conference back in Canterlot, with hundreds of creatures and ponies all across the world gathered around to hear the result of the hunt. Some of the creatures have experienced fear and shock as the announcer said “We got it!”, indicating that the Alicorn have been captured.

There is countless news that if the Alicorn was captured, Equestria will have the upper hand on not just forcing every creature else but the ponies out of itself, but also making a lot of other kingdoms to hand over their strategic locations, such as mines, sea ports,… With this, creatures speculate that the kingdom itself wants to expand and rule the whole world. Since the Chancellor makes all of his decisions the name of the Council, this will ruin their reputation and make every creature think that they are ruining their own value.

However, the 265 have one more goal to achieve: unlock the Alicorn cockpit and have total control over it. However, most of the data about the machine has been lost, as well as the news that Anaheim Electronics refuses to bring some of their best  engineers to Equestria for various reasons, so the Chancellor has ordered the military to do it themselves with their best talent.

 “Apparently, there are some kind of security being programmed into this thing. We’re still trying to break it, Chancellor!” the MS Chief Mechanic reported “…and we might have to bring it back to a base to do it effectively.”

“Glad to hear that, Skyranger!” Joseph said “But can you find the problem yet?”

“Sadly, that’s all I know!” he said with a swipe on his face “It would be very hard to not have AE mechanics here to help, and this thing… is kinda different, Sir!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll negotiate with AE…” the Chancellor came into the room in the middle of the conversation “…and, if needed, I’ll force them back here. I could see our world is a big weapon market for AE, so there’s no way they’ll abandon us.”

“Thank… Thank you Chancellor!”

The monitor then shutted down. The Chancellor and Joseph then looked out of the hangar coordination room, towards the Alicorn being surrounded with cables that plugged right into its armor and ponies who were inspecting it.

“They said they have never seen something like that before…” the commander of the 265’s MS force started “… except for the Psycho Frame, of course. It has a kind of transformation mechanism.”

“I see…” Black Wine said “…it’s cockpit will have to open itself, soon.”

…

“Have you ever heard of… the “Haunting Curse”?”

Zecora asks with a book on her hooves, while Flash and Haystack are finishing the reports. Flash was immediately surprised with the question, so he stopped his work and looked up.

“Never heard of it! What’s that?” Haystack asked casually.

“Well… I just read about this in this book!”

She showed the book to the duo. The title read “Curses and Chaos: The fundamentals of Dark Magic.”

Zecora was known for making potions that help curing diseases for the ponies back when she was still in Ponyville. Flash knows this because of what Yamina had previously told in the night before the battle.

“Wait… I thought you were a potion crafter?” Haystack asked.

“I just started my interest in magic recently…” she said, her eyes still not get out of the book “…magic is a vital part of all creatures in our world. I think studying it would help me make more effective potions. So, how about the “Haunting Curse”?”

Both pilots shook their heads.

“Well… There’s this paragraph: it was an ancient curse that was used to force it’s victims to do something to free the casters. Since this is a kind of dark magic, most of the time, the victim has to do it against their will…”

Flash’s eyes widened at the statement. He completely stopped writing, putting the pen on the table and listening attentively to the zebra.

“Normally, when the spell caster was stuck inside an object, a dungeon, amulet,… or any kind of prison, he or she would cast a curse on that object. After that, if some other creatures who are unlucky enough to touch it, the curse will come to effect, which means the victim was also cursed… Let me see…”

She turned on to the next page, as Haystack also stopped his writing and looked up the middle age zebra.

“There's actually a whole page about it, with scary illustrations, of course! This is actually an easy course to cast, but… not many creatures know about this: I just got to know when buying this book back in Zebrat.”

“So, what’s next?” Haystack asked.

“The cursor will use a number of options to communicate with his/her victims: paranormal activities, nightmares, echoes, illusion,… anything but physical contact, like face to face contact as we’re experiencing now. About the victim… well… It was a very powerful spell. Once you’re cursed, it will last for the rest of their lives. As much as the author’s know, magic studies have been carried out in order to find a way to cure it without the need to free the cursor…”

Flash eyes widened as he found himself in a desperate situation. He was cursed: the nightmares, the echoes, the shadows of those creatures that he has seen,… all seem to fit “one of the most powerful curses to ever known by every creature”, as Zecora reads.

“Buddy, are you okay?” Haystack turned to Flash and asked, as he saw the blue hair human was terrified.

After a few seconds, he temporarily calmed down again.

“But… but… do you know how to cast that curse, Zecora?” he asked.

“Well… there’s a few ways to do it, but the most used way is making a spell that forces ponies with bad qualities: greedy, mean, lazy, etc. to free them, when they can’t pass a ‘test’ to find out if you have that quality or not. If you can do that, they will forgive your sins, which means lifting the curse. But, the curse also provide them with the ability to manipulate your mind so you could not past the ‘test’, therefor, you will their ‘slave’.”

“Slave?”

“That was how the author wrote…” Zecora looked up and saw Flash looked down, breathing heavily “…are you okay, Brandon?”

“I… I… need to relax a little bit…”

“Hey Brad, make sure to finish the report when you come back!” Haystack said to Flash as he closed the door.

His back leaned against a wall, thinking back of all the nightmares and things he had encountered: from the test they had set up, the nightmares, the echoes he heard, especially during battles,…

And that one time he saw them running away from guards.

He looked up to the ceily, thinking that his life might have ended.

In a short moment, he slowly recap the events that lead him to that moment: the memory of when he was sent to the gate, banish him to another world, the voices that whisper to him when he was in a painful transformation to human form, the torture that he have to endure when the Federation make multiples experiment on him, and the curse that he was suffered.

He teared out, mumbled.

“Mom, I’m sorry…”

…

After the dinner, he came to the mission room to discuss a new mission that Rainbow Dash herself had come up with. The report had been finished and filed before he came to the canteen for the dinner.

The mission room was fill with disappointment and sadness, after the failing battle at Manehattan. To make matters worse, they have just received the news that some of the Equestria allied kingdoms have cut ties with Equestria as tension rises, therefore, the Canterlot can’t land in their territory anymore.

“Let me list: first, Everfree wants us to stay out of their forest or they will arrest us and give us to Black Wine, then there is Farasi who blocked us from landing at their base…”

A pegasus said with a boring tone.

“Isn’t Black Wine taking over will help?” a changeling asked.

“Dumbass! No creature wants that!” the pegasus yelled at him “We want nothing to do with that racist unicorn! Oh… and Parrot Peak does the same with Farasi too!”

“Don’t worry soldier, we still have the Hall of Friendship!”

The whole group was surprised to learn that Rainbow Dash herself is the one behind the statement, as they turned around. The blue pegasus looked at them with a smirk.

“Miss Rainbow Dash…” they all bowed before her.

“No need for that, I’m your ship mate now! We’re gonna share this space until this operation is concluded.”

“What… what do you mean by that…” the changeling asked.

“That means we are still hunting the Alicorn, my friend.” Lyra came and said.

The whole room looked at them as they got to the podium.

“Every creature listen!” the rainbow mane pegasus started her speech “…I know that after a long list of failed missions, you’re very tired, exhausted and bored. However, this operation that I have make up myself is to stop a war before it even started. As you might have known, Black Wine now have total control over our government, and with his mindset that ponies are superior, he will take over the world and make every creature else become slave. As a pony myself, I’m truly sorry for this…”

“What does she mean by ‘control the government’?” asked Flash to the Lieutenant.

“Black Wine’s party, ‘The Ponykind’, manipulates the government, rewrite the constitution to transfer all of the Council’s power to him.” The brown earth pony calmly explained “You know how racist he was, right? His own military unit, the 265, the one you and I have fought, tries to capture the Alicorn just like us to use it as a superweapon, forcing all creatures else to bow before the ponies and enslave them. You got that?”

“…But, with S.M.I.L.E here along with you, they will guide us to retake that thing. I, a member of the Council of Friendship, was entrusted by the rest of the Councils and also my best friends to help you in this operation. With this, I’ll stay with y’all until we can capture that thing, along with Black Wine’s racist party. Do you agree?”

“Yes ma’am!” the whole room replied all at once.

“Good, now you can come to have your speech, Lyra Heartstrings and Sweetie Drop.”

…

The mission is clear: they will stop a fleet of airships from trying to invade a city in Farasi.

“From recent release news paper, there is this fleet, consist of 20 airships, armed with MS, heading to the city of Panthera.” Bonbon said to the ship crew “Their plan is to use the fleet as a negotiation advantage to force him to hand over the Blue Rock Mine, a large alloy mine that is located 20 kilometers north of the city. However, according to our own recon group stationed on one of those ships, the Cloudsdale will also join the fleet with the Alicorn on board. They are in a very vulnerable situation if we decide to attack them. Be careful for the 265, as well as the Chancellor himself of course. We must make sure his fleet didn’t reach the city!”

“Sorry miss, but are we doing it alone?” a unicorn asked.

“Captain Celaeno’s airship, the Parrot’s Strength, also joined us as a guide ship.” Lyra replied.” They will tell us the situation as well as advise us what to do. Other than that, sadly…” she sighed “…we have to do this on our own. But nothing is guarantee that there’s no more help, folks!”

On that night, he decided to have a glance to the diary to find out if there is a way to lift the curse. Although he doesn’t hope too much they might include it in the diary, it is still possible for Luster Dawn, now that he has labeled her as a ‘witch’, to write down everything she knows and learn about in her diary.

However, on that night, another ‘visit’ by them might give him an answer.
> Chapter 13
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Guys, this way!” Grisela shouted to the group “…there’s a small path!”

On that night, he have follow them to a strange place, hidden deep inside the Everfree forest. It was a bright night with the moon shining bright above. He could hear the sound of creatures and insects getting out of their home and starting their nightlife. In front of him, the group happily trotted towards their destination, with the black griffon flying above for guidance.

He has a strange feeling that he is going along with the group, as if they appeared right in front of him with flesh and bones. In that dream, the only senses he is missing is smell and the feels on his skin.

“There we are guys!” Luster Dawn, along with the ‘witches’, said as they arrived at the site “…this is the place where Princess Twilight and her friends free The Pillars from the Limbo and defeat the Pony of Shadow!”

“Yeah, just like that one boring history lesson…” Grisela said with a tired accent “…it’s like hearing a creature talking alone in the middle of nowhere, right BB?”

“Nah! Miss Helia's lesson was fun!” he said cheeringly.

“Argh…”

“Guys, look at this!” Luster said, pointed one of her hooves to the stone in the middle of the circle “There are words written on it! It said there are some spells that could help bring someone else out of the Limbo!”

After coming close enough to the stone, she read.

“First, take the artifacts to the sites. The artifacts are objects that the creatures who are being imprisoned use everyday: it could be a book, a pen, goggles, etc. Each creature just needs one artifact. Next, place them gently on the stones, one on each stone. Second, go to the middle of the sites and read out loud a spell that both the savior and the imprisoned creatures have agreed with each other before. The savior can stand on the middle rock or hovering above it…”

“That’s easy!” surprised Griselda.

“That’s actually the hard part, Grisela!” said Luster Dawn as she turned to her “Both sides must understand each other really well: to save the one who is imprisoned, the savior must know what is the prisoner's closest object…”

“I’ll tell them it’s the scarf I’m wearing!”

The black griffon pointed to a black scarf that tied around her neck.

“Huh? Why?” asked Luster Dawn.

“Well… in case I was stuck in the Limbo, of course!”

Flash was stunted by what she said. To him, that sentence is like she has predicted the future. Then the rest of the team follow her.

“My object would be my ballet dress!” Spring Garden said.

“Mine is the hayburger recipe!” Butter Burger said cheeringly “That’s the food that hooked me into fast food!”

“Mine is a blue bracelet!” Yamina said gently “…any blue bracelet it’s okay. It is the thing that reminds me of how I met you guys! Uhm… remember that time you gave me one just like that, Spring Garden?”

“Of course!” the gray kirin said, then she turned to Luster Dawn “How about you, LD?”

“Well… mine is this diary!”

She pulled out the brown cover notebook that Flash had seen before. This leaved him a question: did they already choose him?”

 “It helps me learn a lot about friendship, and remind me of you guys as well!” she looked at it for a second before turning to her friends “…Don’t you remember that y’all also write a lot of things in this as well?”

“Well… why don’t we remember?” Grisela replied “But hey, make sure to fix the profile pic of ya!”

Flash chuckled as the gang laughed together.

“But… this place is quite remote…” Butter Burger asked in concern “…we, The Pillars, and the Council are the only ones who know this place. Oh, and your mom and dad also.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll know!” Luster Dawn said “…Is that right?”

All of them turned to him. Their faces quickly turned into lifeless faces, just like the very first time he saw them. The whole scene turned from the Everfree in the night to complete darkness. They slowly walked to him, constantly and simultaneously whispering:

“Save us out now, save us out now…”

Finally, they all ran to him, grabbed him like a bunch of lions grabbed its prey.

The nightmare ended just like the rest of the knights he met them.

…

“Canterlot, this is Captain Celaeno of the Parrot’s Strength, we have arrived at the city outskirts. Waiting for instruction, Sir!”

“Good! Stay where you are, Captain!” Bonnbon ordered “We will start our fight soon!”

Hovering right above the Blue Rock Mine, the two ships are waiting for their opponent to arrive. The reconnaissance force have reported that Equestria’s fleet is 150 kilometers from where they are.

To them, this is just the beginning. Black Wine could rule and enslave Equestria temporarily and he should ‘enjoy’ it, because they will bring him down and free the Council, as well as the other magical friend group and bring back Harmony to Equestria.

After a long discussion to determine the main strategy last night, S.M.I.L.E have decided that they will confront Black Wine’s force in the least exposed way possible. Bonbon give out her decision:

“Captain, bring our ships behind the rock in front of us…” she pointed her hoove to a pair of large rocks that formed into a gate “…we're gonna use a lot of missiles. MS will do the rest!”

“Yes, Bonbon.”

“You too, Captain Celeano. I think your ship can rest now.”

“Thank you, ma’am!”

One the cliff, where the MS forces are placed according to S.M.I.L.E’s plan, Flash, Haystack and the rest of the group adjust their position to prepare for the battle.

“Woah! Nice gun you got there, Yamina!” Water Vapor said, as he looked at Yamina’s Jegan aiming at it’s target.

“How does it look?” she asked “Newly supplied weapon! I’m glad S.M.I.L.E has placed their trust in me with this thing.”

“Good to know that.”

The gun and the additional aiming cameras on the head are two of the items that was previously supported by some of the supporters that Rainbow Dash have fortunately contacted. Both of the gun and the camera are stolen weapons from a new set of cargo that suppose to be transport to Black Wine’s Unit 265 and equipped to Yamina’s Jegan, forming the Jegan Sniper Pack

Flash came out of his cockpit to breathe some fresh air, as well as having a look at the battlefield that he and his comrades will be fighting on for the next couple of hours.

The Blue Rock Mine, just like the name suggests, is a mining site surrounded by pale blue rocks which hold Abyssinian one of the most precious resources: cobalt ore. Each year, the miners have bring up 15 thousand tons of cobalt, making the sites one of the most valuable place in the world, as cobalt is a very important component in making lithium-ion batteries, which also one of the most important parts in Earthsphere’s military and civilian assets. This makes Black Wine and his cabinet eyes-open, especially when they heard there is one Equestrian’s illegal corporation that once operated the mine. When Abyssinia seized the mines with the allegation that the company had stolen their land and resource, Black Wine came to save it. He demanded that Abyssinia must retreat all of their force from the mine and they have to let their company worked safely in the mine that they “rightfully claimed”.

At least, that was what Flash had heard from his ears. Bonbon and Lyra have suggested that the information they’ve got might be wrong, because they are still building relationships around Equus to gather intelligence for them.

The Abyssinian government rejected his demand and forcefully removed the corporation from working at Blue Rock Mine. This angered  Black Wine, as he have yet lost another mines that he and his cabinet have try to take across the world. He have decided and brought his fleet to Panthera as a “negotiation advantage”, as Bonbon have suggest. However, there are news come from the last minute that the negotiation have already happen, as Black Wine’s fleet are still on the way to the Panthera. The Chancellor decided that they just go ahead to fully take the mine into their hand.

Flash looked down at the rocks. Several Abyssinian’s military units have come to assist S.M.I.L.E in case they were overwhelmed, which, according to Rainbow Dash, is “unimaginable”. However, these units still came as they wanted to”lend a hand” to S.M.I.L.E. The Abyssinians military have trusted S.M.I.L.E to hold up an operation to “protect the mine at all cost”. To them, if Black Wine can control the mines, he will control the rest of their strategic location and make the Abyssinian government become their puppet.

…

After a few more hours of waiting, they finally spotted the fleet going over the horizon, at the northern face of the mine. To normal creatures, they might be just a normal group of merchant vessels that are on their way to Panthera’s harbor, but according to the intelligence message that they got from the most reliable source they could find, they might be the Alicorn Cage fleet: the newly formed fleet of the Equestrian navy.

“4 airships from what I can see…” Discord said while looking towards his potential opponent with his telescope “…do you think they have some sort of Earthsphere weapons on it?”

“Definitely!” Lyra said “They have a deep relationship with AE, of course there are advanced weapons on it!”

“Such as?”

“Beam cannon, CIWS, missiles…”

“Okay…”

Then he turned to the com link and asked the pilots.

“Haystack, are you ready bud?”

“Yep… But where is Cloudsdale?” he asked with suspicion “Those airships can be merchant ships. Be careful not to shoot them down…”

“I could see they have at least… 8 beam cannons on their bow, bud! Small one of course!” Discord said as he looked towards the airship “It’s pretty hard to see them with naked eye!”

“Yeah…” Haystack said “Can we launch now?”

“Should we start?” Haystack asked.

The ship’s captain turned to the Director’s for permission, but Lyra said to him.

“The decision is yours, Captain.”

“Okay…” he sighed “You can start now!”

“Good! Yamina, aim for the small one on your outer left!” he ordered “The City class air cruiser!”

The four airships that going towards them are some of the newly build air navy vessel: two City class air cruiser that taken on the front row, following by 2 Artifact  class vessel. All four of them are considered to be even larger than the Clop class. However, they are highly vulnerable to large numbers of attacks from smaller airships and mobile suits, since they are heavy and lack mobility. That is one of the reasons why Black Wine wanted to equip the Equestrian military with ships, MS and weapons from the Earthsphere, as he also thinks that they are more advanced than weapons from a world that was known to prefer to use magic for fighting and defence.

The Jegan Sniper Pack slightly adjusted the barrel direction in one leg knee, carefully locking it’s target. Then, a beam of light goes out of the barrel, tearing through the air and hit it’s target. The beam pierced through the hull part on the starboard side, as the airships are heading their bow straight to the mines face to face, making it listing to the starboard side.

“Haha! Nice shot!” Water Vapor complimented. “Straight through the target.”

“Uh… That was my instruction, bud…” Blue Thunder said “I will help her adjust the gun.”

The Sniper Pack for the Jegan requires an operator: an aimer and a pilot. Since Blue Thunder’s suit is still in the repair process, Haystack has ordered him to be the aimer, helping Yamina in operating the suit.

However, none of the ships seems to react. They just keep heading towards them.

“What the… Hey Discord, what is the distance from us to them?” Haystack asked.

“Uh… Uh… my crew said it was… just 14 kilometers!” he replied in surprisement.

“This could be a trap!” Bonbon said “Can it be…”

“All the crew prepare to move! Sclerite, can you see are there any vessels coming to us?”

“At least not now, Sir…” he replied with concern “…the Minovsky particles are too dense!”

It was a bright day with just a little cloud, as the sun had risen high enough to say that it was 8 o’clock at that moment. The airship has listed and smoke has started to emit from it, indicating that there is fire in it. However, it still shows no sign of stopping, just like the rest of the fleet.

“Hey Yamina, can you shoot it again? The one that just got hit!” the Lieutenant said.

Just after that, Rainbow Dash ran up to the briged. She demanded to see the opponent with her eyes and was soon satisfied. She looked at them for a second and shouted:

“Wait!”

But it was too late. The Jegan fired its second shot and, again, successfully hit the target, piercing to it’s hull. The second shot caused a massive explosion, but other ships also exploded along with it, which is very unusual to all of them.

Then, the Equestrian Secretary of Defense spoke up.

“They are baits! Those ships have long been decommissioned!”
> Chapter 14
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Sorry, Miss…” Discord concerns “…you said they are…”

“Yes, they are baits none!” the blue pegasi replied “I know they are decommissioned vessels the moment I saw their weapon placement. Those ships are supposed to arm with missiles and small anti air machine guns, not large cannons like that.”

The whole crew looked at the explosions in shock and confusion. The combined energy of the explosions was so powerful that they can be felt by the cats at Panthera, as they describe “as loud as an explosion happening right in the middle of the city”.

 S.M.I.L.E themselves realized they have fallen into Black Wine’s trap.

“Captain, we just spotted three unknown vessels coming from our 7 o’clock direction!” Sclerite reported with a shocked voice “They are launching missiles!”

“Darn it… Brace for impact!” Discord yelled.

Just after that, a huge missile salvo rained down on the two ships hiding inside the mine, coming with a large number of red cone objects, accompanied with multiple long smoke tails. Though the majority of them hit the rocks surrounding the ships, some of them did make a hit on the ships, making both the Canterlot and the Parrot’s Strength shaken violently. Every creature holding tightly to anywhere stable enough with their teeth clenched, praying constantly as they hope they will survive through the battle. At that time, Flash has already come into his cockpit, holding his suits tightly to the ground while shielding him from the first wave. Fortunately, the suit only suffered a hit into the shield.

“Darn it! We are supposed to ambush them!” Haystack said with immense anger. “Turn around! We will protect the Canterlot! How far are they?”

“About 20 kilometers from us, Sir!” Sclerite replied “We are turning around!”

Discord came to the window and looked out: three large vessels were coming from the South East without any resistance. The Cloudsdale decide to make a mega particle cannon shot towards the mines, creating a huge blast just after it hits a rock near where the Canterlot is hiding.

“All mobile suits get to the enemy’s fleet!” the Lieutenant made his decision just after he saw them “We must protect the Canterlot at all cost!”

Flash geared himself up for the fight, and his comrades could see the Strike Zeta transformed as soon as it left the rock, charging its way towards the enemy. The Cloudsdale and its fleet continue to attack. Their missiles fly all over the place while still maintaining their sights on the Canterlot , making them harder to be destroyed. However, Flash and the Phoenix Hunters still manage to stop them all. With the MS mode Strike Zeta, missiles after missiles were shot down with his Vulcan gun, as well as his side skirt beam guns.

 “Good work y’all!” Haystack said “More missiles will come to us, so don’t let your guard down!”

The white MS brought up its shield once again and fired the built-in rifle. It has hit one of the airships that escort the port side of the Cloudsdale, piercing through the bow and blowing up one of its magazine storage compartments, leaving a large hole in front. Then, he turned to the other airships and fired. The shot hit the left rudder and propeller, creating an explosion that ripped off its left engine, both with little resistance.

“Hey, not fair!” Water Vapor said with an envious voice “You’re not supposed to do that alone!”

“And… where are the enemy suits?” Haystack said with a suspicious accent. “Don’t you said these vessels are bait too, you filthy racist unicorn!”

Despite heavy damages, both of them haven’t sunk yet, as Flash looked back and saw both of them are built with hard metal. But then, the enemy took notice: Flash had to face heavy firing from the fleet, with missiles all aiming for the lone ranger looking for a swift victory. They chase him down, but he manages to lure them to a blue rock near the battlefield: the white Zeta flying towards it and quickly climbing up in order to make the missiles hit the rock. However, when he turned back to the fight, the 265’s suit had already gotten into the fight and made their own move to the Phoenix Hunters, with the Psycho MkII Gundam appearing right behind his rear.

“Haha, you fool!” the dark blue Chancellor laughed hysterically “We’re here, not those junky old vessels!”

The dark blue Gundam pulled out its saber and made its way toward Flash. Its eyes flared up, indicating that it was looking for a prey to kill.

“Darn it!” The white MS also pulled out the saber and the two blades clashed again.

“Who are you, amateur?” Black Wine asked with contemptuous. “I thought they had locked you after Manehattan.”

“Brandon Cultrich, pilot of the Strike Zeta Gundam! And why do you want that Alicorn Gundam?”

“Well… as you have known…”

The dark blue machine made a strike right above the white MS head. It’s blade flies down, creating a curved bright beam with hot water vapor flying up as it makes its way towards it’s opponent. Flash quickly stops the attack as the clash makes multiple bright beams flash as usual.

“…I always wanted to free Equestria from those greedy and dangerous creature who are exploit this kingdom every…” he said with anger, pushing his blade harder towards the Zeta as he speak“…those filthy creatures always wanted to rotten our culture in the name of ‘diversity’, don’t you see it? Anyway, all I want is to kick their butts out of our lands, and to do this, I need to force them as well as other kingdoms to pull their citizens out. And by the way, we have rightful ownership over that mine, so stay out and let us do our job!”

The Psycho MkII makes it kick into Flash’s leg, but he quickly puts up his shield and fires the Vulcans.

“And you will not have that Blue Rock mine!” he yelled.

“Sir, those creatures have reinforcement!” some pony reported to Black Wine “A fleet of airships, 15 of them to be exact!”

“Okay… but I have to deal with this stubborn bastard a little bit more…” he replied “…and prepare the Alicorn!”

“I’m not gonna let you touch the fleet!” Flash yelled and made a beam shot at his opponent. The Psycho MkII Gundam successfully dodged the attack. With the beam rifle on it’s right hand, the dark blue machine brings it up and starts to return fire at the Strike Zeta.

“Guess I’ll buy them some times, eh?” he mumbled, then turned to his team “How is the installation work?”

“The AI is ready, Sir!” one of the mechanics reported “Do you really want to aim for the fleet?”

“Good! That AI pilot should not fail. You can engage whenever you want, but it should be fast!”

…

On the night before the battle, the Chancellor came with his team to inspect the suit for the last time. At that moment, the cockpit had not opened yet “due to some mysterious program inside”, as one of the mechanics said. However, Anaheim, after being successfully convinced by the Chancellor that they can return and do their business in peace and come back to the 265, have something special installed inside the thing.

“So… we have an AI that can be installed via external USB gate just outside the cockpit” a human mechanic said whilst wiping his sweat after a long work with the laptop “This AI was developed exclusively for the Alicorn, in fact. Since that one operation ended with the Phenex, I think this and the weapon pack the Psycho MkII carried in the last mission are the best equipment they can come up with, right now!”

“So… that’s how it works?” Joseph asked the mechanic “I mean the AI…”

“Well… the plan is to use the AI to pilot the reinforcement fleet, as Chancellor Black Wine has suggested. The Alicorn only attacks if you attack it or simply when it is feeling threatened. So the AI here will pilot all the way to the fleet to attack them, which will make the fleet retaliate with guns and missiles. The suit will feel threatened once they could see the shots are aimed at it, the ‘souls’ will start their attack on the fleet. The more it feels it is in danger, the more aggressive it gets.”

Then, the Chancellor came to the scene to inspect the work. He was genuinely amused by the work AE had given to accomplish his plan.

“Sir, I heard that you wanted to fight the reinforcement fleet… But… but why do you do that?” Joseph asked as soon as the Chancellor stopped his short inspection.

“The reinforcement fleet, you mean?” he chuckled, then looked back at the Alicorn “Let just say I want it to do that because of show of force!” the Chancellor said as he looked at the white machine, standing calmly inside the MS cage. “They know that things now belong to us, so they will automatically retreat and hand over the mine. Easy!”

…

“Sir, the AI is ready, we will release it now!”

“Good, you can start now!” he said while holding his best against the Zeta.

The white machine stood menacingly on the launch deck, waiting to get into the battle. Its new white paint which the 265’s mechanics have brought it up on to the armor shining in the hot sun of Abyssinian’s desert. After mechanics have detached all the wires as signaling the preparation procedure has completed, the eyes flashes with a sharp beam of lights. The suit hovering for a couple of minutes on the deck as it gains power, and magic, within its psycho frame and thruster, before flying away into the battlefield like a rocket.

Flash watches process in horror, looking around while still holding his sabers against the MkII. He decided to pull his sabers out and two suits got into a dog fight, exchanging beam shots in the process.

“Captain, the Alicorn have already deployed!” Sclerite said with a terrifying tone “But it doesn't head for us…”

“What the… where is that thing going to?” Discord asked.

“They came for the Panthera’s reinforcement fleet! Its speed is insane!”

“Reinforcement fleet?” he asked in confusion.

“We have contacted the King himself so he can send that fleet to help us, in case stuff goes haywire. Sorry for not letting you know that before…” Rainbow Dash explained to him, before looking at the radar and continued.

“What… what should we do now?”

“Contact the Phoenix Hunters!” he commanded “The Alicorn shall not touch the reinforcement fleet!”

“Woah…” Water Vapor gasped as he saw the white machine come out “They… they can control that thing?”

The whole group gasped as the white MS flew towards its prey with no resistance.

“No way!” Haystack said with a terrifying tone.

“Hey Lieutenant! Stop that thing, now!” Sclerite said through the com link “The commanders don’t want our helpers to be destroyed!”

“Roger that Captain!” he replied.

Then he looked back to the place where Flash suits were located. Notice that the white Zeta just doesn't move anymore, he called Flash to wake him up from his own horror.

“Hey Brad! Can you come and control that Alicorn for me?” the Lieutenant asked, to bring him back to reality “That thing will destroy our reinforcement fleet and I don’t want that to happen!”

The Strike Zeta immediately started to transform to fulfill the Lieutenant’s order. However, the process was stopped in the middle as the Chancellor kicked into his torso twice. The suit was unable to finish the transformation process.

“Stop right there, buddy. You will not have that thing back to you!” the Chancellor screamed as he accelerated, following the white MS to where the Alicorn was flying at the moment.

…

“Admiral, the Alicorn is right in front of us!” an Abyssians Captain said, as the white machine charged right into them with an immense speed.

“Isn’t that the suit that 265 have captured before?” the Admiral said in horror.

“It still came to us! Speed: 1300 kilometers per hour and still accelerating!”

“All missiles fire at it, immediately!” he yelled.

First, the first wave of missiles coming straight at the AI controlled machine. The Alicorn dodged all of them, as the failed missiles either crashed into each other or fell into the desert.

Then, the second wave came. Just as before, the white machine dodged all of them smoothly in the middle of a cloud of explosions, smoke and the remains of the missile's tail. Terrified by its moves, the Admiral order to shoot more at it, as he fears it could destroy his fleet. The missiles salvos has shown it monstrous mobility as it moves, so fast that naked eye barely catches it movement

Shots after shots came out of barrels and missiles pods, flying at their target in furious as the white machine flashes in its eyes for the last time before officially starting the massacre. The psycho-frame lighted up and the shields were deployed, flying around the fleet as they seeking for the threats to eliminate.

“Captain… Those… those shields!” an Abyssinian said with a terrified expression.

Their first victim is a Mattia class battleship. One of the shields penetrated the armor, tearing the compartments apart and eventually blew it up with multiple hits. The second one is a Panthera class battleship, as the Alicorn came right in front at its bridge and smashed it into pieces, before coming to blow its engine compartment.

“No… no way…” the admirals said in shock “De… deployed more missiles!”

However, as Black Wine has stated, the more threatened it feels, the more aggressive the ‘souls’ inside it get. It deployed the magic again, blowing all of the missiles that had chased it before. It destroys 2 more vessels before it has shown some sort of ‘regretness’: the movement starts to freeze as if it tries to stop itself from destroying the ships by. There is metallic screeching noise from the armor echoing across the sky, with parts of its armor’s cracks stopping itself from expanding.

 “You can see… you are losing, my friend!” the dark blue unicorn said “Now get ready for…”

The MkII swung its left arm with an intention to slide the Zeta in half, but the effort was cut short when a beam shot merely touched its back pack. Then, Haystack’s suit appeared.

“Hey Brad, leave him to me!” they shouted “You go get the Alicorn!”

The Zeta immediately transforms itself and rushes to the scene where the white MS is making a massacre. However, 5 ships have already been destroyed. The Alicorn is still struggling to stop itself to make further damage to the fleet. Flash finally catches up with it and hugs Alicorn’s torso as hard as he could.

“Come on, stop it!” Flash yelled at the thing.

“Flash, oh my gosh oh my gosh you are here!” Butter Burger said with rejoice.

“Great, we need your help!” Grisela said “Some… Something forces us to attack them… Then the fleet attacked us and we… we…”

“Come on… Haystack, what should we do?” Flash asked.

“Hold it until the reinforcement fleet fully retreated!” he said.

As he looked out, the Abyssinian reinforcement fleet slowly diverted their direction back to the city. Five wrecks which previously were some of Abyssinian’s most powerful warships, lying on the ground not so far from each other as they emit thick black smoke as they burn. Flash was horrified, he never knew the Alicorn could have such power. He assumed that an average Panthera class air battleship can take down a few suits, since they are even larger and more heavily armed than Clop class, but the rampaging Alicorn can take 5 of them down easily.

After a few minutes, the suit started to calm down. The psycho frame’s light has slowly dimmer to the brightness that it was normally seen by him. Then, he heard five voices echoed in regret simultaneously:

“We’re sorry!”

And the white machine itself grabbed around Flash’s suit as the two were still hovering above the wreckage, in the middle of the desert.

“Uh… Uh… Okay! Good job Flash!” Haystack said “Bring that thing back to the ship. We're gonna retreat as well!”

However, as much as he tried to pilot the Zeta, they still stayed stationary in the air. Some kind of magical lights start going around the Zeta, encapsulating both suits as the white machine leaning into the Zeta’s chest.

“Can… Can we hug you a little bit?” Yamina shyly asked with a sweet voice.

“What?” asked Flash in confusion “Why do you want…”

“Aha, there you are!” the Chancellor said “You are distracting, buddy!”

A beam shot hit Flash’s Strike Zeta left arm, causing it to explode and blow both suits apart. Unable to pull out his beam saber, Flash was forced to hold his shield with just one hand and firing constantly at his opponent. He looked at his left arm, where only just the shoulder armor still remains. The sound of sirens is constantly alarming that the Strike Zeta is not in a good shape. 

Both suits went into a dog fight once again.

Meanwhile, the Alicorn is gradually losing power and falling down to the ground, near the burning wreckage. It makes a huge cloud of dust after hitting the ground, slowly swallowed by the smoke from the burning ships that it has taken down by itself.

In the air, the battle rapidly turns it’s favor to the MkII just after a few minutes, due to Flash exhaustion: after a kick right into Zeta's torso, Flash has to pull his suit back in order to avoid more damage to his suit. He attempted a few more beam shots but they were all in vain, as the MkII maneuver allowed it to dodge all of the shots.

“Darn it… Such a fast machine it is…” Flash mumbled in pain. He could feel that he had some broken bones after the MkII’s powerful kick. Little did he know that the Chancellor’s suit had a special feature to enhance its close combat ability, especially in martial arts-like combat.

“Brad, fall back! You’re gonna be left behind!”

“Yes Sir… argh!”

Another kicked into the suit and it fell down to the ground.

“Take this, bastard!” the Chancellor said as he breathed heavily “This mine belongs to ours…”

“Chancellor, we have the mines! You can go back to the ship now!” a pony said to him.

Flash vision started to get black again, as his opponent left the scene to celebrate his victory.

“Yeah… those creatures are still no match for us!” he mumbled and then turned to his subordinate “Recover the suit and if you can, salvage those destroyed ships. Make sure the creatures stay out of the Alicorn as far as possible!”

Flash tries to bring his suit back to the fight with his engine fired up, but it is too late: the thruster ignites just about a few meters from the ground. Instead of gaining altitude, the suit flew horizontally on the ground, before losing stability and completely stopped, making another large dust cloud as it hit a pile of rock. At this time, the machine has completely run out of fuel, blocking his last way to chase off the dark blue unicorn. He then panned his eye to the wreckage as the Equestrian fleet came to recover the Alicorn. It is also too late for him since wreckages are too far for him to stop the recovery, despite having detached the shield and run as fast as possible to the white fallen MS. Then, the Zeta stumbled on another and fell down again.

“Darn… it…”

“Brad… Brad! Are you okay?” the Lieutenant asked loudly “Take the shield and go back to the ship!” 
> Chapter 15
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was official: the Blue Rock Mine had been taken over by the Equestrian military!

The news reporter said on a large projection screen at the mission room.

It was a few days after their defeats at the Blue Rock Mine. Some members of the crew are sitting in the mission room, watching the rebroadcast news of the night after the battle. They don’t know why they have to see that, but watching the news that shows their defeats is pure pain to them.

“Dang, are they wanting to put some salt in our wounds all over again?” a unicorn pony said in a boring tone “Didn’t this show a few days ago?”

Then, the doors open with all of S.M.I.L.E executives walking in. The whole room stops their own activity and stands up, saluting the three mares and Captain Discord. However, they walked in with a sad face, looked down to the floor as if they are embarrassed of their incompetent.

“Y’all can go back to sit again…” Discord said.

“First, I want to apologize for our great mistake that cost us the Blue Rock Mine and several of our comrades…” Rainbow Dash started the meet with a sad voice “Our wrong prediction about Black Wine and his fleet have led to this humiliated defeat, and we, the executive of S.M.I.L.E, will take full responsibility for this.”

She looked at every creature in the room for a couple of seconds, before continuing.

“However, that’s not the main reason we are here. What I want to say is recently, we have struck a deal with our friends at Parrot Peak, and they are kind enough to let us use one of their bases, where the Eris 2 Unit is stationed. It is large enough to hold our ship and let us have some maintenance and resupply. However, after that, some of our pilots have to move away for a while to assure safety for them as well as the whole crew. Are you clear?”

“Yes, ma’am…”

“Okay, then we will arrive at Parrot Nest base in about 5 days from now! I’ll let Lyra and Bonbon explain further about this, especially the preparation procedure.”

“Parrot Nest base? Weird name, seriously!” Haystack chuckled when he heard about the base for the first time “Weird name I heard, eh?”

Then, the projector turned itself up to reveal a map. Bonbon carries on the meet by introducing the base to every creature.

“So this is where we will stay for a handful of time and missions…” she said while pointing a laser pointer on to the screen “Their main landing pad has been enlarged to help our ship to fit in…”

The map showed a base with 2 long runways on the far left side of the screen, a large parking area right next to the runways, separated by some taxiways. Separated by 2 other taxiways is a large landing pad where ships can be landed, and, as Bonbon have stated, the landing pad has been enlarged so the Canterlot herself can perfectly land. To the right of the screens are the buildings: air traffic controls, stationed, warehouses and weapon depot,… all was built right next to the main street that connects the base to the rest of Orthinia. And that's not all: when Bonbon moved the map further to the left, she revealed a large port with 6 main piers where large Orthinia’s navy vessels can be anchored, along with several more weapon depots and warehouses. This makes the whole base become a large military complex that could rival even the Torrington Base at the Earthsphere.

“Despite its size, we can speculate that this base can be hardly detected at its full scale, due to the fact that it was located inside a cave at the Orthinia mountain. Yes they can see us come into the base, but attacking this place will be a nightmare for the 265, both strategic and logistical. However, since we have sustained a large amount of damages from the last battle, we will have to separate our force: Haystack and Brandon will stay at Captain Celaeno’s airship, Water Vapor will come to the Eagles Scream, while Blue Thunder and Yamina will stationed at the Black Hawk (they’re all disguised military airships, don’t worry). This will help us sneak into kingdoms that block our ships easier: those airships are technically fully legal to enter their air space, or even into Equestria’s airspace!”

“But… pardon me, ma’am…” Blue Thunder raised his hooves “…but how about my suit? Can I use another one or… simply how can we fix my Jegan?”

Logistics, which includes fixing Blue Thunder’s Jegan is also a very difficult task to fully fill for S.M.I.L.E, since they are the only legitimate supplier for all of their Earthsphere-origin assets. However, Rainbow Dash replied him:

“We’re gonna fix it for ya, don’t worry!” she answered like it was based on a concrete fact “Our friends at Orthinia will supply us with some of the stuff they bought from… AE. Yes, I know they are crooks, but sadly they are the best option we have in this trying time. Orthnian’ s military will deliver the supply right to the base, so all we have to worry is to go ahead with our supply plan and the operation ahead!”

It was a genuine surprise for the ship to hear what they called “an unbelievable good news”. After all that time they stay at the Canterlot, none of them have the idea that there are another kingdom willing to buy MS, ships and weapons from AE. However, this do lead to some suspicion.

“But… Can we trust them? I mean the Orthinians…” a changeling asked.

“Hey, I know you are doubting something from us but can you show respect?” an eagle near him replied “There are Orthinians on board too, dude!”

“You just made a very contradictory statement, dude!” the changeling replied with a grumpy voice. “And also, do you ever have an experience when your friends buy something from your enemy and then they agree to help us?”

“Okay okay, relax, guys!” Rainbow Dash stops them from getting into a fight “We can totally trust them because it is very hard to convince them to help us, and also, we have no other choices. As far as I know they don’t like Black Wine and his cabinet at all, so we can totally trust our bird friend!”

…

The journey to Parrot Peaks is surprisingly smooth and uneventful. All of what Flash and his ship mates have to do are checking the MS daily, doing guard shifts, fulfilling their ship's military duties and doing what the normal creatures do. The eagle and the changeling that he saw nearly fighting in the mission room have settled the conflict themselves, and Flash even heard that they have been friends, since they didn’t really know each other before that argument. Flash could also say that he has seen some “visit” from Luster and her friends, but since all of them are just identical nightmares that he has seen before, it is unnecessary to tell them again, despite their severe lack of sleep.

After about 3 days of constant travel in a route that S.M.I.L.E had chosen to perform some test on the ship's capability before complete refurbishment, they finally arrived at the Parrot Nest base. The first thing that impresses him the most is that everything Bonbon has told is all built in a gigantic cave. Greeting the ship are several other airships that moored at the cave mouth. The height of the cave is enough for the Canterlot to move in without hitting anything, as long as the bridge crew still have their guards up to make sure it is not hitting any of the cave ‘s ceiling. In addition to the natural lights of the sun, the whole cave was lightened up with multiple high energy floodlights, all arranged in a very scientific way to ensure maximum lighting. There are a few smaller caves which Flash speculated that they are the warehouses and depots that the map failed to say: it actually just a ground layout map, not a fully 3D map.

The landing pad the Orthinian military arranged for them is the largest landing pad of the base. Next to them are the ramp where some of Orthinian’s aircraft, supplies,… and even some vehicles that carried clothed MS are parked.

“Woah! What is this? They want to hold a whole party?” a unicorn mechanic said excitedly “Looks like there is tons of work to do! Hey Gremada, you should see this!” he said while waving at his griffon friend.

It is a relief for the Canterlot’s crew, after nearly a month of non stop moving after they leave Zebrat and a defeat at Blue Rock Mine. Rainbow Dash is accurate: the suits will be fixed.

…

Before going “ashore”, as Lieutenant Haystack said, Flash was ordered to check at his MS once again. The Lieutenant tapped his shoulder when Flash arrived at his damaged mobile suit.

“Hey bud… Your suit will have another left arm, don’t worry!” he said whilst looked at the Strike Zeta

The mechanic said it just lost the left arm and the shoulder armor is intact. They just need to replace the arm section that are still in that shoulder and give them new arms. Do you know how?”

“How, Sir?”

“Do you see that one covered mobile suit on the tarmac?” he pointed at the vehicle that carried what he had said “That’s an unfinished Zeta Gundam unit. It didn’t have a name since the Zeta program ended halfway through its construction, so they decided to give it to us for spare parts.”

The Zeta Gundam unit that he mentioned is the MSZ-006-4, an unfinished Zeta unit from Anaheim Electronics. The machine is a part of a development of new generation mass production mobile suits that are planned for Earth use only, and they planned to convince the Federation to buy at least a few units once they fully complete. However, Anaheim themselves think it necessary for the Federation to buy such a thing since they themselves saw that the Federation have enough suits that would fulfill the role of their new suit, so after just 3 completed suits and an unfinished unit, they decide to end the project for good.

“And you know what? They are basically the same as your Strike Zeta, just without weapons like you. So, just enjoy seeing it help boost your fighting capability!”

…

The cloth was finally removed to reveal the unfinished MS in it’s full glory.

The machine is missing a lot of parts: there is basically no chest armor, no wings and no torso armor. The thermonuclear engines are exposed, but they have been temporarily covered by some armor for safety reasons. The armor that covered the vents on the suit’s face was missing and was also covered with cloth. Other than that, the suit is pretty much usable with enough armor and equipment on.

“The cockpit is fully functionable, great!” The hippogriff mechanic named Seashell Blue said to Flash “Your suit is in relatively good condition, so although this thing is exclusively for you, some of this stuff will be used as spare parts for other suits as well. Do you chill with that, Brad?”

“Yes, I’m totally fine with that!” the blue-haired humanoid said “If what you said is true, then I’m happy to help our crew to win this war.”

It is also notable that S.M.I.L.E have already classified the conflict as an all out war against Chancellor Black Wine and his cabinet. They named it “The War for Harmony”, or “The First Mobile Suit War” for a more neutral name. However, every creature on board the Canterlot agreed that if they just allow Black Wine to do what he wants, the harmony that Princess Twilight and her friends have built will be destroyed.

“Okay. You can temporarily leave ‘her’ to me…” Seashell Blue said as he looked at the damage to Strike Zeta “…there will be more than just external damages, but we’ll focus on your left arm first. In the meantime, why don’t you have a short trip to Parrot Peak itself: there is a multi-national festival in the city, “Spirit of Eris Eyes”. I heard they make that name up based on a local legend, I don’t really know. But you can go to that festival with local small public airships: just go straight on Smokey Mountain Street and you’ll arrive there.”

“Okay, thanks for the advice!”

“Make sure to play some games, mate!”

After waving at the blue hippogriff, Flash decided to follow a group of the S.M.I.L.E’s crew as he heard that they also went to the festival.
> Chapter 16
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After about 20 minutes, the bus finally arrived at the fair.

It was not so much a huge fair in terms of size, but the amount of creatures there is just hard to describe. He has to squeeze himself countless times through the crowd to navigate through the fair. A couple of minutes later, he gets to see the map that was handed over by a parrot, which shows the entirety of what is inside the fair: it was basically a game fair, where kingdoms showing their cultures through their traditional entertainment methods.

The first tent he came across is the “Hold the Bar” games from Griffonstone. The purpose of the game is to test the player’s vestibule: the players hold their hooves, claws or claws to a wooden bar that connects to a cone, located in the middle of a carousel-like circle. It was decorated with colors that match Griffonstone to remind them, as well as other creatures about their home kingdom. Operating the game is two griffons, tiding themselves through wire that is connected to the bar itself. After a few rounds, they will detach themselves from the bar and let the carousel do the rest. The creatures who play the game have to stand and hold the bar while the carousel-like circle rotates rapidly.

One reason that made him decide to make his first stop at “Hold the Bar” is the reward: a specific red scarf that hangs on the highest place on the rewarding shaft. It hangs there like waving at him, asking him to take it along after winning the game.

But it could be hard, since the winning creatures have gone through being spinning around for over 7 minutes, the record time that creature could bear through a fast rotating circle for 2 years ago. In order to get that scarf, he has to beat the record. Flash isn't sure if he can go through all of that, but there’s one advantage: he is an MS pilot.

After a one of the pony that he met before on the bus failed to go through the first 3 minutes, who was said to be nearly fainted, the announcer said out loud to the crowd:

“Who wants to try?” he said “It’s only 7 minutes long!”

The crowd tumult for a moment, talking to each other about what creature should do it, and how to do it. When Flash is still wondering if he should try it, suddenly, Grisela’s voice comes by.

“Just do it!” the voice said “I know 7 minutes is nothing to you!”

He turned around to find who had said that, but realizing who the voice belonged to, he turned back to the game. Then, he decided to just participate.

“I’ll do it!” He stunned the crowd by saying it out loud. "I'll beat that record!"

“Oh, so you want to do it, soldier?” the announcer said “What’s your name?”

“Brandon”

“Okay, so every creature, have a big clap for Brandon!”

After some little applause from the crowd, Flash stepped on the platform. He noticed that it was pretty high to the ground, that he could see almost every creature in the tent that was also relatively large. Flash stands still as he holds tight to the bar, expecting that the griffons’ speed is not faster than the test he has once gone through during his time at Antarctica base.

“If you feel enough is enough, just raise your right hand and we’ll stop!” the announcer said.

However, in contrast to his belief, the 2 griffons immediately started the game with high speed flight for a couple of seconds. After a few seconds, they detached the carousel to start to run by its own power. It was called the starting procedure, since it’s traditional Griffonstone’s engineering doesn't allow electricity to get into its component. Despite that, the carousel spinning speed is insanely fast.

Flash concentrates all of his strength onto holding the bar, not allowing his mind and eyes to take out of it in a single second. The scene before his eyes was blurred by the speed of the thing, as well as his consciousness due to the fact that he started feeling dizzy. The creatures are still chattering, as if nothing special is happening. Finally, after just about 4 minutes, he has to raise his hand, which signals one of the griffons to press the brake to stop.

“Better than our last player, but still can’t beat the record, sadly!” the announcer said with a sad face. “Better luck next time, but you still get this cute stone mug!”

“But… Why is that scarf so important?” Flash asked in confusion and frustration “It's just a scarf!”

“Well… it’s not a normal scarf…” a pony next to him explained “It belonged to, possibly, one of the greatest griffons of all time: Grisela and color guardian!”

“Wh… Wh… What?” he asked in disbelief while still recovering himself from the game.

“The griffon that along with her friends brings back the Magic of Rainbow to Griffonstone by teaching the griffon to never stop hoping!”

“What nonsense are you talking about?” he mumbled.

…

Just a few footsteps away, he was greeted by the Yakyakistan’s tent with the decoration reminding the creatures of traditional tents. He has once visited Yakyakistan before, when Princess Cadence had a state level visit there: it was cold and dull, but the warm welcome from the yak still made him feel like home.

The main game that the Yakyakistan’s tent showed was called “Stomp till it pop”. The rule is to stomp on some pieces of wood, placed on top of one another in order to break it, creating the large popping sound, hence the name “Stomp till it pop”. However, instead of traditional woods the yaks normally do, they replaced them with wood shaped cardboard. The creature who can make them break faster will win the competition. To make sure the result comes out even, the amount of “woods” placed will vary, depending on the creatures that play the game. Only yaks and buffalos are allowed to play with traditional woods since they are stronger than the majority of creatures.

“Hey, blue hair! Didn’t know you were too!” Yamina waved at him as soon as she saw him pop up from the crowd “Do you want to play this? It’s our best traditional game around!”

“I guess you must be very proud to see some of your culture presented here, right?” Blue Thunder asked with his hooves around Yamina’s neck “Let me see: “Build a tent”, “Yak’s Carol”,… plenty of the stalls are full already!”

“Yeah, you should try it too, Brad!”

But one thing, just like the “Hold the bar” game he has played, makes him stay at “Stomp till it pop”: some blue bracelet placed on the rewarding shelf. It was fairly easy to take because it was for the creatures who don’t finish in the top three. However, this also means that he has to be careful not to stomp too hard on the “woods”, since he is an MS pilot, a job which requires a lot of leg strength.

He took the position beside Yamina to his left and a buffalo to his right. This made him feel comfortable that he could not end up in the top three, despite knowing that the pile of ‘woods’ he had, which was simply a bunch of cutted off cardboard, was used in order to enhance equality within the competition. Just as the last game, he was also faced with crowds facing the competitors in the bright light of the stage. Every creature seemed a little bit shocked when they saw a human playing an Equus kingdom’s traditional game, but he ignored it.

After the announcement and the long introduction, the competition started.

The stomping from all the 6 competitors could make an experience that creatures describe as “A large magnitude Earthquake”. Despite the stage that was set for the game is rather large so the competitors could have some space from each other, Flash still can't be sure he could bear himself until the “woods” that he receives finally break.

“Gimalla the Speedo Griffon has the first position!” The announcer surprised him with the announcement.

“Woah, congrat to her!” Yamina said right next “Seems like some creature could do this better than us!”

Then, the buffalo to his right broke the ‘woods’, making him holding the second place.

“That’s a good sign for me!” Flash thought “Glad that I don’t have to get that oversized yak’s scarf!”

When Yamina broke her own woods and held the third place, he knew his goal was achieved. Turns out, the cardboard ‘woods’ he has is actually harder than he thought, so he has to put more energy into the game, though it is still not all he has. This makes him the last creature to meet the goal and, as said before, having the yak’s bracelet.

“Few… That was hard!” he said after the competition was over “But why cardboard, though?” he asked one of the organizing yak.

“Yakyakistan woods tend to be harder than most other kinds of woods, since they have to constantly go through freezing conditions.” He said “That’s why yak’s wood is so reliable: they help us a lot, mostly in construction! And…” he looked down the floor “Attract Black Wine. He wanted to have the Jaw Mountain’s wood to have a yak's wood reserve on his own!”

“What? How can he…”

“Yeah… that’s the truth. You know how racist he is, don’t ya? But hey, at least we have you guys here to fight him alongside the creatures, right?”

…

The word from the organizing yak has him thinking, mostly about the situation he is currently in and Black Wine, the reason he was immediately drafted by S.M.I.L.E for their MS force.

“He is really destroying the harmony that Twilight and her friends have built…”

He looked around and sighed. Then, he decided to look at the map for another time to find out what he should do next and what game he should play. However, he soon realized his map had suddenly gone away, mysteriously.

“Huh… No… No way!” he gasped in panic “Where’s the map?”

He looked at the right pocket of his military trouser several times before looking all over his clothes. It was also important to mention that the scale of the festival is still very large and he underestimated its size when he glanced at one of it’s large maps placed on the main entrance, which was also too crowded to allow him to look at it in detail.

Then, accepting it has gone forever, he thought it was better to navigate the place himself with extra help from volunteers. But one event has turned his decision upside down.

After just a few seconds after the decision was made and started his walk, suddenly, he stumbled upon a light cerise unicorn with her mane tied into double ponytail style, decorated with a pink dotted strawberry hair clip. She looks strangely familiar to a specific unicorn he saw in his dreams, but her situation prevents him from thinking further.

She’s crying out loud while sitting in the middle of the crowd, looking around as if she is looking for something. Her tears ran along her face, making Flash’s heart almost break. He was frustrated to see none of the creatures around seemed to care for the poor little filly. Flash gently come to her, asking:

“Wh… What’s going on to you?” he asked “Where are your parents?”

“They… I… I lost them!” the filly whimpering “I just finished… a… a game at the kirin stall and… and when I turned around, they… they were all gone!”

She burst into crying again, making Flash cover his ear for a moment. He turned around and shouting:

“Are there any creatures helping this filly?”

Instead of replies, Flash received eyes looking at him weirdly.

“Hello, who are these filly parents?”

Still no replies, but he kept shouting around to find an answer. After frustrating to see creatures only giving him weird faces at most, he decided to just find the parents by themselves, as Flash said.

“Well, guess we have to find your parents on our own for now!” he said “Are you okay with that?”

“Yes… Mister, mister…”

“Call me Brandon, Brandon Cultrich!”

She looked at him suspiciously, but then she decided to just go on.

“Okay! Thank you Mister Brandon! My name is… Warmth Sunshine!” she said gently as she wiped her tears “But… Can you help bring me up so I can see further: my legs are tired from running all over the festival to find my mom and dad!”

Flash looked around as he wondered if he should do what she told. Then, after seeing her adorable eyes and some push into his leg, he decided to scoop her up. The light cerise pony makes a cute giggle once she is safely in his hand.

“Okay, now tell me what should we do now?”

“Well, but first…” she pointed to his left. “Can we go to the kirin’s tent?”

“Why?”

“My parents are probably there!” she said confidently “And by the way… I want to get something for myself…”

…

The thing that she wants when the two get to the small Kirin Grooves’s tent is one of the two dresses that “can be used for every creature”, said by one the organizer kirin at the stall. He demanded that if won the “Find the rainbow in your friends” game, he would get them as a reward.

“So the rule is to find all of the rainbow icons in a piece of paper, where it was mixed with several other objects…” The organizer kirin said “There are 15 in total, pretty easy. However, I only give you about 2 minutes to find them all!”

"And... Sorry... Why do you name the game 'Find the Rainbow in your friends'?"

"The game is kinda a teamwork game! So, do you have any team? It's okay to only have one friend since you only need one: he or she can be your 'circler' or the 'navigator'!" he asked while turned his back to them, preparing for the game.

“Oh, I knew it!” Warmth Sunshine said excitedly “I’ve played it once with a kirin friend and we hooked on that. But I have to warn you that it will not be easy to find: the paper you’ll have is the size of 2 desks! But not to worry: I'll guide you to find them!"

"So... you want to be my 'navigator'?" Flash asked.

"Yep... you got it right?"

“There it is!" The kirin gave them out the paper and a pencil "Do you still want to play?” the organizer kirin said “There are plenty of creatures lining up after you!”

The paper was handed to him after a moment, the paper really stunted him with his side, and it was dotted with icons. However, Warmth Sunshine has another plan. She kicked to his right leg slightly:

“That’s how I signal you when I find a rainbow. I will point my hove there so you can circle it.”

The couple did exactly like what she said. Warmth Sunshine concentration has helped him alot, and the two have a lot of fun together. With her help, the couple finally finished the challenge just 2 seconds away from the deadline. The organizer kirin seems to not be aware of them, since he is chatting with his friends the whole time they play the game.

“Woah, you and another kirin couple are the only ones to find all 15 rainbows on a paper like this!” the kirin said in surprise and happiness, as well as confusion “But… who do you talk to while you play?”

“Uh… a lost unicorn filly… Haven't you seen her?”

"Uh... Nope, buddy! I don't see any filly besides you! Are you okay?"

"No... That can't be true!" Flash thought as his eye looked at the filly, as he was sweating and didn't know what to do.

The organizer kirin blinking his eyes for a little while before saying:

“Anyway, congrat! Now have this cute little dress for your filly or your daughter!”

…

“Yay! Now we got a dress, I think we can work with each other pretty smoothly!” the pink filly said happily while inspecting the dress “So beautiful… Is it for me?”

Flash blinked for a second to find an appropriate answer that would not harm her happy feeling.

“Well… It was for a ritual… Sadly…” he replied with hesitant “You might not have matured to understand it yet… But argh, why do I say that? Okay, this is for you!”

“Yay!” she cheered.

On the way, Warmth Sunshine guided him through the festival to find her parents and find new games to play. When he mentioned “How is your parents look like?” or “How could we identify them?”, she refused to answered, instead she replied with discomfort, as if he is touching her private spot in her:

“You’ll know once we see them, okay?”

Then, it was her turn to ask: “Why did you lose your map?”

“I don’t know… Maybe a mysterious force took it away?” he replied jokingly “There is a fortune teller tent somewhere in this festival. Maybe it was handled by an evil witch that seeks to… imprison us in this festival!”

“Oh… I see…” she nodded.

After a few minutes of walking, the light cerise filly wanted him to visit a section of the festival, which was occupied by the ponies of Equestria. He heard that Black Wine still allowed the ponies to join the festival in order to avoid more tension, but it seems like with the smile of all creatures and the ponies there, they just don’t care about politics at all, at least for that moment.

The filly then ‘forced’ him to get to a hayburger restaurant, where there is another competition to find out what creature can find out the main ingredient in the fastest time for the “Ponyville cheese hayburger” . The price: 100 Best ways for the best easy Equestrian dish, a recipe compilation book which creatures could use to learn how to make, as the title suggests, 100 types of different Equestrian fast food. The book make Warmth Sunshine really happy, as she jumped and asked him:

“Can I get that book too? Pleassss!” she pointed her hooves at the book and began begging.

“Why do you need that book?”

“Because I want it for… one of my friends!” she said happily “I want to bring this to him since he is very busy and also, he doesn't have enough money to buy it back home!”

Flash was genuinely surprised by her generosity, to the point that he immediately agreed.

“Okay, if you wish!” he said as he looked at the competition. The pal then decided to get in the line and wait for the organizer to help Flash find the position.

“Okay, so I’ll take the third position on the row…”

There are 5 competitors in total: a unicorn, a Pegasus, a yak, a kirin, him and a changeling. He was pretty confident because he had tried various Ponyville Hayburger types before, during the time he was still Princess Twilight's personal guard.

Just like every other game, the game started just after the introduction. However, the hardness of the game just proved how worthy the reward is: some of the ingredients that are included in the burger are the ones that he has never tasted before! It was delicious, but he still can’t figure some of them out.

“Appleloosa’s hay and Zap Apple Jam, I knew it. But these vegetables…” he thought “What are they, exactly?”

“Sweet Apple Acres spinach and Appleloosa tomato, as well as some Canterlot cheese! They are the best combination of the finest from every corner of Equestria!”

Suddenly, a cheerful voice came up. It was BB saying the name of the ingredient for him, which stunted him since he doesn't know how he can know so much about food. And he didn’t stop there:

“There are some eggs from Manehattan in the barn as well. They are the most special type of egg that tastes different from every other kind of egg in Equus, which is also why they make the egg half raw in the burger to make sure creatures can taste that difference in its fullest. Oh, and don’t forget pepper, onions and ketchup! Too bad they are normal one that you can buy in the supermarket, so you don’t have to say where they come specifically!”

Seizing the opportunity, he wrote down all of the answers and rang the bell, signaling he had finished the challenge. Looking around, he still sees the creatures guessing and writing down their answer, which means he is the first one finished.

The result was issued, and despite that he got one of the answers wrong: it was multi-flavor fruit jam instead of Zap Apple Jam, he got the most right answer amongst the competitors, which helped him secure first place and get his hand on the reward: the recipe book. The crowd were highly impressed and gave out a huge applause once he was handed 100 Best ways for the best easy Equestrian dish.

“Yay! You made it, you made it!” Warmth Sunshine jumping up in joy along with the crowd.

When the two came out of the tent, she casually asked him “How can you make so many right answers? Are there some creatures to help you?”

“Uh… Let's just say there are really adorable creatures that helped me through!”
> Chapter 17
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then, there is the burning question of where Warmth Sunshine’s parents are, as well as what direction he should choose to get out of the festival. As much as he remembers, he and the light cerise pony have been together for nearly an hour, yet they still don’t see her parents anywhere. The day was also full of surprises, and it has not ended yet: he doesn’t know why she suddenly places her trust on him so fast.

“Well… because you might be the only way I can find my mom and dad!” she answered casually when he asked the question. “Also, we also have sooo much fun today, ain’t we?”

After some more talk while they are on the way, Sunshine learns that he has joined the “Hold the bar” game and he has failed to beat the record.

“You… You have to go through such a game just for a scarf?” she sighed “Fine… But anyway, I know how to beat it!”

The two then decide to let Flash experience the game for another time. If he got the scarf, it would be an achievement that would make creatures think twice before messing with him, at least that was what he thought.

“Oh hello there, Brad!” the announcer greeted him once he saw Flash standing at the tent “Wanna try to beat the record again?”

“Yes, but where is every creature?”

Flash asked in concern, as he saw the tent almost completely empty. There are only the griffons, him, and if he's not wrong, Warmth Sunshine. He can not help to notice that some creatures looked into the tent with either or hatred. This also confused the griffons.

The announcer griffon answered in boredom as he sighed: “Well… seems like every creature thinks our challenge is so hard, they all left. Nice to see ya here, though?”

A few seconds later, Flash has already strapped himself on the carousel, ready to challenge his vestibule all over again. However, he got some advice from Warmth Sunshine: concentrate on holding the bar, but don’t open your eyes. Half of his concentration will focus on whatever he wants to think: memories, dreams, even his own fantasies.

“With that, you will see that 7 minutes will not be a long time!” she said.

While still maintaining the 7 minutes mark, the announcer griffon told his colleagues to slow down a little bit so he could feel dizzy a bit less.

But still much to his surprise, the carousel was still slow enough that it could be comparable to the electrical one that was nearly run out of energy. This means that his only concern is to focus his mind on distracting himself away from being dizzy.

In his fantasy, he saw him lying down on the grass peacefully, hearing birds chirping and slow wind washes through his face. He then shifted his mind to a dinner in his old house back in the Crystal Empire, where he and his mother are enjoying some eggs, fresh vegetables, bread, some Zap Apple Jams and especially, tomato pasta. Some creatures looked at him and made some laugh, questioning them why he was tearing out while still holding the bar in a relatively fast carousel. However, when choosing to think back to the past like that, regret is unavoidable to him.

“Uh… Oh! It’s already been 7 minutes, you did it bro!” the announcer said “You have beat the record, do you want to stop?”

The announcer’s voice pulled him out of the fantasy, forcing him to face off the high circling speed. Additionally, he only noticed that he is in an appropriate position to hold himself to the carousel and prevent him from falling down. This makes him nearly lose control and make the blue haired pilot raise his hand, signaling the griffon to stop the game. The whole tent, though just only a few, clapped their claws and hooves as he stepped down in stagger, which took him a few sec to stand up right again but still had to hold his head.

“And the winner is… Brandon Cultrich!” he said cheerfully “Here is your reward, buddy! We’re very proud of ya!”

“Y’all just saw me for a second time!” Flash said in tiredness. "Thank you for the game!"

"Yeah... But you should get out of this tent ASAP, bud!" the announcer griffon said while pushing him out of the tent. "Have fun for the rest of the festival, Brandon!"

…

“Sweet Celestia! You made it, you made it!” The little filly jumped up and down in happiness when he got out of the tent. Flash is still feeling dizzy after more than 7 minutes on a spinning carousel, looking around to buy some drink to comfort himself as his left hand is still holding all of the rewards.

“Oh my… I really feel bad for you…” Warmth Sunshine said in a sad voice “Are you okay?”

“Not much… Anyway, are your parents still here? They’re probably crying where you are now?”

“Yeah… But the gate is right there!” she pointed out to the same gate that Flash entered the festival “Don’t you want to get out of this… mess?”

“Well… not until we find your mom and dad!”

The couple then arrived at a food stall, ordering some bread and lemonade. But when Flash turned to her and asked what she wanted to eat, she replied.

“Nah… I think you should enjoy it alone…” she said casually. “And by the way, it is fun to stay with you like this… It’s been a long time since the last time I ever came to a festival…”

“What… what do you mean?” Flash confused “Did your parents rarely hang out with you… like this?”

“No… No… It’s actually quite the opposite… I hang out with my friends a lot!”

But he still turned and ordered the food and drinks anyway, with the hope that it would be easy to like the food. He is always honest with himself that he is bad at taking care of fillies.

“Hey, I have the… wait where are you?”

She disappeared from his view, right after he received the food and drinks. He feels like she just disappeared into the crowd to never be seen again. When his intention to find the filly started to take shape, some sparkle appeared right in front of his face, which left him speechless.

“What the…”

“Hey Brad!” suddenly, Yamina and Blue Thunder shouted from behind him, making him drop all the things on his hand.

“Guys?”

“We should go back to the ship now! It is almost 6 pm!” Blue Thunder said. “Didn’t it’s time for dinner?”

Flash looked to the sky and was shocked to find out that it was already set. Without any words, he quickly picks up all the rewards and follows them back to the base, fearing that he will get punished if he is not there on time.

“Sorry, Warmth Sunshine…” he mumbled.

…

“Where on Equus are you the whole evening? And what do these ‘rewards’ mean?” Haystack said grumpily as he came to his cabin “I thought you were at the MS hangar with our mechanics!”

After the dinner and nearly 5 hours working with the mechanics to fix the Strike Zeta, Haystack punishes every creature under his command that has gone to “Spirit of Eris Eyes”. festival without his allowance, Flash came to bed with the Lieutenant’s assistance. His soldiers were all very tired after a long time fixing and checking the suits.

“Well… Sorry Sir…” Flash scratched his head “Seashell Blue told me to leave him with the suit; I can go and enjoy the festival!”

“Argh… did you know that Seashell Blue is also a playful hippogriff? He has like… five times disobeying orders to hang outside with the ‘girls’. I have to force him to work for ya this evening with a threat that he will clean every single bathroom in this ship if he doesn't follow my order. That’s how easy the task is. And you…”

Haystack was frozen for a moment before making a sigh. He then said to Flash with a calmer voice.

“You know I have to hold my hatred towards you since you are a state level criminal, right? The directors know who you are, yet they think you are too valuable to dump you away and allow you to use that fake ‘Brandon Cultrich’ identity! Why? To protect you from being eaten alive. Yet you still abandoned your duty and did… that!”

Flash stood in the middle of the room, also frozen for a couple of seconds, as he didn't know what to react. The couple stared at each other for a few more seconds before Haystack broke the silence.

“Okay… that’s enough. Make sure you sleep well tonight!” the Lieutenant said, then he looked at the rewards bag “About those trashy rewards, you can keep it! Keep in mind that your duty with us hasn’t finished yet, so make sure to keep your disciple, is that clear?”

“Yes Sir!”

“Good!”

However, when he nearly closed the door, Haystack suddenly turned back to Flash and asked.

“Hey kid, about that filly ‘Warmth Sunshine’...”

During the dinner, Flash told his fellow MS pilot about what he had experienced in the festival, as well as the light cerise unicorn filly. Haystack happened to sit right next to them, allowing him to hear the entirety of the story: how he got the rewards, how he met Warmth Sunshine and how she disappeared all of the sudden. One detail that caught Haystack the most attention is the sparkle that appeared when he was nearly going to find her.

“Some of your friends told me they saw you talking to the air when you were standing at that food stall…”

“Pardon me… Sir…”

“You are talking to the air like you are having a filly right next to you. How do your comrades know? They saw you doing that right before their eyes! And also, I have to keep one of the rewards from you for further investigation."

"What is that? And why?"

"There is a Griffonstone cult that worshiped a dangerous ancient witch. There are rumors that they might have disguised themselves as normal 'ambassadors' to lure you getting their artifacts in order to bring her back. I don't know what it means, that's why I want to keep your red scarf until everything is clear. If this is true, you might get into some trouble... And you are already under investigation.

Flash was genuinely shocked. But unable to say something else, he just replied:

"Yes... Sir..."

"Okay. And you should also prepare yourself for the transfering to the parrot's ship!" he said as slowly walked out of the cabin "We'll go after lunch and after some final checking of our suits! Anyway, have a good night... And don't break the law again!"

The door slammed and when the hoof step started to get further, Flash sat down in confusion.

“Wait… I really saw her…” he thought, holding his hand on to his head “But… she also looked strangely familiar. And who is that witch? Can she be Grisela? Is this really mean they are evil witches?”

There are tons of questions popping up in his head. Flash decided to analyze them himself as he connected the events that he had gone through.

He indeed have heard some little chattering between the creatures when he get around the festival. The rumor basically sounds like this: they said there is a Griffostonian's cult that is specially working to revive a witch that is draining the griffons' trust in each other. With that power, she can drain the whole Griffonstone's color and make creatures stay away from it. The cult that they are telling each other wants to revive her because she protects Griffonstone "from being swallowed by the ponies". He heard it from a couple of griffons themself while waiting to get into the competition at that Hayburger restaurant. He even heard the witch's name sounds like Grisela's , but it could just be him.

This also explained why the creatures looked at the tent with fear and hatred, and why the griffons pushed him off so quickly.

"Maybe... maybe it's just a rumor... Or it is? Either way, I'm already being investigated!"

He let out a slight sigh, wondering why his life is so bumpy.

"Maybe... It's just all my fault..."

After a few minutes thinking, his focus on the analysis started to fade away when the tiredness came. He looked at the clock on his cabin wall, it was already past 1 pm. The blue haired soldier decided to just wear the same outfit he had for the whole day and let himself down on the bed.
> Chapter 18
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

One thing that should be noticed is that he has seen the same nightmares, the one where the creatures chanting “Free us now” with that scary lifeless face, over and over again. In addition to that, the frequency started to intensify, especially after the battle of Manehattan. They have visited him almost every single night. The only thing that stopped him from seeing those dreams again are night shifts, which mostly lasted from 9 pm of the night to 7 am the next morning.

He has experienced that phenomenon for more than a month.

Along with the somewhat low morale of the whole ship due to continuous failures in battles, the events he has experienced have nearly knocked his mental health down.

However, the trouble that was caused by the nightmares doesn’t end there: they have caused lack of sleep to the point that he was sometimes known as “Sleepy Brad”, as he can sleep anywhere and anytime during his day shift and even during meetings. This also led to some punishment he got from Haystack. Haystack, although he believes what Zecora has said about “The Haunting Curse”, doesn't believe Flash got it.

“It was too ancient for any creatures to know how to use it!” He said why Flash expressed his condition and his suspicion that he might have gotten the curse. “And in case some creature did that, either the Council of Friendship or the Heroes of Friendship have stopped that evil for a long time.”

Zecora is also too busy. She frequently goes from parts to parts of the ships to help creatures cure their injury that was caused by battles. The ship sustained heavy damages, to the point that about 25 creatures have lost their lives and about 152 injured. Flash even has to help her in some shifts along with his ship mates. Sometimes he tells the curse to her, but everything Zecora advises is “keep your morale up” and “be happy”. None of his ship mates, even Yamina, heard his concern about the curse anymore. They mostly believe he just has some mental problem, and since they don’t have much knowledge on neurology, they advise him just like what Zecora has told.

He can’t blame anything, not even the creatures that haunt him. He thought the curse is the punishment for what he has done in the past, and for his greed.

He was severely depressed, although he can talk a lot. He doesn't want to talk about the curse anymore.

But sometimes he thinking of suicide, thinking of how to get out of the depressing situation he is in. He looked around and seeing how depressed and desperate the fight against Black Wine is: they are outlawed by him, which will make them arrested and charged for treason once they entered Equestrian airspace, some kingdoms have already closed their door to them, and he don’t know when Orthinia will banish to nowhere. Almost every creature was exhausted, and while they had some resupply as well as some crew members breaked out of the ship to go to the festival, the docking at Parrot Peaks was merely a relief, at least to him. He even has to go to another ship after leaving Parrot Peaks, which would force him to live in worse conditions…

Then, sometimes the strongest creature’s mind can be broken, and Flash is not an exception.

Sometimes, the creatures at the ship’s convenience store noticed the blue haired human, that they knew was one of the MS pilots of the ship, came to their place to buy some razor blades. He always said he wanted to remove some of his facial hair, and quickly get away after the buying was done.

But Flash Sentry never grows a beard on his face! He have attempt suicide for a couple of times, with using the razor blades to cut his artery vein on his left hand’s wrist. However, every single time, something stopped him from doing that. He didn’t know why: maybe that’s the creature trying to prolong their toture or it's just he is a little bit trembling, knowing that he might never see the sun again if no creature sees him bleeding. But there is one thing in common: the razor blades fall off his hand every time it touches his skin.

But that night, the creatures decided to cheer him up a little bit.

…

“Uhm… Flash!” Yolinda said gently from outside of the door “Are you still awake?”

After hearing the voice, he knows that they wanted to put some disturbance to his sleep again. He mumbled grumpily.

“Get away, evil witches… Get away, evil witches…” Flash held his head tight and mumbled. He knows that he is already inside their nightmare, but he still does that. It makes the nightmare a little bit more bearable.

“Evil witches? What are you saying?” Luster Dawn answered “And why have you held your head right in the middle of the grass field?”

Confusing, Flash decided to look out of where he was.

It was him in his pony form again, lying on the soft grass of a picnic field just outside Ponyville.  Not far away is the Sweet Apple Acres, and, a little bit further, the Castle of Friendship and the School of Friendship. They are the two large purple structures that were built with magic and friendship, located at one of the most attractive spots of the town of Ponyville. The Sweet Apple Acres is, as the name suggests, an apple farm with a large red warehouse, a house where the Apple family, the owner of the barn, lives, and a fairly large number of apple trees. This is the most famous town in Equestria, and he once heard Yamina wanted to visit it after the war ended. Towering near him is a large single tree that blocked the setting sun, and then, the creatures that have cast the spell on him.

“What the… Where… Where is this?” Flash sat up slowly while looking all around him, finding out he is sitting with the group in a circle. “What are you doing?”

But none of them seems like they are paying attention to the yellow pegasi. They are sitting in a circle, happily checking the bag that Flash has used to carry the rewards. Every time an item was pulled out, they cheered with each other in a way so adorable that even Flash had to remind himself that “they are evil witches”.

“Oh. My. CELESTIA!” Spring Garden said happily with her melodic voice when he pulled out the ballet dress “This is a very beautifully decorated dress: light green, plants-like décor on the sides as well as on the bodice. And the dress tie has a large bow behind it… This dress is so beautiful!”

“You're gonna be so gorgeous once you wear it, SG!” Butter Burger said with a dreamy voice, causing the whole group to laugh a little bit and even make Flash chuckled. However, this also brings him some confusion.

“Wait… I thought he said it is filly size!” Flash mumbled. He was still lying still on the grass as he looked at them.

“Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh! I always wanted this book!” Butter Burger hugged the book, cheering as he suddenly standed up, jumping around with the book in his hand. “100 Best ways for the easiest Equestrian dish was said to be the best recipe book for beginners. There is some food in this that I still have no idea how to make, so this is the one I really need!”

Yamina was so happy that when she take her hair out her eyes, their pupil widened and sparkling with joy:

“I don’t think this bracelet is so popular in fairs… It… It was pretty hard to find them back in Yakyakistan!” she said with a soft, excited voice “Thank you for this, Luster!”

With her front left hooves put on to her chest, eyes closed, Luster said with pride.

“No problem!”

Then, realizing he had let his guard down, the yellow Pegasus started to pay attention to every one of their movements as if they were waiting to do something bad to him. After a few seconds of preparing himself to run, he asked:

“What. Are. You. Doing. Here?” Flash growled.

“Huh? Oh, there you are, Prince Charming?” Luster said calmly. “Thanks for your help?”

“What?”

“Well… Don’t you remember Warmth Sunshine?” she asked with her hooves pointed to her again “The light cerise filly that helped you wins all of these rewards?”

“Are you harming her or not?” he said, still preparing for hypothetical nightmares that he assumed would come.

“Nonsense, we never do that?” Spring Garden answered “It was her, Luster!”

“What?” Flash was stunted again “Can it be…”

“Yep, it’s me!” Luster said with a proud attitude “Sorry to say that she is somewhat an illusion. But hey, at least you have a friend with you. Have to admit the time we spent with each other is some of the best, though!”

“No… you make me look like a fool. Every creature looked at me like I have a mental problem!” Flash answered in an angry mood.

“You are just… over reacting, Flash!” Grisela said “We’re not that dangerous… Oh, and how about my scarf?”

Her question made his anger even worse. Flash answer with a voice like he is barked:

“What, you still think you are innocent now, Ms Grisela!” he pointed his right hooves right to her “If I don’t decide to visit that tent first and then Luster here don’t lure me to go there back, I won't be in such trouble! Now answer me, Grisela: are you an evil witch?”

The black griffon barked back with tears in her eyes: “No way I’m a witch!”

“Flash, calm down!” Luster came to him and said “You make her cry…”

Grisela sitting right next to her with her claw holding the tears. Butter Burger and

“Cry what? Not just her, but all of you have pulled me into all of this mess…” then, he stopped in midfield, as if he had realized something. He continued:

“Or… this is really a punishment to me…” He started to say slower and calmer as he sit back down on the grass, his face gone sadder “You have seen all of my sins, from stealing Princess Twilight’s crown to failing your personality test… I… I…”

Struck with realization, all of the creatures looked at him with their eyes widened. However, Luster replied:

“Actually… I have set up that test so no one could pass it…” she said with a guilty manner, as she rubbed her front hooves “I’m… I’m sorry…”

“What… So you wanted me to fail?”

She nodded her head slightly.

“But… why?” he asked in sadness and a little anger “Why do you have to do this to me?”

“Be… Because we thought if it’s not you, no one else will try to save us?” Luster said.

“We’re sorry for pushing you like this, Flash…” Spring Garden followed “…we thought that the probability that any creature can find us is too low, so we have to set that curse up. We are deeply sorry about this…”

It takes him a few seconds to calm down. When his emotion have been settled, he looked at the group and asked:

“Are you trapped in that… Alicorn Gundam thing or what?”

“Oh… Yes… Yes we are!” Luster replied with a tone that, according to his speculation, she has felt a little bit better “We can’t get out of that thing and are trapped in there. It literally suffocates us, so I have to make that curse to make that thing consume us and find someone to free us out!”

Then ,all of the sudden, the dreams come back. He has seen how they ran away from Black Wine, and how they got trapped inside the Alicorn Gundam.

“Is… Is it real that… there is no way to lift this curse?” Flash asked after a few seconds of silence “… that the only way is to either free you guys… or die?”

The group looked at each other in concern. Then, realizing that’s the right answer, she slightly nodded:

“Yes… I’m aware that you are right…” she said in sadness “But… how do you know?”

“Zecora…”

“Zecora! Isn’t she the zebra that cured disease with potions back in the time when she was still at the Everfree Forest?” asked Spring Garden.

“Ye… Yes… But… Why do you ask?”

“Well… I’m a potion maker in training!” she pointed her hoof to her “I am determining the right kind of plants to make potions as a medicine. That’s why my name is Spring Garden…”

“Right…” Flash mumbled.

“Anyway, I want to make it clear that we have no intention to punish you…”

“Then why do you choose me?” Flash asked in anger again “A national criminal! If a creature knows who I am, they’ll straight up kill me!”

“It’s… because of destiny!” Luster answered “It’s your destiny for all of us to become friends, right guys?”

The whole team nodded.

“But… How about my scarf?” Grisela asked.

“Well… a pony called Haystack has taken it from me. He said I’m under investigation for helping a cult that worshiped an evil Griffonstonian’s evil witches. Do you know who she is?”

“Yes yes we know her! She is Gremlina!” Butter Burger said excitedly “Have to say… she is the ugliest griffon I’ve ever met!”

“Well… what happened?” Flash questioned “What did she do?”

“She is basically draining the griffons' trust in each other, as well as the power of color.” Yamina replied “Without the color and trust, there’s no more friendship, and the Griffonstone will become a lifeless place. In other words, she wanted to drain the life of Griffonstone!”

“Wait, so it was way worse than the rumor? I thought she only drained the trust and colors, in order to make creatures stay away from Griffonstone!”

“Yes… that is what she wants” Yamina said “We are the one who banished her!”

“What? You really…”

“Yeah! One time she attempted to do just that!” Grisela said with her right claw pushed into the air, flying around the group with some happiness and pride on her face “We have set up a fight, and with our Power of Friendship, we have banish her to Tartarus, restoring the trust, friendship and life back to Griffonstone!”

“No way…”

“Yeah… it is!” the black griffon landed as she was polishing her feathers “We have defeated evil creatures before… And now… would you take it back for me?”

“Depends on me!” Flash standing up with his face slightly pouting “I have to make sure you are not some kind of evil witches, or sorcerer before deciding to take that scarf back!”

However, when he nearly wanted to leave, Yamina suddenly said:

“Honestly… you're kinda cute with that pout face, Flash…” Yamina said “Aww!”

Despite his attitude having shown his distrust and even hatred to them, Yamina somehow still manages to melt his hard with that line. As he slightly blushing, he asked:

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… you are one of the cutest Pegasus around… Is that okay?” the brown yak with her hair riding in 2 golden hair ties, said “That’s one of the reasons why we should call you Prince Charming!”

Suddenly being reminded with the first time he have ever heard that phrase from one of the creatures, he continue his questioning:

“You are the first one to say that, Butter Burger…”

“You can call me BB, for short!” the yellow earth pony said rapidly, to the point that he had a feeling that he was sticking words together.

“Okay, BB… Anyway, why do you call me ‘Prince Charming’?”

“I came up with that!” Spring Garden said, pointing her hooves to herself “Because you are the only one right now that could save us out, but the main reason is to cheer you up!”

“Uhm… Okay…”

…

The next morning, he woke up in a strangely happy mood. He doesn’t feel sad or blue anymore. However, as the ship still has a somewhat depressing mood, Flash has to adjust his action to not express his mood too much. Fortunately, he still managed to control his expression very well, as he had taught during his time serving as a royal guard. 

Suddenly, the idea of suiciding has gone away, at least for that moment.

“Silly Flash… Now you let your emotions be controlled by those creatures…” he silently scolded himself as he walked.

But he knows deep down that he is really happy, since he hasn't received much positive attitude towards him after he was judged as a national criminal.

After breakfast, Flash came to see his MS after finishing fixing and maintenance by him and the mechanics of the ship. Greeting him right in front of the white MS is Seashell Blue, waving at him to signal the blue haired humanoid in the middle of the hangar.

“Yo Brad! Look at your work, bud!” he said, pointing his claws to the suit “Look just like it just rolling off the factory, eh? Thanks Lady RD and the Orthinians for the resupply. These MS will help us avenge our comrades, and for Blue Rock Mine, right?”

“Yeah… And how about other suits?”

“They look just as new, like your’s!” he said as he looked around the hangar. He then jerks up his beak to Yamina’s suit “They also finish fixing your comrades MS as well. Have to say Blue Thunder is also extremely lucky when there are spare parts for him also. It is currently at the starboard side hangar.”

The duo was standing at the port side hangar and looked around their place. The Canterlot is capable of carrying either 8 mobile suits or 15 fighters, something which even the military brass in some Earth Federation’s and Zeon’s fleet have to dream about, especially since they are the largest factions from the world that bring mobile suits to Equus. This explained why the both hangars’ MS cages are mostly left empty: only 5 of them are in use. S.M.I.L.E have proposed a plan to increase the carry capacity to 10 mobile suites, which would make the Canterlot the most capable MS carrier in the whole Equus.

 As Seashell have said, the Strike Zeta Gundam, Yamina’s Jegan Sniper Pack and Haystack’s Jesta Commander were being stored at the port side hangar. Blue Thunder’s and Water Vapor’s Jegan D Type are both stored at the starboard side hangar. All of them have enough weapons and fuel to fight for another 2 months, which have already been transferred to their new airships.

“By the way, where are you going to go next?” the blue hippogriff asked “Let me guess… the Parrot’s Strength?”

“Yeah… Captain Celaeno herself commanded that airship!” Flash sighed “She is a highly capable Captain…”

Flash let himself remember all of the events he has come through since he set his foot on the Canterlot.

“How long has it been, nearly 2 months, I guess…”

“Yep, nearly 2 months since you were officially serving for S.M.I.L.E , and about 3 months if you count the time when you are still sleeping !” the blue hippogriff said.

“Hey!”

Suddenly, from behind their back, Lieutenant Haystack shouted.

“Aren't you supposed to present at the mission room now, Brad?” he asked grumpily, “you’re already late!”

Before going to bed, the pilots are notified by Haystack that they have to go to the mission room for some final notice before officially continuing Operation Rainbow Chaser on the airships. It was a crucial meeting because they will know what they will do next for the operation to succeed.

“So… when will you take back the scarf?” Grisela's voice echoed in his head as he trotted toward the mission room.
> Chapter 19
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mobile Suit, an invention that changed warfare forever.

During a conflict that is called “One Year War”, the people at Zeon have built a type of gigantic humanoid weapon. Later, it was proven to be extraordinarily effective against big guns warships, and was used extensively during the war. It’s opponent, the Earth Federation, has built their own mobile suits to fight against their opponent. Their mobile suits have played a vital role in their victory in the One Year War. Since then, countless models have been produced and were used by a large number of factions, and organizations on the Earthsphere, and being used in many conflicts, as well as in civilian use in some specific jobs.

Black Wine was standing in front of one of them. In fact, he is the pilot of it. The majority of mobile suits can only be piloted by one, and his Psycho Gundam MkII is no exception.

Looked slightly to the left is the Alicorn Gundam standing still right next. All of it’s psycho frames have been hidden perfectly inside it’s mostly white and black armor. It’s Armed Armor DE was separated and stored in an additional compartment of the ship.

One thing that caught his attention when an Anaheim mechanic said about the suit is about its infamous ‘wings’ that was called Armed Armor DE. Its two shield-like wings are actually shields with additional armor and a large cannon which can be used as wireless INCOME in combat. Their stabilizer wires that were built like some sort of very awesome dragon’s tails were also separated from the two shields, being curled and put in a corner of the hangar. They are what make the name “Alicorn Gundam” apart from the horned attena when it was in Unicorn mode, which is when the psycho frame was not exposed. But carrying the Alicorn and all of it’s gear have used too much space that needed for only one mobile suit, to the point that the hangar has to be extended and make the launch pad practically unusable. Black Wine knows that is a problem that the crew of the Cloudsdale have to face, and he is negotiating with Anaheim as well as the Earth Federation to lend or to build to the Equestrian army a larger ship. After just a few weeks, Anaheim agreed to build them a Ra Cailum class battleship, which is an enlarged Clop class with more guns and more space. He knew it was a huge success for the Equestrian army, because combining with the Cloudsdale  they could easily crush any navy in Equus, let alone S.M.I.L.E with just one Pegasus class ship.

However, there are still some troubles. Despite recent victory against the S.M.I.L.E at Blue Rock Mine, his cabinet has stumbled on some diplomatic trouble. Due to the defeat, the Canterlot have fled to the kingdom of Orthinia, a kingdom which his government already has tension with ever since his demand to take the Parrot Nest base was declined by them. At that moment, he wants them to give him the Canterlot as his cabinet wants to take the ship and her crew into custody. Just as the last time, they declined the demand.

Back at home, his government is also having a hard time.

Before his own Operation Rainbow Chaser was started, his government have made several political mistake: rewrite the constitution to reduce the power of the Council of Friendship to the point that they are just state figurehead, meaning they can’t make any political decision, and closing the Schools of Friendship and the Castle of Friendship (which are two of the most powerful symbols of Equestrian Friendship power, however his government accusing them for helping severely ruining the Equestrian ponies culture).  His action had led to some heavy criticism from the citizens, as well as some other kingdoms. Although he manages to settle disputes and make sure the diplomatic relationship between Equestria and other kingdoms don’t have too much tension between each other, other kingdoms still accuse him of destroying the harmony that the Council of Friendship have created, and demanding him to step down. Not just that, more creatures and even more ponies are also turned against him, heavily criticizing him as a tyranny politician.

“He and The Ponykind are just hungry for power. Their fabrication that the pony’s culture is being ruining is what is actually ruining Equestria. That dark blue unicorn have to be bring down!” a pony said in an interview he read in a newspaper.

“He is just being heavily brainwashed!” His assistant told him “The pony’s culture is really being heavily ruined, and The Pony Kind is the only way to save our heritage!”

“Yeah… I don’t care about individuals like this anymore…” he replied at the unicorn that showed the newspaper to him “What I care is how can we get more members to The Ponykind, and our time has never been better than this moment. Maybe the ponies will finally realize our vision…”

But still, The Ponykind and their ideology are still highly supported by a large portion of the pony population. Some ponies said the other creatures are taking lands that traditionally belong to the ponies, some said the other creatures have both physical and mind advantages which means they can steal jobs from the ponies,… These kind of news did please him a lot, as he once said to his assistant:

“Didn’t you feel good when the ponies realized that our party is helping save Equestria?”

…

The reason why The Ponykind was easily elected to be the ruling party could shock any creature: before Black Wine became the Chancellor, their anti-harmonic ideology was mostly unknown to the outsider.

Since Princess Twilight Sparkle was officially being chosen as the new ruler of Equestria, a pony named Shadow Might have come up with a plan: a political party with a dedication that they wanted to purify Equestria with the mind that ponies are superior than other creatures and fear that ponies might one day become minority in their own kingdom. However, he has to hide that dedication in order to get one of their members to be chosen by Princess Twilight as the kingdom’s Chancellor.

Black Wine is an exceptionally talented pony for the party. At the age of 12, his family was forced to hand their wine barn to a group of creatures. He has since developed some hatred for other non-ponies citizens around him. Luckily, it was the time when seeing some creatures other than ponies are still relatively rare, so avoiding them is not too hard for the young unicorn. When he was studying at School for Gifted Unicorns, he heard the story about The Ponykind, when one of his friends told him about them during lunch time. He asked him if he wanted to join that party, and he agreed.

There, he climbed the ranks rapidly, as he understood Equestria really well. He studied all kinds of stuff that related to his party's desire: from creatures’ culture to the history of Equestria. At the age of only 30, he was elected to be the youngest The Ponykind’s president, and was elected to also be the youngest Chancellor in Equestria’s history. The reason why his party became so popular is because he has promised many policies that will help all of the citizens a better life, with better education, life insurance and free healthcare,…  As his quality in the Council’s eye rising, Princess Twilight officially chose Black Wine to be the Chancellor of Equestria in March 24th , Harmony Year 0021, after an election showing that 45% of the citizens voted for them over 30 other parties. They are the most voted party in the

That’s really the perfect time for The Ponykind to rise, and that’s when their true nature was more largely known. Despite some warnings that “The Ponykind will cause disharmony once their President becomes the kingdom’s Chancellor”, almost every creature still votes for them as the party has promised some of the best policies the kingdoms have ever seen. The party has caused severe oppression towards the non-ponies, blocking them from having basic citizens' needs. Closing down the School of Friendship and the Castle of Friendship (which he has successfully convinced Headmare Starlight Glimmer and her family to leave it) is one part of his plan.

But it is not just that. As his party thought ponies are superior, The Ponykind wanted to protect ponies' interest overseas by using any means to force other non-pony kingdoms to obey their needs. However, even if his original desire to purify the kingdom of Equestria,  joining the party really made him become more racist than ever.

Sometimes, it feels like greed also blinded him.

Along with their previous supporters, the Council of Friendship were also terrified. Princess Twilight Sparkle, although having no choice but to obey the law, regretted her decision that she had signed the approval paper. She and the Council have come up with a plan to remove The Ponykind, along with Black Wine from power. That is the reason why he and The Ponykind have rewritten the constitution in order to make them only state figureheads. Surprisingly, a lot of other political parties also agree to rewrite the constitution. A lot of ponies have also been blinded by propaganda and greed, so The Ponykind, as said above, is still a major political force in Equestria.

The existence of The Ponykind has created turmoil within Equestria. There are tons of protests where creatures who are against disharmony fight with ponies who believe they are being oppressed by the creatures. Then, there’s another kingdom that is trying to protect their creatures from the tyranny of Black Wine and his party, thus creating the tensions in the first place. It rapidly escalated into armed conflict, which the battle of the Blue Rock Mine is a part of.

Then, the mobile suit came. Around the same time when Princess Twilight was just become the new ruler, a shuttle from a strange world have come to Equestria. It turns out there is a mysterious portal that have transport them to this world. Shadow Might himself have come to greet them, and quickly took notice to the mobile suit. After some expeditions, some Anaheim executives were also brought to Equestria, and the AE – Equestrian Army relationship was born. It was also him that connected Martha Vist Carbine to sell assets to the Equestrian Army. Later on, Black Wine took his work. Although knowing that Anaheim Electronics have also do secret business with kingdoms that his cabinet have tension with, he still turn a blind eye to it since his army have the largest number Earthsphere assets of all.

…

“Chancellor Black Wine, glad to see you here, Sir!” Lieutenant Nikita came to greet him with some cockiness in his voice. He knows that a lot of humans also looked down on him just like how he looked down on the creatures, but AE has mostly chosen some of the best mannered humans to make sure all of them treat their fellow pony friends like they are human. That’s why he is still comfortable having business with the humans.

“Lieutenant Govarich, glad to see you here too! What are you doing here?” the Chancellor calmly replied.

“Well… I was just checking the suits and suddenly stumbled on to you, Sir!” the blonde pilot quickly answered “Don’t you supposed to…”

“Nikita, stop!”

From behind, Joseph quickly pulled him to behind his back and quickly apologized.

“Sorry Chancellor, I think he has to learn how to properly talk with ponies… We are just here for about 6 months and we still don’t know much about ponies' culture. Sorry Sir.”

“Don’t worry! Expose him to the Equestrian environment more and he will quickly respect the ponies.” The Chancellor answered.

“Thank you… Sir!” Joseph said “Do you want to have some drinks now?”

It was 7 p.m in the morning at that moment. Black Wine just having breakfast with some of his assistants. Having some sweet drinks right after breakfast was obviously not his style of enjoying a casual morning, so he kindly declined.

“I understand that, Chancellor…” the Lieutenant said.

“Oh… shouldn’t we come to the mission room now? I want to say something to all of you!” he said.

…

The mission room was crowded with ponies chattering with each other. They are in a relatively good mood after two consecutive major victories against S.M.I.L.E. He could see some of them smiling with joy and hope that they could safely go back to their family, after the Alicorn was successfully captured. However, for the Chancellor himself, Blue Rock Mine and the Alicorn are just beginning.

He always loves to do some dangerous stuff himself, and being portrayed as a brave politician who can do almost anything brings him a lot of respect back at Canterlot. Some of his followers at The Ponykind even compare him to Princess Celestia, Princess Luna or the Council of Friendship, saying that his bravery “will save Equestria in many years to come”. Another reason is he doesn't fully trust the Royal Guards, or even the Wonderbolts, at all. They are notorious for being useless at times of emergency. They even once let the civilian, the one they are supposed to protect, fight against the villains. Capturing the Alicorn and fighting S.M.I.L.E  with his own hoof is the way he sees he could really earn respect amongst ponies. However, he’s not come to the mission room to talk about how brave he is or how good as a pilot he is…

The ponies and AE’s human in the mission all stood up once the dark blue unicorn stepped into the room. They clapped as he got to the podium.

“Ladies and gentlecolts, and also to my good human friends, thank you for all of your dedication and support during the time we are on Cloudsdale together…” The Chancellor started “The last two months since the Alicorn was first reported, our military, as well as our friends at AE, have worked hard enough to catch it back and bring peace to the Equestria. Not only that, you guys also help us to bring back the Blue Rock Mine to our rightful owner. I can’t thank you enough for your contribution!”

The whole room clapped their hands and hoofs as he stopped for a while.

“So, I happily declare that our own Operation Rainbow Catcher has officially ended! You guys can come home with your family and have a nice dinner with them!”

…

A few days later, the vessel landed at Canterlot Naval Base, marking the end of 265’s Operation Rainbow Catcher.

The Ponykind’s supporters are crowded on the street of Equestria’s capital city, throwing confetti and cheering loudly as the crew of the Cloudsdale pass by as a parade. They not only cheered as they finally caught the dangerous mobile suit, but also cheered as they showed the power of the ponies to the world.

“Those filthy Abyssinians will never look down at us again! Long live Equestria! Long live Black Wine!” a pony shouted in the middle of the crowd.

“Long live Equestria! Long live Black Wine!”, other ponies chanted back.

In contrast to the festivities on the street of Canterlot, the reaction to the success of the operation was largely negative. The creatures and some ponies, as they called themselves Friendship Idealist, heavily criticize the operation. While they do complain that the 265 have successfully captured the Alicorn Gundam, taking the Blue Rock Mine by force is “a sign of evilness and greediness” to them. Some pony Friendship Idealists even said that they are “ashamed to see a fellow pony become so racist”. One other thing is that most non-ponies have started moving out of Canterlot since The Ponykind announced that they are finishing rewriting the constitution, so they are barely seen in the capital city at the moment of the victory parade.

Despite all of that, he still let the celebration continue. Because his personal war with the Council of Friendship and S.M.I.L.E hasn’t ended yet.

…

It was a calm night after the party. The moon is shining and the wind comfortably blows across his fur.

The dark blue unicorn is enjoying his win alone on the balcony, looking down to the downtown of Canterlot. The festivities have finished, though he still sees some of his fellow soldiers still drunk, wandering around the street.

“Poor our soldier. They haven’t been praised this much!” he mumbled. After the Operation, he could proudly say that he had fixed the military. And it would be icing on the cake if he finally catches the Canterlot, brings her back to his fleet and charges her crew for treason.

He decided to go around Equus again to catch that ship, whatever the cost.

“I have good communication, good government officials, staff, and all of you! I can both run our kingdom while bringing those filthy creatures to justice!” he replied when one of his subordinates was concerned that he could not do both tasks by himself.

Then, he heard some knocking at his office room’s door.

“Come in!” the Chancellor said while walking right to his guest desk. The door opened and revealed… Princess Twilight Sparkle herself.

The Chancellor was pretty surprised, as she slowly walked into his office and looked around. Equestrian Princesses have rarely come to one of their Chancellor offices all by themselves in the middle of the night, at least to Black Wine’s knowledge.But if they did, it is often something very serious that they are urged to discuss with the Chancellor immediately.

 Escorting her is a team of 5 Royal Guards, leading the unit’s Captain, Gallus. They stand outside of the room as the Princess comes inside and talks to the Chancellor.

“Greetings, Chancellor” she started “So… you just have some glorious time in your life right?”

It took a few seconds for the Chancellor to regain calm and reply back.

“Yes… Your Majesty. We just have some party to celebrate our victory against those filthy creatures. The S.M.I.L.E are still out there…”

“Your actions have caused nothing but fear and hatred for the other kingdoms!” she said with some anger in her voice “Did you know that right after your ‘victory’ at the Blue Rock Mine, kingdoms have sent their ambassadors to me to complain about your action?”

“Yes, but why didn't they just come to my Minister of Foreign Affair to complain? You should not do it all by yourself. They are…”

“Do you want to make those racial slurs right in front of me, Chancellor?” the Princess replied “They are our friends, Black Wine, not ‘filthy creatures’ like you and your racist party often like to call them!”

She emphasizes on the word ‘friends’, as if she is reminding Black Wine that she is the Princess of Friendship.

“Yes… but you have to know that the S.M.I.L.E wanted to ally with other kingdoms in order to enslave our pony kind. We are clearly…”

“From ‘destroying our ponies culture’ to ‘enslaving ponies’? Are you lost your mind, Chancellor?” Twilight scolded him calmly “I have to say that your party was driven by nothing but hatred and fear. Those illusions will not help you keep this chair for long! Now, listen: all I want is for you to issue a sincere apology to those you have harmed, return the Blue Rock Mine to the Abyssinian and make sure the Canterlot comes back safely without any charges. Do you understand?”

“Princess, but that Blue Rock Mine really belongs to us!”

“The one who owns it is an illegal corporation, not to mention they also illegally stole it from the Abyssinians!” Twilight replied “Now, do what I want or I will take your seat back immediately, do you understand?”

“Yes… Yes, your Majesty!”

…

The door closed with some echo of the angry temper Princess Twilight left behind. Also with anger, the Chancellor mumbled as he went back to his desk.

“That can’t be true! I have stripped all of her political power!”

Then, he looked out of the window to see the full moon, still shining bright as it should be. He randomly calls back to that one night that also has the exact same full moon at, when his family was forcefully dragged out of their barn. He remembers when his father, a middle aged stallion with some scar on his right front hoof due to machinery failure, was forced to sign on the paper that will make the transfer of the barn become legal. It’s new owner is two families: a bull family and, strangely, a hippogriff family. Black Wine’s family then have to move to Canterlot all over again, and that was the hardest time of his life. If he’s not become a School of Gifted Unicorn’s student, he would still stay at his family’s small restaurant, which barely has any customers.

Suddenly, his mind turned back to an insane idea that he had in mind a few months ago.

In his desk drawer, there is some poisonous liquid that he has kept from his time working in the military. It was a sample of some kind of chemical weapons that The Ponykind had developed from a weapon with the same function, which was developed from the army that was led by a creature named Storm King. It was a drink that even with a small amount, they can make a creature turned to stone. Unlike the previous version where it had to be stored in small glass marbles and exploded to get it effective, it can easily be poured into food and drinks. Poisoning through the mouth is more secretive and effective since most incidents with this almost left no trace of the poisoner.

As soon as he opened the drawer and saw the poison, he knew he had to do it fast. Even if he does like what Princess Twilight has said, the Council still will remove him from the Chancellor chair anyway. He had it in mind when he first heard that the Council had a very negative view on him, as well as after reading several articles criticizing him for being racist and the general view of creatures and even ponies have on him outside of Canterlot.

He picked up the phone on his desk and called one of his cabinet’s officials. At the other end of the line, a mare picked up his phone.

“Hello, Chancellor!” she said “What can I do for you!”

It was Starry Night, the Minister of Defense. Since the action he is about to order requires a complex operation that only his Ministry of Defense can handle, calling her is the first thing to do.

“Starry Night, commencing Operation Statue of Friendship!” the dark blue unicorn mumbled through the microphone “It’s time!”

Operation Statue of Friendship is the name that was used to describe any complex operation that made important political figures inside of Equestria to be imprisoned. Invented and planned by The Ponykind, it was one of their most ambitious plans to ensure their position as a ruling party in case any of the rulers wanted to take them down. It could be any kind of imprisonment: traditional jail, being turned into a statue, or even banished to Tartarus. However, turning its objective into statue is the most common methods

“But… Sir…” she said with some hesitation “Do you really want to turn all of them into stone?”

“No, just the Council of Friendship!” he said “I know this is , perhaps, the most extreme way. But if I was removed from being a Chancellor, The Ponykind would be removed from the government!”

“But… How about Lady Rainbow Dash?”

“I’ll do the same to her once she’s back!”
> Chapter 20
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the officers meeting room, the leaders of S.M.I.L.E are chatting about the next plan for the war. The meeting was a crucial one since they are literally the brain of the organization. Leaking crucial information about the meeting is strictly forbidden. However, since you are my audience, you can hear some of the discussion from them.

“So… How is the negotiation going, RD?” Discord asked with a friendly tone “About a possible alliance with other kingdoms?”

After the rewriting of Equestria’s Constitution, fearing that Black Wine’s and The Ponykind's greed would get out of hand, several kingdoms outside of Equestria started to hold numerous diplomatic meetings. Their goal is to establish a global military alliance in case Black Wine’s government declares war on them. Knowing that this might be one of ways to save Equestria from Black Wine’s greed, Princess Twilight and the rest of the Council have requested Rainbow Dash to get on the Flash and Dash to help establish the alliance as a resistance force against Black Wine’s government. The ship was supposed to come to Zebrat for an initial meeting with the Farasi’s princes. However, her journey was cut short after the Flash and Dash was nearly shot down by some 265’s mobile suit trying to capture her under Black Wine’s order. The two suits that make that attempt are two Jegan D Types with additional soldier pods as a way to embark on the airship and bring her out. If not because the Alicorn came to the site and destroyed both suits in time, they might have shot down the airship with every creature on board, except Rainbow Dash.

She is still recovering from the attack due to the anesthetic gas, as seen by her fellow leaders in the officer’s meeting room (OMR). She coughed on some of the occasion, making those around worried for her health. Zecora was even ordered to stand out of the OMR along with some other officer to help when needed.

“Sorry Lady, but I think you should…”

“No… it’s okay. I got this!” The blue pegasi said “Online negotiating is good enough. But since I can’t come to Farasi to meet Prince Abraxax face to face, I want our ship to get to the Hall of Friendship and we can organize an international meeting there!”

“But… you are now just a state figure!” Lyra asked in concern “Shouldn’t that prevent you from doing any official diplomatic action?”

“No… this will be a secret meeting. Underneath the Hall of Friendship is a secret port where ships as big as us can be shielded. You understand that… Dis… cord?” she coughed for few times.

“Yeah… I’ll notice my crew…”

However, a unicorn pony suddenly knocked at the door, demanding to meet the blue pegasi at once. Judging from her face, the OMR guard thinks that she has some emergency things to do. They knocked on the door to signal it.

“Sorry, but we have some…”

As soon as he open the door, the unicorn rushes in without hesitation and speak out loud:

“The Council has been turned to stone!”

The whole room looked at each other in confusion for a few seconds. To broke the silence, Discord asked her again:

“Can you repeat it again, please?”

“The Council of Friendship has all been turned to stone. I think all of you should open the TV now!”

Bonbon does exactly like the unicorn has told. The news made the whole room gasp in shock when the Canterlot Daily News headline said: “The Council of Friendship has been all turned to stone.”

They opened the news just in time for the news anchor to repeat the line and added:

-All of 6 out of 7 members of the Council of Friendship have been frozen to stone by “some sort of magical poison”, a Royal Guard officer at Lady Pinkie Pie’s house said. Lady Pinkie Pie has been said to be turned to stone from the inside out in just about 5 seconds, as her husband Sir Cheese Sandwich said. As for the other Council’s member…”

“Im… Impossible. Who could have done this!” Discord hugged his head and kneeled down “F… Fluttershy…”

“Twilight… Rarity… guys…” Rainbow Dash, as well as every creature else in the room, sobbing as the news anchor continues to report.

“Discord… Can you do something with this?”

“Statue magic is extremely hard to break, RD…” he said while wiping his own tears “I still don’t have full knowledge about how to cure this… It is almost un-curable!”

“This just in, the Royal Guards have found suspicious objects near the sites!” The news anchor then draws all of their attention to the screen again “According to the Royal Guards, they have found some marble like object, which are made from hardened glass, near where the Councils was found. Captain Gallus said that it was nearly identical to the Statues Marbles, the weapon that was used by the Storm Army’s invasion to capture the Princesses. It was unknown who is actually behind these stone-assassinations, but it could be Storm Army again or it’s remnant…”

“I knew it! It was Black Wine and his racist party behind this!” Rainbow Dash furiously “They have planned this for years!”

“Pardon me, Miss. You mean that…”

“Yes! It even has a dedicated plan called ‘Operation Statue of Friendship”. The Ponykind basically murdering them to ensure their position as a ruling party in case any of the rulers wanted to take them down!”

“So it was you all along, Black Wine!” Discord mumbled in anger.

“Here we are creatures. He has done it!” Rainbow Dash stood up “Black Wine wanted to cause dis harmony in our kingdom. He and his party have caused countless crimes on our non-pony friends and now this. Listen, guys. We'll be going to the Hall of Friendship at once.

…

After a few hours of preparing for the new settlement on the Parrot Strength, Flash was finally led to his new cabin.

It was slightly smaller than his own back on the Canterlot, now with a bunk bed to the left of the cabin when he just opened the door. Both of the beds have their own respective retractable desk which he and Haystack can do their own pilot’s paperwork if needed.

“Hello there, roommates!” the Lieutenant greeted him as he carried his own luggage to the cabin “A small cabin I see, but a comfortable one nonetheless. So, which one do you choose?”

“Uh… I think the top one is good enough, Sir!”

“Okay, as you wish!”

He put his luggage at one of the corners of the room and got to wash his face. But before that, Haystack told him.

“Hey! When things have settled, you should come to talk to the parrots! They have waited to see you since you were in a coma... No, since we discovered you. It’s like… more than 3 months, right?”

“Yes… Yes Lieutenant…”

…

The hangar deck has, perhaps, one of the most cramped mobile suit storage facilities he has ever seen. Two mobile suits lying down one after another, trapped in their own MS cage as they face the deck’s ceiling. There are wires everywhere, hanging around as if they are trying to capture the creature that’s not paying enough attention to his path. The lighting is still somewhat decent, as the hangar is still very bright from the artificial light, something that even a middle aged parrot with some red head feathers on his head, a black shirt, dark green pants and a missing eye like Mullet could be proud of.

“Let me get this straight: you are proud of the ship just because it has better lighting?” Haystack asked with an un-amused face as he asked the parrot. “Is that it?”

“No, no, no. I haven’t even finished my talk. I mean… you can tell from the lighting that we have advanced avionics!”

“Whatever…”the Lieutenant sighed in boredom and left for his suit.

“Oh, is that you there, Brandon Cultrich?” he then waved his hand towards the blue haired human “What a pleasant surprise to see you here!”

Mullet suddenly ran straight to him as soon as he saw Flash presented at one of  the MS cages, where his Strike Zeta Gundam is lying.

After all, creatures are still mostly kind to him. Except if they know he is Flash Sentry.

“Well… My name is Mullet, a first-rate officer of the airship! Nice to meet you!” the parrot shook Flash’s hand hard, causing him to nearly tripping down. “How are you feeling now?”

“Pretty good, Mr. Mullet…” Flash replied “…though I still have to adjust myself to the new ship.”

He looked around the hangar in concern, the wires still hanging and swinging to the ships movement.

“Ah… don’t worry about that. We’ll fix those wires in no time!” Mullet answered “And have you checked the Strike Zeta Gundam?”

“Yep, just finished checking her in person! I can say that she looks as shining as if she just rolled out of the factory!”

And Flash says it with honesty and with a little surprised tone. Although the hangar deck is somewhat cramped, the professionalism of the crew makes both suits coming into the ship without any dent or scratch on their armor. Flash still tries to understand how the parrots are so skillful.

“Nice to hear you say that. All thanks to the AE engineer that used to teach us before. What a shame to see they abandoned us.”

“Sorry, but can I talk to the Captain, please?” Haystack said to the couple “I think we should have some little conversation about our next move!”

…

After a hard time navigating through the ship, the trio finally reaches the upper deck, where air was fresher than inside of the airship.

Standing at the helm is Captain Celaeno herself, supervising her crew. Haystack nearly fell in love with her once he saw the beautiful parrot: a large brown leather hat, striking golden armor, and her white fur. Everything about her make the middle ages pony blushes as soon as her eyes reaches him:

“Ahoy there!”, the parrot greeted. She took a hanging rope near her and flew down with it to the trio.

“Nice to meet both of you. My name is Celaeno, Captain of the Parrot’s Strength. And I think I already know two of you, right? So you are Lieutenant Haystack…” she pointed to the brown earth pony. Haystack quickly brought himself back to reality and nodded his head several times as fast.

“And you here is Brandon Cultrich, the one who is currently piloting the Strike Zeta Gundam?” she pointed at Flash.

“Yes, ma’am!” the blue haired guy nodded.

“Ah… I have tons of questions that I wanted to ask both of you. Especially you, Brandon!”

Her words caused Haystack to look at Flash with envy. However, he had to hide that look when she turned to him and asked “Every MS pilot is precious, especially in this trying time… Oh, and I forgot to introduce you to our crew!”

“This is Lix Spittle, she is our airship’s cooker…” she pointed towards a pink featherless parrot who's walking around the upper deck to check the food containers “…this is Mullet, one of our crew birds. As you might have heard before, he is my first rate officer of the airship.

“You can always count on me. To this point, I’ll look after both of you!” he said with his left hand putting proudly on his chest.

Next is Boyle. He is one of the airship’s crew birds and the parrot they can always count on when moving heavy cargo, besides the cranes. His missing left hands have been replaced with a golden hook, shining as if it’s a relic of a legendary time. As they are talking, Boyle is currently carrying the food container with Lix down to the storage compartment of the airships. Both of them don’t forget to greet Mullet, the Captain and the pilot duo.

“Ahoy there, Lix. Ahoy there, Boyle. When will we have the dinner?”

“I don’t know! Can both of you bear a little more?”

“It’s okay, none of us are hungry currently!” answered Celaeno.

Next are Squabble and Quarrel. These are some of the weirdest parrots they have ever known, at least to Flash and Haystack. Both have wall eyed and both can only speak in squawks.

“Don’t worry, they are pretty kind. Once you know them well you will be friends easily!” Mullet said as he looked at the twins playing figures with each other, although Captain Celaeno had ordered them to take the helm previously. The golden-armored Captain Celaeno whistles to them, causing the twins to startle and quickly regain focus on their job.

Mullet and Celaeno then continued to introduced them to several others crew members of the airships, including Pinwheel the chief engineer of the airships, whose also have a missing eye like Mullet; Skittles the chief weaponry operator, the youngest crew member of the ship since she is just 25 years old, the same ages as Flash.

It is also notable that the 20 years of hibernation means that he didn’t age in that era at all, so it doesn’t count into Flash’s age. He was only 20 when he was banished to the Earthsphere, and the number of years from the moment he wakes from hibernation up to that moment on the Parrot Strength is 5 years, so his age is 25.

Haystack has said that to him the moment he and Flash were first met in the sick bay. With that, Haystack elbowed Flash.

“Looks like you have a friend on board, finally huh?” he said jokingly.

With the introduction, they know that the ship has about 20 crew members overall. With a capacity of 4 mobile suits, Haystack the builders are a little too optimistic.

“Sorry to say that, Celaeno…” he sighed “Even though we have Orthinia to help, I’m aware that Black Wine will prevent AE from selling us more of their assets. Perhaps we can steal them…”

“Yep, I can see your concern, Lieutenant!” Celaeno replied as she scratched her beaks to think “AE is also untrustworthy. They willing to sell their weapons to anyone as long as it generate profit to them. Glad Black Wine help us get rid of them!”

“Ha! Guess he did us some favor!” Mullet chucked.

After that, they continue chatting about the stuff that is going around. During the talk, Celaeno pays pretty much attention to the blue haired guy, about how he has come to Equestria and the story of his journey across Equus to combat against Black Wine’s army.

Flash has successfully fabricated some part of his story to make sure no creature knows he is actually Flash Sentry: Brandon Cultrich is his real name, he was previously living in a city called Wellington, and was recruited by the Earth Federation to the Antarctic base to hunt the mysterious Alicorn Gundam.

“I have a harsh life back in the Antarctica Base, you could tell that it’s weather can be way colder and windier than the Frozen North,… or even the southern Great Iceberg Barrier…” he said.

“So… how were you chosen to be a Gundam pilot?” Mullet asked “It is the same as choosing pilots for the S.M.I.L.E?”

“I guess it's pretty much the same, Sir… Because the Federation found out…”

However, their conversation was cut short when a parrot ran straight at them. She gives them a piece of paper as she is breathing constantly.

“Captain, we have a problem!” she said while wiping her sweet on the forehead “Black Wine have murdered the Council of Friendship!”

“Wh… Wh… what?” Flash asked in disbelief “You say that!”

“He turned them into stone! He really wanted to kick out every creature else and invade the whole Equus!”

“That filthy unicorn won’t let anyone live in peace at this point!” Mullet gnashing his teeth “He will continue to hunt us down after this! Angie, is there more information about this?”

Angie, the parrot that have brought the news, replied:

“Yes… He said that he has commenced a new operation called: Operation Impostor Hunt!”

…

“To my fellow ponies… Our kingdom has witnessed a terrible tragedy!”

On the TV, Black Wine’s speech was being broadcasted. He seems to be sobbing, tears run down his cheek. Although he is just acting, creatures without knowing the full story will think all of his emotions are real.

“Our Council of Friendship was assassinated last night by a filthy group of creatures on the traitor ship’s Canterlot. Now, those cowardly traitors are seeking shelter in kingdoms that have tension between us, as well as them…”

“Liar…” Mullet mumbled furiously “It’s the other way around. He just wanted to stir up tension and cause war…”

Almost all crew members gathered at the mission room to watch the broadcast. The event that was generally called ‘assassination’ have caused massive shock and, as Mullet have said, causing even more tension. Some kingdoms have heavily criticized him for making the assassination up and wanted to start a war, causing disharmony. In one of the wildest scenarios, an Everfree's senator has called to lift the ban on the Canterlot and let S.M.I.L.E go into their airspace.

“Turn out the S.M.I.L.E is fighting against that racist! We must let them in!” he said. The fact that there is Lady Rainbow Dash onboard even led more senators from various kingdoms to do the same. Although there are still worries that if they actually do it in fear that it might further escalate the tension or even angered Black Wine and make him order a military invasion upon them, the creatures still support the idea:

“With that kind of greed, he will invade us eventually!” a Griffon senator said when he was interviewed “Look what has happened to Blue Rock Mine. There are plenty of illegal businesses like that in many kingdoms across Equus that were run by the Equestrian. The need to get rid of them is enough for him to launch a military operation on their own soil. So why should we hesitate?”
> Chapter 21
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

About a few days later, the crew of the Parrot Strength receive an important message: a secret military alliance between Rainbow Dash’s S.M.I.LE and 4 more kingdoms have been successfully formed. It was called the Harmony Alliance.

“What are the four other kingdoms?” Boyle asked. He rarely scared of anything besides the ship, so the Captain and Mullet were really surprised:

“Glad you asked, buddy. They are Orthinia, Griffonstone, Abyssinia and Farisia!” Mullet answered “As much as I am
aware, they are formed out of emergency. They were big kingdoms that could make Black Wine think twice before carrying out an all-out war with them, so forming an alliance will force him to think twice about that!”

“Sweet, now where should we go next?” he followed “Or we just going around in a circle waiting for the enemy to shut us down?”

“Nope, never in my wildest dream I’ll let that happen!”

Every creature saluted Celaeno once she gets her foot to the MS hangar, the place where they are having the conversation at that moment. She came and signaled them to rest.

“Remember gentlemen, our mission is to sneak into hostile territory and bring up a fight! What we are going to do is catch Black Wine off guard!”

“Yeah… but as long as…”

Mullet’s words was cutting off when Celaeno said:

“But first, we must try to take back the Alicorn Gundam at all cost! This machine is a pure uncontrollable monster that even Black Wine can’t fully control until now! The battle at Blue Rock Mine is proof of that! However, we luckily have Ensign Brandon here with us…”

At that moment, Flash was looking at the maintenance of his mobile suit along with Seashell Blue. When he heard Celaeno mentioned his name, his head immediately turned to where the conversation was. Haystack has already paused his work and come to the Captain, and he has signal him to come to the Captain.

“Keep up the good work, Seashell!” he said and set his foot to the scene.

“He is the one who has the most connection with the Alicorn! He is the one who will bring back the Alicorn for us and Black Wine also wants to capture him, so we must protect him…” Celaeno said, then she turned to the blue haired “Isn’t that true, Brandon?”

“Yes… yes Captain. Thank you for that.”

…

After having breakfast, the crew headed to the mission room. This is when Flash, Haystack and the crew they
brought along to the Parrot Strength know what they have to do.

They knew that they were really following the Cloudsdale route, the very ship that carried the Alicorn Gundam from the moment it was captured by Black Wine. However, there is at least one good news: Black Wine and his Psycho Gundam MkII were not on board, the only rival they have to face is the Black Tri Star.

They later find out that with the Alicorn on board, he was a bit too confident that it will take down three “wooden” airships with ease.

He embarked on to the Cloudsdale just about a day after the broadcast. Turns out, Flash was too sleepy and cringe to listen to the entirety of his speech. He was reading a book about history in the late night, a habit that he have developed in the time he was still stationed at the Canterlot:

“...They are trying to set up a rebellion that will open the way for the creatures to tear our kingdom apart to be their colonies. We should never let that happen. Now, with all of my anger and responsibility, I announce that our military will launch ‘Operation Capital Retrieve’. The Canterlot was supposed to be our navy flagship and pride of our military, so we will not let our potential enemy get their claws and wings on it!”

“Ha, talking about ‘pride’. Saying that ship was built in our dimension is wrong enough, let alone saying it was completely built on Equestrian soil by the ponies!” Haystack said with a scornful voice after he briefly told him about Black Wine’s speech.

The operation launched means that Black Wine is estimating he is the hunter, and the airships are prey. But as the truth have shown, they are really the hunter. Even with that information, Celaeno still order her crew to extra careful because Black Wine’s Army can ordered more ships to join Operation Capital Retrieve soon. She even speculated that the Cloudsdale might be a trap to lure them in.

“Don’t underestimate his strategy, soldier! This operation was a publicly known one, so he will do anything to hunt us down!”

And just a few hours later, they were informed that the Las Pegasus fleet was mobilized and ready for the hunt, just like Celaeno predicted.

…

The Parrot Strength’s mission room, as well as the ship combat bridge, was a small dark room with it’s only sources of light are the large digital map in the middle, where officers plan their missions and some lights around, and the light of numerous monitors around. The scene of the room created a tense atmosphere that forced every creature in the room to pay extra attention to the speeches.

It’s four walls were all black metal plate, and it tells creatures that it is the most armored room in the whole ship. In fact, the whole ship was built with metal, only it’s exterior (including the upper decks) was covered with woods as a means of camouflages. All of these camouflashes were built to carefully hide it’s 2 multi-barrel missile launchers, a 105 mm cannon and 2 five-barrel CIWS. All was supposed to be deployed on the upper deck when their hatches were opened in a battle and was made sure to never hit the airship’s balloon section when fired in anger. All of them were mounted in the deck right below the upper deck, which made Flash impressed by how a 65 meters long, 18 meters wide airship can carry. Not
to mention the 2 mobile suits it carried on board

“But… that’s why we can only carry two of you!” Mullet said while showing Flash and Haystack their cabin “This room was only for VIP only. Captain’s was only second to this. The rest are living together in a 25 beds cabin!”

“That’s just sad, man…”

In total, the ship can carry 4 VIPs and a crew of 25 creatures.

The reason why Flash still saw the wires around is because the ship hasn't finished the MS bay yet. However, it was all done about a week after Flash, Haystack and their two mechanics embarked on to the ship.

Back in the mission room-combat bridge, Captain Celaeno ordered the whole ship to get into battle station. S.M.I.L.E have made an additional order for all of the airships that if one of them spotted the Cloudsdale, they must signal the other two. Then, they will coordinate a battle formation where the suits come straight into the enemy vessel at its stern. Then, they will take down her engines and let the ship crash. After that, they can call the friendly unit where the ship crashes to salvage her, as well as the mobile suits stationed in it.

“But… you should know that the Black Tri Star is stationed on it!” Mullet is concerned “They will bring out the Alicorn with them as well. Don’t you see how it takes down 5 ships larger than us in a row with ease?”

“Yes, but… that’s the only hope right now…” she answered “Besides, our  MS pilots have dealt with them at least twice and yet no one was lost! Heck, even Ensign Brandon can single handedly stop the Alicorn Gundam even knowing that it has destroyed five ships and forced that fleet to stay back!”

“Whatever…” he mumbled.

“Captain, the Cloudsdale is heading for the sea!” Boyle, who is at the helm of the ship, reported. At that moment, they are heading towards the Southern Sea, towards Storm Island.

After hearing that, Celaeno suddenly panicked. First, it will be almost impossible to salvage the mobile suits if the Cloudsdale crashes into the sea. And second, if they go too near to the enemy ship, the crew of the Cloudsdale could easily spot them with just their bare eyes.

“Can you contact the Eagle Scream and Black Hawk?'' she asked urgently.

“Yes Captain, but they say it would take about 10 minutes for them to get to us! I think we should abort right now!”

Looking at the big white dot on the radar, she knows that their enemy is near enough to launch a mobile suit attack and far enough to not let them spot the airship that have such a suspicious move. Although both are in a relatively busy airspace, going behind for hours with just a few kilometers in between could make them launch some recon craft to them.

And they did! Angie, the ship battle operator quickly spotted 2 smaller dots that quickly close into them. They are drones, built with state of the art cameras which can let them see heat source, night scenes from kilometers away. Celaeno have known this and come up with a genius tactic:

“Just call Lix, Irma and their camouflage crew to the upper deck! Just do normal things like back when we are still on our old ‘merchant’ ship!”

“Roger that ma’am!” Angie replied with a salute.

Only in a few seconds, the creatures that Celaeno have ordered are already presented themselves on the upper deck. She has straight up decided to not deploy the weapons as well as the mobile suit. She later ordered Flash and Haystack to rest.

“Haystack, Brandon. You can sleep right now!” she said to the pilots, who are still sitting in the cockpit waiting to be deployed.

“Yes, my lady…” Haystack replied with the most gentlecolts-like manner he could make.

“Thank you! I have already disable the control on the upper deck, so you can tell Lix to do whatever she wants with it. Boyle, make sure our ship is still in line! Suddenly changing course will make us look even more suspicious to them! Angie, signal the other ship to not engage! This is a good place for battle: we are right above the ocean!”

“Yes ma’am!” both answered

After that, what the whole crew does is just wait for the drones to pass by. Despite telling herself that this is the best tactic she could think of up until that moment, and in fact she has done it successfully several times, she still prays for her crew up on the upper deck. As her hidden camera in the combat bridge shows, they are still doing normal work like moving the cargo around or looking at the drones themselves cautiously. Then, the drones came right at them and adjusted their
cameras to the upper deck.

Flash was still in his cockpit in that intense moment. He decided to turn on the monitor and connect it directly to the upper deck cameras: the drones just hovering right next to airships, looking upon the creatures doing “normal things' '. He could notice they were armed with gatling guns, which means Celaeno was really risking her friends life. The whole ship is holding their breath along with him. Everything around him scarily silence, with the only sound he could heard is Seashell Blue muttering prays

Then, they sighed in relief as the drones just passed by and returned to the Cloudsdale, after 3 minutes that felt like a century.

“Phew!” Celaeno wiped her sweet “That was intense!”

Celaeno decided to just let their enemy do whatever and ordered them to turn the airship towards friendly territory.

“But… Do you know why they are heading to the Great Iceberg Barrier?”

After the event, Haystack decided to come to her and asked.

“I don’t know! Maybe they just wanted to mess around with our airships… Keep in mind that we are in their airspace at that moment.”

…

“Flash… This place so cold and painful…” Yolinda’s voice said “Please come… fast!”

“Flash… We’re so sorry!” Luster Dawn followed “But they are trying to tear us apart…”

Flash couldn’t bear their begging.

Through that night, Flash is just hugging his head and keeps mumbling “Please stop…” It was the third night since
the creatures started begging to save them.

“Isn’t that what I am trying to do?” he mumbled to them as if they could hear him.

But he also has a feeling towards the creatures that he himself never thought he would have, even in his wildest dream. He started to grow concerned for them, worrying about the terrible thing that they have to go through to have that much kind of pain and cold.

That was the moment Flash’s soft spot for the creatures started to grow. He even have a thought that they might not be evil:

“I know that I shouldn’t trust them too much. I still really don’t know who they really are. Except that curse and those nightmares, am I having any proof that they will harm any creatures else? None, at least at this moment…”

Although the soft spot has started to take shape, the fact that they have started their relationship with nightmares is something he is not going to forgive too soon. Their behavior that suddenly changes from hostility to friendliness is suspicious enough that he fears that they are just acting.

In one night, he decided to stay up a little late to read Luster’s diary. Flash have cleaned it himself in spare time, so except the somewhat boring brown leather cover, everything in it is pretty and cute.

The diary was somewhat separated by the lessons that the creatures have learned. About one-fourth of the diary was written by Luster Dawn, which she wrote in letter style and decorated with simple icons.

“Dear Princess Twilight, today I’ve learned that…”

That’s how she and her friends started each of the letters.

Reading the diary, he found that she was somewhat a lonely pony in the beginning, mostly because she is so busy studying and how annoying she feels when her parents just keep talking, or even ranting, about friendship. She was then sent to the School of the Gifted Unicorns (the same school that Black Wine graduated from), which is where she have always dreamt of. Then, after the talk with Princess Twilight Sparkle and an adventure with her friends, she learned to adore friendship.

After digging into the diary long enough, Flash could finally distinct the writing styles of each of her friendsas well. Butter Burger has somewhat a doctor-way of writing since he is very energetic and, perhaps, very busy in his fast food business. Spring Garden have a very beautiful writings and she even added some perfume that she claimed “extracted from the best smelling flowers”. Grisela sometimes pushes her force too hard on to the papers that he could even saw the entirety of her writings being printed on the next paper. And finally Yolinda using some kind of wood-extracted ink, which makes the ink smudge on the papers. However, her letters still can readable.

“That’s a cute diary. I haven’t seen any of them seem to be plotting an evil plan…” Flash mumbled.

However, as he turned to the back of the diary, he find something very noticeable: a section of the diary was leave blanked intentionally.

“To our future friends…” the header of the section read.

“To our future friends…?” he mumbled in confusion “What are they supposed to mean?”

…

“Hey buddy, check this out!” Haystack suddenly called him to the upper deck “You gotta see this!”

In the middle of the night, a bunch of lanterns suddenly appeared from the horizon and flew up to the sky.
Following them are more lanterns, which create one of the most breathtaking sights of the night.

“That’s the lantern from the Kirin’s Groove!” the Lieutenant explained “They are honoring their missing Princess!”

For security reasons and to hide themselves from a Las Pegasus fleet’s cruiser, Captain Celaeno decided to divert the ship into Kirin’s territory (with the Kirin's permission) and turned all the lights off. They arrived at Kirin Groove right on the night that was called “The Rainbow Honoring Festival”, an occasion that the kirin not just honoring their lost Princess, but also her friend as well.

“First, do you know about the magic of Rainbow?”

“No… I don’t know about that?”

“Yeah… I get why. 25 years is a very long time for sure…” he replied “So basically every creature in Equus has the ability to control the color around them, as well as the colors on themselves, to their moods. The happier they are, the brighter the colors. If they have a bad mood i.e. anger, sadness, hopelessness,… the colors will be dimmer. Normally creatures won’t notice it because the change is too little…”

“Why is that?”

“Maybe because when an individual is in a bad mood. However, if that ‘bad mood’ happened on a community scale,
the change will be more obvious. Sometimes the colors will just disappear and what’s left is just black and white!”

“I see. So what do you want to say?”

“When you arrive at Kirin Grooves in the morning, you will see that there is just black and white there. It was
due to the fact that their Princess was missing and there is a war just around the corner: I once heard Black Wine wanted to invade them!”

“So… who is that Princess?” Flash asked.

“Her name is Spring Garden!”

…

Flash was shocked to his core once Haystack said the name out.

"Spirng. Garden." his voice emphasize in his mind. 

"This can't be true!" Flash thought.

“Wait! You… You… tell me that the Princess of Kirin Groove is Spring Garden?”

“Yes! She is also Queen Rainshine’s only child… But why do you seem so shocked, dude? This is common knowledge!”

Knowing he had exposed his feelings a little too much, Flash lowered his tone and asked for more information.

“So… what’s happened to her?”

“Well… she and her friends came to Canterlot 6 years ago and never returned. They rumored that it is Black Wine
who ordered his guard to chase them down… And did I mention that the kirins do honor her friends too?”

“Yeah… and who are they?”

“First is Luster Dawn, the pony behind the diary you have. Next is Butter Burger the earth pony, Grisela the griffon, Yamina the yak, and Spring Garden the kirin Princess I just said!” Haystack then looked at him with an unamused face “I thought you know that! Last night you spent the whole night reading her diary!”

“No… No… I haven’t seen them talking about Spring Garden is a Princess!”

“Read it carefully… Wait, do you think they will allow you to read such a thing?” Haystack wispeared “This is like… violating privacy!”

However, Flash chose to just look to the sky above Kirin Groove, lighten up the city itself, the stars and the lanterns.

It was one of the most breathtaking sights of his life, when the lights and the nights are harmonized
to create a lighting performance. He could see the lanterns are the only things the kirin have at that moment that have full colors, in contrast to the scene of Kirin Groove that Haystack has said.

“Oh… that thing. It was beautiful indeed!” he said whilst looking at the lanterns. Celaeno has previously ordered the airship to slow down so her crew can enjoy the sight “They do this annually for 6 years now, on every April the 3rd which happens to be today!” he chuckled.

“So… why do they also honor her friends?” Flash asked “Are they doing something heroic?”

“Absolutely, we call them the Rainbow Team! They have helped a lot of villages, town and rural communities regain their colors! Heck, they even help protect Ponyville once!”

“Ponyville?” Flash asked curiously “How?”

“So… There is a sorcerer named Jinx who built a machine that sucked all of Ponyville’s color. The goal: lost colors, lost hope, easier to enslave! To stop her, the Rainbow Team have come together and destroy that thing!” Haystack tell the story briefly.

After looking at the festival sights and hearing what Haystack has said, his attitude towards the creature has changed. That night confirmed that they are not evil and they are heroes. Now he gets what they said: they don’t want to punish him for anything, they are just asking for help.

However, this means that a heavy duty has been placed on his shoulder.

“Sadly… they have chosen me…” Flash sighed “Can I even have a portion of their courage to save them out?”

 

 



 

 
> Dear my future friend
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear my future friend(s)...

First off, thank you for accepting our friendship! You have come a long way, through space and time, just to befriend us! You can’t imagine how precious that is to us! It is like a star far far away in the universe suddenly deciding to descend down to Equestria, becoming a pony, or a creature and saying “Hello, I’m your new friend!”! Isn’t that wholesome!

So, let me introduce you to our group. First is Butter Burger: he is an energetic pony who owns a fast food restaurant. I love how funny he was, despite the fact that he had to run that restaurant all by himself after he lost his family in a terrible accident. Perhaps, being funny all the time is how he combats his depression. His food is somewhat decent, but he tries to improve it every single day!

Next, meet Griselda: an honest to heart griffon with a passion to join the Wonderbolts! She is currently training herself in order to fulfill her dream. Although she sometimes can be overly honest, she is a very responsible and reliable friend. You would like to fly with her!.

Then, there’s Yamina. The cute, sweet yak that we all love: the creature that always helps relieve tension whenever we have some, pardon me, problems with each other. She have a passion to open a kindergarten since she love fillies and colts a lot. She might be weak from the outside, but don’t underestimate her courage in her!

And here comes Spring Garden! She is a Princess, obviously! And she is the prettiest kirin around, which is a somewhat fairytale-ish thing about being a kirin princess. She has passion in making magic potions, which have helped her community as well as Ponyville dozens of times. Oh and did I also tell you that she also has an interest in ballet? She is also still learning it, but there is no doubt we will support her whenever she has a performance, and we will be allowed to join us as well!

Finally, there’s me! I am a unicorn pony who from just a year ago didn't even bother to make friends, let alone being in a group of these wonderful creatures! I was once too busy that I’m against making friends. But, Princess Twilight and her friends have enlightened me and encouraged me to join the School of Friendship. I was completely overwhelmed by how beautiful friendship is just by the first week at the School of Friendship, mostly thanks to that one adventure to retrieve colors back to Ponyville from an evil sorcerer named Jinx… We’ll tell you that story when we finally meet you,

Anyway, I hope you can find this letter. You should come fast, because me and my friends can’t wait to meet you.

Love.

Luster Dawn and Co.