On the Tenth day of ‘Warmings eve, My silver gave to me…
Ten Portside Cannons

Nine Windago’s Corrupted

Eight Presents bought

Seven Scars reopened

Six Silver’s Screaming!

Five Luna’s Smirks

Four Tender Moments

Three Memories

Two Heartwarming stories

And Some Much needed Company~!

___________________________________

“This is Silver Haze your capt’ speaking, we are about one hour out from the border to the Empire all crewmembers we are swiching to autopilot and you are free to leave your stations.” Silver Haze said into the COMM.

Silver haze was glad that they made it out of equestria without much trouble, the storms were horrific but the ship had weathered worse, surpisinly, applejack had quickly taken to her roll, learning the in’s and out’s of how to work the airships engin. Really, everyone was doing a good job, better then he expected.

Silver Haze unstraped himself from his Comand Throne and decided to head around to see how everypony was doing.

Walking out of the room and heading up a small set of stairs, he pushed open the door and brased himself against the cold whiping air and snow on the deck, he quickly cast a spell to keep the sound from causing him to lose his hearing, but he still marched on, the cold was chilling, but the task ahead kept his mind ready and alert against all threats that would cau-

“SILVER!” A voice shouted behind him, causing silver to jump and slip on the icy deck, he quickly picked himself up and turned to face the voice, surpised at what he saw.

“Rainbow Dash? What in the name of the King are you wearing?!?” Silver looked over his fellow crewmember, his eyes wide with surprise.

“Oh, yeah you like it? Pinkie aparently found some spare stuff down in the storage, Rarity had nothing better to do so she decided to make me some, as she put it, Proper attire so I didn’t freeze to death up here.” Rainbow snorted as she waved the metal covered hoof in the air. Silver quickly did a once over.

Silver quickly noticed some of the flaws in the outfit, but he had to admit, Rarity had done a good job adapting the Alicornian armor.

Rainbow Dash’s head was covered by a metal helmet, it apeared to be cerimonial at first glance, looking like it left the face compleatly exposed, but when battle started, a solid metal plate would drop down over the face, and the armor would give the wearer a projected image of what was going on outside the hemet. The breastplate was made with what looked like Bloodstopper Metal, a Warmonger favorit that condected magic very poorly, alowing the user to become semi-impervious to magic, over the breastplate was what looked like a rainbow coak, seemingly used to cover the wings to keep them warm, over her front hooves, he noticed that it apeared to use overlaping metal plates with a bent center outwards to beter fit around the circular limb, he could tell that in hoof-to-hoof combat, a strike from those plates would leave a foe relling, that guarded the front hooves from harm, and the back hooves seemed to simply have a thick cloth rap around them to keep them warm.

All in all, not a bad fit. He’d seen beter, but for a novice armor smith with little to work with, he could see how she made it fit together.

“Hmm, acceptible Rainbow Dash, good work out there, go spend some time inside, warm up, stay hydrated, keep your guard up! Dismissed!” Silver Haze said, Rainbow Dash gave a little salute (he wasn’t sure if she was mocking him or not) before speeding off inside.

Silver haze followed closely, the deck was fairly large so it took him about thirty seconds of quick walking to get to the door leading down to the front of the ship, inside he took the first door infront of him, shuting it to lock out the cold air behind him, shivering slightly, he walked forwads, this level of the ship had the medical bay on it, as well as the weapons bay, he decided to take the first door on the left into the medical bay to say hello to fluttershy in the medical bay, she was a vetrinarinan, so he figgered she would be best suted in the medical bay, hopefully some of her skills were transferable.

“greetings fluttershy, have you gotten acostom to the medical area?” said silver.

“oh! um, yes i have. I’ve managed to find all the things on the inventory list” said fluttershy, pointing at a list of all the suplies in the area that was posted on a pillar

“well, lmost everything, but they shouldn’t be very impotant anyways” she added.

“very good, continue duty” said silvwer and flutters saluted him.

Silver walked out of the medical bay and took another flight of stairs down to the lowest level, where engineering and the cargo bay were, deciding to check out- uh, on rairity.

“Greating Rarity, How are things down here in the Cargo bay” Silver was surpised when rarity turned around, a small pair of red specticals on her muzzle as she was looking over what looked like weapon scematics and armor sets. The King use to keep all the really wacky prototypes hidden in a box down here, it seemed Rarity had found them.

“Ah, Silver darling, excuse me, I was just looking over some of these magnificent ideas...such creativity, such SKILL oh how I wish I could meet those who came up with these...of course, they are not perfect, but with a little tweaking I could make these FABULOUS!” Rarity seemed to relize that she had began talking to herself more then Silver and quickly blushed, chucked and cleared her throat.

“My apologies, what did you need Silver?” Rarity asked, her business side coming out. Silver smiled.

“No need to be formal, I see you have become interested in these designs yes? I didn’t take you to be the type interested in...well, armor and weapons.” Silver was surpised when rarity scoffed at him.

“Darling I am a patron of the arts, my heart have always been set on designing fashion, but that does not mean my skills are not transferable! These designs are not so different from the ones I create in my flashes of inspiration, the words in them may be different and more complex, and the goal may be more...barbaric then my normal art, but the PASSION to create something new and daring...that is something I can read, respect and WORK with.” Rarity said, flaring her hooves up dramatically as she finished speaking. She then turned to Silver.

“You have seen my work with Rainbow Dash, yes? What do you think?” I smiled.

“the craftmanship is good despite what you had to work with, I have never seen such brilance out of such little resorces! Truely you are a genius of your craft.” Silver knew he was laying it on thick, the the adorable blush and giggle he got out of Rarity was well worth the lie.

“Why thank you Silver, I am happy to know my skills are of help, though I cannot take all the credit, Pinkie Pie was invaluable in decifering some of the meanings of the blueprints...how she did some of it I do not know. Anywho, if you ever need something created, feel free to come to me Silver, my hangar is always open as it were.” Rarity said closing her eyes, tilting her head and smiling at me. I put one a smug grin.

“Be careful rarity, or I might just take you up on that offer...Anyway, I’m going to go chat with the rest of the crew, See you Rarity.” I said as I waved goodbye, steping out of the hanger, suddenly, there was a loud bang and some very country style yelling from down the hall in the Engin compartment, I decided to see how Applejack was faring.

“You DARN THANG” Yelled applejack, as she buked a gear back into it’s axis.

applejack mummbled as she went on fixing the engine room up. “oh hey there seelver” said applejack in suprize as she turned to find silver

“everything all right down here” silver asked

“yeah, just fixing the room up a beet.” said applejack “the eengeen work fayne untill somethi’n breaks, but it’s easy catch’n up with et.” said applejack.

silver looked around, inspecting AJ’s rough but effecnet handiwork

“the engine seems a bit old and weather than i remeber, but you seem to be doing fine despite that. good work applejack” said silver.

“aww shucks, seelver” applejack saluted him, and he carried on…

steping back outside the room, he heard something else snap in the room, causing applejack to shout a bit more before there was a thump and everything seemed to go back to normal. Deciding to walk back upstairs, he finally decided to inspect the weapons bay, last he checked, Twilight was in the East Weapons bay, and Pinkie Pie was in the West Weapons bay. He decided to check on Twilight first.

Steping into the room, he was surpisded how neat and orderly it was, everything was polished and cleaned, there were eight weapons lined up ready to fire when combat started, there were four stadart issue Mana Cannons, they were simple weapons, crystals that when activated, sent out a solid beam of energy, after it locked on, it started sending pulses of energy that ripped apart the hulls of other ships...or beast big enough to threaten the ship.

As well as that, there was three Lance Cannons, they shot powerfull Harpoons that locked on to enmy ships to prepare for bording, though due to the lack of a bording crew, the harpoons were replaced with Exposive Harpoons Enchanted to expode when they made contact. The last one was a weapon Twilight built herself It seemed to be a Modified Mana Cannon enchanted with Primal Magic to essentualy become a giant Flame Thrower, the beam could light fire to the hull, and the pulses were turned to fireball. Silver noticed she had set some blueprints asside, he frowned as she seemed to have called it the Solar Sun, he didn’t need any reminders of Celestia on his ship. Still the weapon was powerfull enough to let it slide.

“Silver!” Silver turned hearing twilights voice, he suddenly widened his eyes as he noticed how messed up her mane was and the paniced look in her eyes.

“I-I’m sorry that the bay isn’t up to offical Alicornian Millitary standarts! I tried to help Pinkie keep her side in order BY SWEET CELESTIA that mare has no respect for the code! She left explosive powerder all over the Bay, she was baking a cake on the Mana Cannon, she broke into the illegal weapons storage that the ship had plundered over the years and put those modifacations on all the weapons!” Twilight was growing more paniced...this wasn’t good.

“I thought I had more time to clean up and get everything up to stadarts...I-I…” Twilight began to hypervetilate….parhaps the weapons bay WASN’T the best choice for her.

“It’s ok twilight, you dont have to panic. Its fine, we are NOT an Alicornian Military ship force, everything dosn’t have to be up to every standarts” Silver said with a smile calming her down, he didn’t feel like telling her that have the rules were never followed by the crew of any Millitary Ship anyway....she’d find it out on her own hopefully.

“So Twilight, how are things in the weapons bay...beside everything not being up to code” Twilight turned to me and sighed.

“Its...fine. The weapons are all up and functional, we’re low on munisions, and I fear if the engins can still work if we start firing the mana cannons, and Pinkie Pie is changing every single weapon on her side, I swear not a single one of those are standart issue...I think we could handle small scale combat, but I fear our safty if we get into the real kind of combat that this ship was designed for.” Silver nodded, taking in twilights opinion.

“Don’t worry Twilight, we don’t plan on fighting any Warships today.” Twilight smiled.

“Well then we should be fine, I’ve been studing up on Alicornian Fighting Technics, if you need any stratagy help, I should be able to give you some advice.” Silver decided to keep this in mind.

“Thanks Twilight, don’t work too much!” I said as I waved to Twilight who went right back to running around checking everything.

Crossing a rickity metal bridge over the central Engines, I made it to the West Weapons Bay.

I open the hatch doOor To see all hell broke loose. The room was nothing like i last saw it. there were safty hazards everywhere, Cake with lit candles laying dangerously close to hevy duty explosives, paint and chemicals with brushes dipped in both of them, OH SWEET KING was that a Napalm crystal with donuts cooking on them?!? Twilight wa irhgt about everything she said. “uhh pinkie” i said to get her attention as she stood on a particularly large weapon.

“oh haia” said pinkie “like what i’ve done with the place?” said pinkie with a big smile.

“it’s very… pinkie-ish” i said, walking around, avoid ammunition that laid about the floor.

inspecting the wepons, i could hardly identifify the original design. there were addons everywhere, perhaps for the better, but deffentaly for the weirder, they were effective but with the sacrifice of making the wepon far more unstable.

“you like this one?” pinkie said, diverting my attention to her. “it shoot FIREWORKS!” pinkie saiod with glee, as she lit the fuse and a blast of rainbow lights came through the windows.

“that’s fine pinkie, but could you--” i was cut off by her “And THIS one is my new and improved party cannon… but i won’t show it off untill later” said pinkie with a devious smile.

i eventually gave up trying to stop her, heck, she’s pinkie, even if she don’t know what’s doing, it will rpobably work out for her anyways.”looks like everything is… order here, so i’ll be off then.”

silver saluted her and she saluted back.”Now where did I put those High powered exposive charges...boy I hope I remembered to disarm them!”

Yeah it was time to get as far away from this part of the ship as I possibly could.

As I walked back to the stairs I swung around them and entered the last room of note, where spike was, it was the most IMPORTANT room in the ship, where wars were won and fates were decided, where the most importat decitions were made and the fate of kingdoms could be traced back to.

The kitchen, of course.

“Hey Spike buddy, how are things!” I said as I entered the kitchen as I heard spike run around to the front to greet me.

“Hey Silver!” Spike said smiling as he walked towards me, an adorible pink apron on him as he seemed to have been cooking dinner for all of us.

“Hows the kitchen treating you?” I asked, hoping everything was in order. Spike smiled at me even wider.

“Great! I have everything I need, way better then the kitchen Twilight has, though the ingreadiants are are bit limited, I know I can make something good with it.” My heart melted a bit at his sensarity.

“Thats great little buddy, if you need anything you can come to me or Twilight, alright?” I said, he nodded and waved as he ran back into the room to go to work.

I left the kitchen and walked back up towards the deck, suddenly, before I could open the door, the hallway was bathed in a red light.

“ALL HOOVES ON DECK! WE HAVE WINDAGO INB- OH CELESTIA!” Rainbow Dash’s voice called through the COMM as the entire ship shook suddenly, my eyes, widdend, we were under attack.

As I burst throgh to door to the deck, for a second I feared that the Fog had caught up to them, but looking up I saw these were just normal windago’s, still a threat, but not unkillable.

Sprinting across the deck, I saw Rainbow Dash man the Deck-side weapon, a giant Cannon that shot good old fation explosive spikes. No enchanted spells, no over-the-top crazyness, just a simple, effective, weapon. The seat beside it was used to move, aim, and fire the weapon.

“EAT THIS WINDAGO’S” Dash yelled as the cannon whent off, blasting the Spike upwards…

...and compleatly missing the target…

and knocking Dash off the weapon.

“Ohf! What the!?!? How are you supose to fire this thing if you can’t even stay in the seat!” Rainbow Dash yelled as she tried to climb back on the weapon.

Dashing down the other set of stairs, I jumped into the Comand Throne and fipped a switch, activating combat mode.

“THIS IS NOT A DRILL, ALL HOOVES TO YOUR STATIONS!” I yelled into the COMM as I saw everypony rush around, suddenly, Silver heared Applejacks voice on the COMM.

“Uhh Seelver?” Applejacks voice called out, Silver looked on the screen as he eye widdend.

“TWILIGHT, THE WINDAGOS ARE FREEZING OVER THE ENGINES, WHAT CAN WE DO?!”

Silver gulped, the entire left half of th engine room was frozen over, the engine was still fine for now, but at the rate the ice was spreading…

Rarity spoke up “Twilight taught me the heat spell that should melt ice! I will head down to the engine bay and try to keep it under control!” I nodded and sent the confromation order.

I turned the ship suddenly and brought the ship to bear. I gave the order to twilight.

“FIRE ALL WEAPONS TWILIGHT...NOW!” I yelled as I heard the sattifying sound of energy being charged up and released, the mana cannons and Solar cannon went off, Charing and burning several of the windago’s, the rest of them quickly flew off.

“Awww! I didn’t even get to fire my side!” Pinkie pie said dejectedly. Everypony laughed. Suddenly the COMM came to life “Ah...Silver? We apear to have run across a little...issue.” Rarity voice sounded worried.

“What is it Rarity?” I said, worry in my voice.

“Well silver, the Engine is fine...but…” Rarity hesitated.

“But?..” I said

“We appear to be...out of power.” At which point, the magical screans crackled and turned black one by one as the lights above my head flickered.

“Ah.” I said quietly, knowing that the COMMs had probibly alread died.

This was an issue.

I decided to take control of the situation. I pulled up on the controls trying to keep the ship from trying to go into nosedive, if I could keep the ship level, the landing might not kill them all instantly.

Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door as Rainbow Dash burst in.

“Silver! I can see the empire! We’re almost there!”

I narroed my eyes as my instincts guided me down to a landing. Years of training as I felt the magic bubble cloak over my ship.

“Carfull...carfull…” I said aloud, I figgered I could put it down right in front of the crystal palace…

Shining armor and Cadence sat on their throne, suddenly, Shinning Armor’s ears perked up, hearing the screaching airship flying towards the castle.

“CADENCE LOOK OUT!” Shinning yelled as he grabed his wife and threw her out of the way, placing himself between his wife and the wall the ship was rappidly aproching towards them.

Shining armor closed his eyes, winced, and prepared for the wall to explode.

…

…

Shinning armor opened his eyes to see that the Airship had landed perfectly in front of the castle, turned on it’s side so that it was paralleled parked. he let out a sigh he didn’t relise he was holding as he wife started laughing at him for his paranoia.

...and then one of the delayed mana cannons whent off and took out half of the crystal pallace wall.

Shining armor sighed, his face charred black as he turned to face his wife pointing towards the ash pile that was once her throne.

“Sorry, what were you saying about paranoia?”

I got out of the ship in a hurry. “princess cadence, and shining, we need to borrow the crystal heart to fend off the windegos.” i said
the prince and prince and princess looked at eachother “how long will you need it”

“it will only be for a little while, untill we can fuight off the windegos and save canterlot.” i said.]

after a while of thinking and talking, the two decided to give it to them “youy better bring it back safley, and in one peice, or you’ll wish you’d never left your floating island” said shining.

whilst they were getting the heart, the rest f them were refilling the engine and repairing any damage that might hav occured in the ship during the attack. finally they were able to get back “thank you, we will be back soon” said silver as they began to aucent. “twilight, put this in a safe place untill we reach canterlot, don;t take it out untillwe reach there, we can find them off with our wepons.

the trip back to canterlot felt longer than th way to the empire. they were attacked a fesw times by the windegos but managed to scare them off with eaase. Finally they reached the grand castle, and above it was a storm of blackness. silver, the crew and the ship would have to fly directly into the storm…

They aproached the wall of swirling blackness, and without heistation went in. the wind picked up heavily from the sworling mass and it far colder. bits of snow and ice were pelting the ship from one side, and afvter a heard bettleagainst the wind, they were able to reach the eye of the story. they saw that the winigos were flying among he storm in a clock-wise formation as to not bump into eachother. silver tightend his grip around the steering wheel. it wAS TIME FOR BATTLE

“RAINBOW DASH, WHAT DO YOU SEE?” I yelled into the COMM. She replied quickly

“Alpha Windago is a no-show, but two smaller ones on the East side! Twilight get ready!” She called out.

“Twilight, Two burst mana Cannon! Keep energy consuption down!” As soon as he called it out, he heard two fireing pulses. As Rainbow Dash Cheered.

“YEAH TWILIGHT TWO BADDIES ARE DOWN!” She called out. Before she gasped as screamed.

“INCOMING ALPHA! BRACE YOURSELF!” She called as something large smashed into the side of the ship, rocking the entire thing and suddenly rarity screamed so loudly they heard her without the COMM.

“SILVER! THERE IS A GIANT HOLE IN THE SIDE THE THE CARGO BAY!” Silver frowned this was it.

Silver swong the ship around, and order a round of fire. Twilights weapons fire outwards hitting the alpha, as it roared in fury.

“Uhh...Silver, my weapons don’t seem to be doing much!!!” Twilight called out as the Windago smashed into Twilights side of the ship, he looked as he saw what looked like Mana Cannon fly off into the storm.

Suddenly Rarity’s voice called out. “Silver, the Crystal Heart is all hooked up, but we cant use it unless we know that it wont fly away, we need to weaken it first!”

Pinkie Pie’s voice cut in “OHOHOHOH MEMEMEMEME! I CAN WEAKEN IT!” Silver creased his brow, he could attept to just fire off the heart, or risk Pinkie Pie accidentally blowing up the ship…

He had to take the chance.

“PINKIE PIE...king don’t fail me now...FIRE ALL WEAPONS”

Pinkie got a huge grin on her face, and as if she had inhailed twenty bag of pure sugar, she nearly teleported to every cannon in the ship, lighting all the fuses.

The cannons all went off one after the other, it was a brilliant coriographjy of explosions. the fire cannon hit the winido in the head, knocking it away, mthe next hit it’s chest, and the next it’s flank, and so it repeated with the other cannons. the windeo was bigging to slow down and weaknen.

“only one more cannon left” pinkie grinned. pinkie walked over to the party cannon, th new and improved cannon. she pressend the button on the top after a moment of admiring thje beufiful cannon. a ball of bure confetty launched at the windego, slowing increasing in mass, and as soon as the ball hit the windego, it exploded in a fire works-confetty explosion. the enitre crew was in awe of the masterpeice of a show. even the windego was amzied-- given them the perfect moment to strike.

“Rarity! Activate the heart!” He yelled loudly as the heart began to cloak the ship in a ring of pink light, before it focused into a beam and struck the Fog Windago in the chest, the fog windago screached as the black light poured out of its eyes as it desitigrated.

RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAYEHAHA!!

And the explotion of fog riped across canterlot, the other windago’s disapeered, the storm calmed down, and the bright sun shined down on the ship.

“WE DID IT!” Silver cheered as everypony began celebrating the victory, silver burst out onto the deck and cheered as the rest of the mane 7 ran out to cheer, Twilight ran right into his hooves as he spun her away and kissed her.

The threat had passed at last.

_____________

The Twisted pony stood at the top of canterlot castle, the shadows flickered on his form. He licked his lips tracing his tongue over his razer sharp teeth, his red eyes locking onto the airship.

They had beaten him, but the Fog would march onwards, the forwads scouts had failed, but the army would arive soon, and when they did, nothing would stand in the way of perfection.
The creature let its wings spread out and the broken horn on his head reform.

The Alicorns of Old would rise again.

And the mortals would bow to their true gods once more.

_____________

Silver, Luna, Celestia, and the rest of the mane 7 stood in the broken throne room, they had told the story of what happened. Celestia and Luna were pleased

“You all did very good work, and we thank you for this.” Luna said smiling.

I smiled “It was our pleasure, the airship was unfit for true combat though, would it be possible for us to get a crew to man it?” I asked, Celestia finaly steped forward.

“Well Silver, I think I can have that aranged, I can ask the guards to see if there is anypony avalable to train for the possition, I can’t promis anything.” Silver nodded, it was the best he was going to get out of Celestia, still, would it hurt her to do more after all he’s done for her.

“Well, I do bleave it is getting late, tomorrow is Heath warming day, and I think all of you have somewhere to be…” Celestia smiled as everypony relized that they should be getting home to their families.

Pinkie pie gasped “OH RIGHT! I have to go get down to the Rock Farm! Me, Inkie, Blinkie and Maud were going to go decorate the farm with Rock Candy!” She quickly dashed out the door.

Rarity let out a far smaller gasp “Oh dear! I almost forgot about Sweetie Belle, I must get back to Ponyville to set out the gifts!” and with that Rarity followed after Pinkie.

Rainbow Dash nodded “Yeah, I should get flying if I wana get to Cloudsdale by dinner time!”

Fluttershy nodded as she smiled “Yes rainbow we should get going.”

And the two of them trotted off.

Applejack smiled “Ah recon i need to get back to sweet apple acres and see the famlee” then walked out.

Leaving just the four royalty in the room.

Silver Cleared his throat “Well Twilight, we should get back to ponyville, I have those dinner reservations all picked out for us, I have all of tomorrow planed out for us!” Twilight nodded, however, Silver wasn’t finnished. “...and I was wondering if Luna wanted to come along with us?”
Luna was surpised, she wanted to say yes, but she looked over to see her sister giving her a worried look, she knew her sister had plans already, boring plans sure, but there was no reason to dissipoint her sister even if she would have more fun with silver, it was a time for spending with family...

“I..would love to Silver, but you see that-” Suddenly she heard her sisters voice in her head.

“It’s alright Luna, you can go...it’s fine I know you want to.” Celestia’s voice echoed in her head, luna blinked, for some reason it felt different then when she normally sent a message to her, but she could tell its because there was worry and sadness behind it.

“...sure silver, I would love to go.” Luna said quickly, looking over at her sister, she saw celestia looked cressfallen, but had a small smile on her face, she nodded that she could go as luna practicly leaped off the throne to pack her things.

“I SHALL MEET THOU AT THE TRAIN STATION” Luna called out.

Twilight turned to silver “That was a bit weird, why did Luna act like that?” Silver simply smiled at her.

“Parhaps she thought with her heart instead of her mind?” Twilight was surpised at Celestia’s voice in her head, however, Silver simply winked at her and trotted out the door, Twilight looked cofused for a moment, shruged, and walked out after him.

Finaly, they could put all the crazyness behind them.

And finaly have a happy Hearth's Warming Eve.

Author's Notes:

HEY EVERYPONY. phew, the 12 days are almost over, just one more chapter and then the last one, which will be a shorter chapter. Have a happy new year! and how did you all like the ship combat? Thoughts on the weapons?

comment on what’s your new years resolution. mine is to become a better writer.

see you next year (tomorrow ;)

~SILVER HAZE /)