Star Swirl looked over those that had arrived. The warlocks had gathered, ready to do battle, he nominally included. He wasn't a warlock, officially, but he had served with them, and they had no objection to his being there again.

Luna was there, but only to see them off. She would not repeat her mistake.

The transporter was there, despite all advice to the contrary. "I'm ready for this," she muttered to herself, shuffling from hoof to hoof in an anxious display.

Star turned towards her. "You are not obligated to accompany us. Neigh, you are even advised to go home. You have served your country well."

"Don't say that!" She thrust a hoof at him. "Stop talking about me like I'm already dead. I made a mistake, and... it was bad... but it's over, and I'm ready! I won't get caught again."

The martial artist rolled her eyes grandly. "Until you do, and then you'll be a big pile of tears and lost dreams."

"Shut up!"

"Make. Me." She took a step forward, chest puffed out. "I'd love to see you try."

Luna put a hoof between them. "I can verify that she is whole. If she wishes to respond to this call to arms, she should be welcomed. Now, please, turn your attention to the matter at hoof."

With soft grumbling, they all turned towards the front, where a human was preparing to speak.

Elsewhere in the crowd, Starlight sat next to Twilight. "Why are you here?" asked the first, peering at Twilight. "I didn't figure you'd ever want to get involved, you know, as a soldier as the humans call them."

"I could ask the same question."

"Fine, I'll guess then." Starlight held up a hoof with a cocky smirk. "You plan to get in close, then poof, you'll be gone, off to try to make friends and stop this war even if they never give you official permission to try."

"That would be consistent with her behavior," agreed Moon Dancer on the other side of Twilight. "I would ask that you not go alone. The situation is different from last time."

Twilight turned to her other friend. "And why are you here? I mean... This is so beyond your comfort zone."

Moon Dancer shrugged softly. "I imagined you'd be here, so I... thought I'd come... Your other friends won't be here."

That much was true. The call didn't leave much room for most of her other friends. They wanted unicorns that were trained in magic. That crossed out all of her inner circle, save Starlight. Rarity's talents were not what they were seeking, as lovely as they were.

"Me too!" sang out Minuette, seated just past Moon Dancer with a big grin. "I always have time for a good friend."

Starlight hiked a brow at the grinning mare. "You know this is about as opposite of fun as it could be, right?"

"With great ponies like you all here? How can it be not fun?!"

Twilight leaned over. "With her surprisingly intense control of time magic, she may be quite valuable," she whispered to Starlight. "I just hope she isn't hurt."

"I can hear you," sang out Minuette, giggling to herself before putting her hooves on Moon Dancer, half-flopped against her. "This is too exciting!"

"Thank you all for coming so quickly," spoke the human in the front. "This will be the first and true test of the power of our unity. As members of the EFC, we must protect ourselves from aggressors. You will be travelling with American units to support them. Each of you--" He saw a hoof suddenly shoot up. "Yes, Missus..."

"Moon Dancer," offered the mare with a proper nod. "I imagine you are eager to spread us among your forces, but may I suggest we not be seperated to less than two to a given place? Redundancy is critical, to speak nothing of the negative emotional effects of isolation. Many of us are familiar with others here, and placing us in pairs, rather than alone, will increase our effectiveness."

Minuette suddenly threw an arm over Moon Dancer. "Dibs!"

Moon Dancer clenched her teeth, her plan to personally protect Twilight ruined before it had truly begun.

Sunburst nodded softly with a growing smile. "You really did it, fantastic. This has been a hallmark week for us all."

"Got a good grade?"

With a glowing horn, he pulled out his report card, showing his good grades for all the other scientists to see. "I'm really getting a hang on this engineering thing. It's not that different from magic, in a way. It's a different... way of going, but the end is the same, logical structures to accomplish an effect."

A round of polite clapping filled the room, but most of the attention was on the platform that had a chair resting on it, the working lifter. "Just think," sighed out a scientist with a hopeful smile. "We could do so much with this. Without needing unwieldy amounts of power and infrastructure you could have, say, gurneys that float perfectly evenly across all surfaces, able to float up and down to get where you want them."

"Gurneys?" challenged another. "That was really your first thought? We'll never need a crane again. Take all that power and put it into a thaumaturgic grappler and you can move tremendous objects without also needing to be far above them in expensive machines. Construction will never be the same."

"Search and rescue," noted a third, finger raised. "If you can literally reach into a collapsed building, support it all, and start lifting it all out of the way in one smooth motion? Imagine the saved lives. Avalanche fatalities will become a bitter memory too."

Sunburst raised a hoof. "We've floated a chair, and don't get me wrong, this is quite the accomplishment, but it won't be doing any of the things you're describing just yet."

"Space travel!" blurted the first. "Dear God in heaven! We don't need propellant, just power, and the grappler could keep pushing any spaceship we wanted along."

Excited babble resumed, undeterred by Sunburst's call for moderation. It was an exciting time for them all.

A submarine wove through the waters. It was not as hidden as once it was. It was not as alert as once it was. These two things had the same cause. Their aquatic allies could see it without much difficulty. Sometimes they'd even wave as it went past. The same allies would not appreciate high-powered sonar bursting their ears and driving them away. On the positive, those allies were friends by and large. None of the sea-borne species had signed with the TSDI, even if some of them had remained neutral between them and the EFC.

America had finally stopped blasting the ocean with noise. It only took a sapient water-dwelling creature that could formally complain about the ruckus.

The diminished submarine continued despite these limitations, approaching its destination.

Extending a thin periscope to the surface, these were not their grandfather's periscopes, barely an inch across as it peered across the water. There it was, an enemy battleship, moving purposefully through the water. The submarine turned to intercept, its torpedo bays opening.

A single sonar ping sounded out. It was a warning to their friends, the only they'd get.

With a rush of agitated water, the torpedos sped out from the hidden submarine, the periscope already drawing back beneath the waves.

The ship had no idea anything was happening until an explosion brightly flared, but the ship was not ripped to shreds. A brilliant shield flared where one of the torpedos had struck, fractures displayed, but the ship unharmed. "Bad hit, bad hit," called out one navy man. "Negative effect."

The battleship was turning towards them, its many guns turning to the submarine. With a great and low thump they could feel beneath the waves, they opened fire. Shells began to rain down on the water around them, glancing blows bouncing off the shell of the submarine, but with no direct hits. "They're firing blind."

"Send me in!" roared an inhuman sailor. "I'll tear that thing to pieces!"

The captain eyed his reptilian serviceman. "And how exactly do you plan to get to them in the middle of this?"

The Garble thumped his chest. "I got this. Just launch me out like the torpedo things."

"We're not that desperate yet. Sit down." Not that they couldn't push him out of a torpedo bay if they really wanted to, pushing him with an air gust normally reserved for broken torpedos, but he was not ready to fire his own men, even a dragon man, at the enemy. "Evasive hard turn, get us out of their firing arc and we'll take another strafe."

The submarine started ahead and sharply to the right, cutting through the water. With a violent lurch, anyone still standing was thrown to the metal floor. A lucky shell had impacted their side, alarms were sounding and red lights strobing. Men began scrambling to keep the sub moving and intact.

"This was supposed to be a duck shoot," grumbled the captain. That their missiles could be deflected, even once, had not been part of the battle plan. "Get on the radio, let them know back home what's going on. If we go down, this information has to be in their hands yesterday!"

It was a breach of procedure, and opened them to further attack if the enemy was monitoring for radio broadcasts, but the intel was valuable enough, determined the captain.

The ship rocked violently, another shot coming far too close for it to be entirely chance. The area that was being peppered with cannon fire was becoming smaller. "Damn it all. Keep moving, load the bays. We're firing now before we're sent to the bottom!"

He needn't have told them to load the shots, they had done that as soon as the first two had fired, and had two more bays already ready at that very instant. The torpedos were already in position, rammed into place. Wires were connected and the bays were locked up tight. They had four shots ready to go.

"Ready," came the word over the local ship-wide comm channel.

"Fire when ready." He thrust a finger forward, not that any of them cared where he was pointing.

Four torpedoes swam out of the submarine, accelerating rapidly through the water towards the source of enemy fire. A muffled explosion washed over them, one of the speedy missiles hit in the hail of fire from above, but the other three were on target.

Despite their evasive moving, the shots were still coming. "Major damage in the aft port. Flooding reported. Fires contained," droned out one man reading out the bad news.

"Impact impact. Two tags, damage unconfirmed!"

They couldn't see it, but the torpedoes struck home, ripping the shields into tattered shreds in a gaping hole, but there were no torpedoes following them.

That didn't mean nothing was following them. Suddenly a new combatant entered the naval battle. Dozens of equine-snouted warriors flooded through the compromised shield. Unasked for and unexpected, the Seaquestrians had arrived. With a great aquatic cry that could be heard on the sonar, they began tearing at the ship from below with tridents and spears worked into the water-tight gaps between the metal plates.

The ship began to list to the side, water flooding into it more and more quickly with every eagerly torn hole the sea ponies inflicted on it. The shots peppering the submarine fell off, the angle wrong for the guns to strike them.

"Get us out of here." They couldn't fire with the Seaquestrians in there, continuing the fight. "Damn and bless them at the same time, but get us out of here!" The captain barked orders, getting the submarine to withdraw from the fight and trusting in their aquatic allies to finish the fight they had started.

Garble crossed his arms with a huff. "We softened them up first. They're just finishing it up..."

"Stop musing and get on damage control!"

Author's Notes:

Equestria reports for duty. Seaquestria does not report, but gets in there anyway.

What would you do with unicorn lifting magic turned into technology?

Enjoy the writing? Help me stay afloat and show your support by joining the Patreon!

Join my discord to chat!