Dreams of the Damned

Chapter 7

Luna stood there in the snow, watching the ponies work, moving large crates to a small clearing they had made, and when it was in place, one of the unicorns on standby would come over, and in a quick flash, both the unicorn and the crate would be gone, most likely teleported to one of the many military bases scattered throughout Equestria to be analyzed and studied. She had heard rumours that they had even found some blueprints for various machines and vehicles, which intrigued her. When she had returned, she had become fascinated at the rate of scientific and technical progress in her absence and had devoted herself to studying all the new information that had come up when she had the chance, especially astronomy. Not even she knew all the secrets of the night sky.

There were four new planets now! How cool was that?

She watched as they loaded a large machine into one of the larger crates. Due to its size, it most likely couldn’t be teleported, and would have to be transported to Canterlot on one of the many cargo chariots coming and going, touching down and taking off near where the entrance to the base had been, now just a large hole in the ground, the cabin nothing more than ashes now. A few bright magical lanterns had been lit to provide light to the area, but it was a few minutes to dawn and they soon would not be needed. A sudden breeze caused her to shiver. “Sergeant, ETA on the next chariot?”

The officer who had walked in front of her glanced up from his clipboard and shook his head. “Sorry you’re Highness, last we heard the next chariot left Canterlot twenty minutes ago. They should be here in the next ten minutes, though.”

She sighed. “Thank you.” He nodded and left.

“We could have gone on the first chariot, but you said no.” Nightmare grumbled. Vessel stood next to her, gazing up in amazement at everything she could see. The trees, the rocks, the night sky, other ponies, the snow, the leaves, everything within her line of sight. For somepony who just a few days ago looked like she was at death's door, in the last few hours had seemed to call upon unknown energy and was actually looking alive, a stunning transformation.

“They had to get the wounded our first, and my guards had to head back for questioning. We are next.”

Nightmare remained silent, but Luna could tell she was almost overjoyed to finally be out. In the short time they had been together, she had learned to read her alter-ego’s emotions, which she normally kept behind a screen of joking answers and sarcastic comments, much like the reformed Discord, and also just like the reformed villain, Luna could tell that she truly cared for Vessel underneath her hard exterior. Just like she was before she warmed up to the modern age.

Nightmare was about to say something, before she frowned, and stopped. “Do you... hear something?”

“Hear what?” Luna paused and focused on her hearing, but she couldn’t make out anything that sounded abnormal, just the sounds of the forest, and all the activity of the ponies working nearby. “I don’t hear anything.”

“It’s like... buzzing?”

“Buzzing?” She was instantly on alert. Buzzing could only mean one thing.

Changelings.

She hated the infernal creatures, hated their looks, hated the stupid sound their wings made, hated their stupid ability to steal live, hated their hive…

Sure it was racist, but in the events both preceding and proceeding her banishment, they hadn’t really done much to redeem themselves. Multiple wars, the burning of villages, the attack on Canterlot…

“It’s not Changelings.” Nightmare announced suddenly.

Luna looked at her. “What?”

“It’s not Changelings. At least, it doesn’t sound like them. It sounds more…”

“More what?”

“I don’t know, it’s gone.”

Luna groaned. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“I’m telling you, I heard buzzing.”

Luna just shook her head. “We’re all just tired. So just stand here until the chariot arrives.”

Nightmare sighed but complied. Luna looked towards the east, where the first lights of the day were beginning to peek over the horizon. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and began to feel the cosmic magic flow through her.  Her body lifted off the ground slightly, the sheer amount of magic flowing through her lifting her into the air, her horn surrounded by a blue aura. She landed back on the ground, and let go the breath she was holding. The sky slowly turned from purple to yellow to orange.

“Ugh, man that felt good.” She grinned, looking back to Vessel and Nightmare, the first looking at her with amazement, alternating between the sky and Luna, and the second trying her best to look uninterested but was failing to keep her envy full gaze away from her.

“Hey…” Nightmare started, not making eye contact. “How did you raise and lower the moon while we were underground? You didn’t have access to the sky.”

Luna shrugged. “Celestia most likely did it. She figured it out while we were banished. We were gone for a thousand ye-“ She paused.

She heard it. She looked in the direction it was coming from, towards the sky, but saw nothing. She wasn’t the only one. Everyone around stopped what they were doing, and turned their attention to the sky. The sound slowly grew louder, a faraway buzzing slowly turning into a loud droning sound.  And it wasn’t, as she had slightly hoped, a squad of Changelings. It was something much worse.

Her first thought was that it was dragons. But the incoming flying objects were too small to be dragons, and since when had dragon been a shiny metallic color? While she was wondering how they were staying aloft without flapping their wings, they flew low over their position in loose V formation, before banking to the left, allowing Luna to get a good look at them, and she finally realized what they were.

Something that had caught her attention as she was going over all the technical and scientific advancements of the current age, and she had spent an entire day going over notes and papers on powered flight. The study of Pegasus flight had been all but mastered hundreds of years ago, and hot air balloons had been around for generations, but the invention of actual powered flight had yet to be perfected, mostly due to a lack of engines, both light and powerful enough, to fit to an airframe. But, there were a few prototypes in development, and the aeroplane, as it was coming to be called, was expected to enter both the military and civilian markets and improve travel and transport.

Once again, this mystery organization seems to have beaten them to it.

The fuselage was short and stubby, with a large propeller pulling the aircraft through the air. The wings, two of them, one set above the other, were painted dark blue, and a green circle with a white triangle inside, and a red circle inside that one. The cockpit was open to the air, and the pilot inside was casting his gaze over the assembled ponies below. The tail section was painted red, and another one of the white circles was painted on the side.

She was so focused on the aircraft that she failed to hear a whistling sound.

Kaboom!

She felt herself get listed off her hooves, and the next thing she knew she was lying face first in the snow. She managed to look up in time to see two ponies narrowly getting obliterated by one of the falling bombs, protected by a black shield. The two ponies glanced over in her direction, finding Vessel, complete with glowing black eyes, seemingly struggling to hold the shield. As soon as it was released, they made a break for the Teeline, where she could see a few other ponies regrouping.

“Come on, get up, let’s go.” Vessel came over, helping her up. “You injured any?”

“I don’t… no.” She confirmed after a quick look over her body, although slightly shaken by the blast from the bomb.

“Good, we need to move. We’re sitting ducks out here.” She pointed to the circling aircraft. “Those guys are attacking anything that moves, and once they see us were pretty much dead.”

They started making their way over to the forest, Luna trying her best not to look at the red stained patches of snow, or the surprisingly few bodies lying scattered around. However, as they approached the assembly of ponies, something new caught her attention. A new sound could be heard, just almost out of earshot, a low rumble, echoing off the trees…

Whop-whop-whop-whop-whop-whop-whop…

She had pulled her hoof up to cover her eyes as a bright light, flying low over the trees, blinded her suddenly. The rumble became deafening, and the wind picked up, blasting snow everywhere, causing her to cover her eyes more. When the bright floodlight finally moved away from her eyes, she stared up in awe at the floating metal machine above her.

It was like nothing she had ever seen before. It was another flying machine, but this one seemed to have very few similarities to the ones circling above.  It was long and slender, and the cockpit seemed to be enclosed with glass, with two bipedal creatures inside operating it. It was held in the air by two large spinning propellers, and two open doors on each side allowed her to see right through the craft, a machine gun was mounted in the doorway, firing at anything that happened to end up in its sights. An identical looking craft swooped down into the clearing they had made, six soldiers of varying races leaping out of the craft, all clad in the same uniform she had grown a hatred for. When one pointed at her, she knew it was probably time to stop staring and move.

Bullets kicked up snow behind her as she made a dash for the trees, Vessel following close behind. Suddenly, she gave a cry as a sharp pain ripped through her leg, causing her to stumble. She rolled sideways, a few bullets hitting the snow where she had been seconds before. Now safely behind a tree, she could take a look at her leg. A bullet had grazed it, revealing the pink flesh underneath, the blood running off into the snow. While it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, she couldn’t put any weight on it.

“You alright?” Vessel was cowering behind a fallen tree, curled into a ball, being comforted by Nightmare.

“I’m alright, it just grazed me.” She looked back at her leg again. She wasn’t going anywhere on it.

“Princess!” An earth pony clad in saddlebags bearing the red cross of the medics rushed over, dodging gunfire as he did so. “You’re injured!”

“It’s nothing.” She dismissed. “Where is everypony?”

“We’re all scattered, Princess. This attack caught us completely off guard, and we have no way of fighting back against these things.” He explained as he bandaged her leg. “The large hovering ones are seemingly fitted with some kind of magical shield, none of our attacks are getting through, and the unicorns that we have don’t have enough mana to perform anything powerful enough to break it. Maybe if we got them all to perform a joint spell, but, like I said, we are all scattered.” He had to duck as a volley of lead was sent his way. “We can’t even coordinate enough to mount a resistance against their soldiers. You and you’re…” He cast an uneasy glance at Vessel. “…friend here are the only ones who have the strength to fight, but seeing as you’re currently injured…”

“I’ve suffered through worse.” Luna attempted to stand up and eventually managed after a few tries, although the pain was almost unbearable, causing her eyes to water slightly. She closed her eyes, breathed a few deep breaths, and opened her eyes again. “Private, go assemble any remaining ponies you can find and bring them here. We need to start fighting back.”

“Roger, General.” He saluted and scampered off back into the woods, a few bullets being shot his way.

“Well, the good news is that they don’t seem to be coming into the trees.” Nightmare said, poking her head over the log. “Most likely because either they fear us ambushing them, or they are focusing on something else.”

“My head hurts.”

“Yea, it looks like they are heading into the base.” Nightmare ignored Luna’s comment. A roar filled their ears as one of the aircraft flew overhead, still circling.

“So what should we do?”

“Hopefully, the flying things they arrived in aren’t protected by a powerful shield, only one just strong enough to block basic attacks. The two of us working together should be able to power through it and take it down.”

Luna sighed and slumped back on the ground, rubbing her head. “I’m too tired for this shit right now.”

A burst of gunfire could be heard originating from inside the base, and the soldier who had just arrived all hurried to the noise and began firing their weapons into the base.

“Looks like our boys are finally fighting back.” Nightmare smiled. “That’s our cue, get up. We need to do this while they are distracted.”

“…Do we have to?” Luna groaned. “I just got comfortable.”

“The sun just rose, and my power is draining fast. It wouldn’t do much good for your image if anyone found that you were sitting around while ponies got hurt for you, would it? If the upper class are anything like they were back in my day, they will tear you apart about this. Claim you’re unfit to rule, maybe try and start a revolution…”

“That was one time…” Luna grumbled, casting a painkilling spell on her leg. “There, I’m up. You happy?”

“What happened to the Luna who took her job way too seriously and spoke in old Equestrian?”

“She’s still here, but she’s been mostly absent after I learned there was more in life than work.” She smiled fondly, and then looked at Nightmare and Vessel. “Now, let’s go and kick these guys flanks.”