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Ponyville40k: Dawn of Friendship

by CommissarAJ

Chapter 4: The Dawn of Friendship: Part Three

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The Dawn of Friendship
Part Three
"When beset by doubt,
Wave your hooves and shout.
Witness danger’s gleam,
Open wide and scream."
-a popular poem amongst Cutie Mark Crusaders

Inquisitors are supposed to represent the bravest and most selfless ponies from across the Equestrium. We are expected to brave any danger and make whatever sacrifice necessary in order to ensure the continued prosperity of Her empire. And yet, despite all that, I was prepared to let all of Ponyville fall into madness if it meant getting away from the seemingly crazed tech-pony. Unsurprisingly, the sight of an Inquisitor fleeing like a scared filly aroused Spike's concern and curiosity, prompting the obvious inquiries as to what had transpired. I deflected the questions with vague answers in hopes of preserving what little sense of dignity I had remaining but I doubt my attempts were very convincing. Had any other member of the Inquisition bore witness to my pathetic display of authority, I would have been laughed right out of the organization.(1) My mentor had always told that I needed to spend more time around ponies rather than books and the results of my refusal to heed that lesson were finally beginning to set in. I had always anticipated that the mere weight of my office's authority would be sufficient to handle any situation but as the day had been successful in teaching me, I had my work cut out for me.

It wasn't until the observatory was far behind us that I was finally able to breath a sigh of relief and instruct my driver to pull over to the side of the road. Unfortunately, on a crowded city street there wasn’t much room anywhere to conveniently pull over, let alone in a forty-tonne tank, and Fluttershy’s attempt to follow my instructions to the letter resulted in her bumping into the back-end of a parked truck when she attempted to parallel park. As there was no such thing as a ‘gentle nudge’ when it involved a tank, Fluttershy went into a panic over the damage she caused. Apathetic to her plight, I simply hopped out of the tank and continued on foot.

“Come along Spike,” I instructed as I passed by the front of the tank.

“Where are we going now?” he asked.

Considering my erratic behaviour for the past several minutes, I knew that he deserved to be kept aware of my plans. Alas, that required having a plan, which I had left behind in the observatory along with my credibility and self-respect. “Anywhere,” was the best answer I could give him. “I just...need to be some place where I’m not being pestered by all these blasted ponies!” Not the easiest of tasks in a city filled with thousands upon thousands of ponies but immersing myself into the endless sea of bodies milling through the streets at least allowed me to get lost in anonymity. Not wanting to get separated, Spike hopped onto my back but thankfully did not pester me with his further inquiries. I suspected he could sense my frustration and knew not to add to my burdens. As I drifted through the crowds, my mind worked furiously to try and device a new plan of action.

I thought that perhaps I could return to the observatory later and hope that Rarity was too preoccupied with other duties to notice me. No - hope was never a proper strategy to go into any situation. Maybe I snuck in carefully I could bypass the tech-ponies altogether. Another no - tech-ponies generally had enhanced senses, not to mention security systems and robotic assistants. I would have better luck trying to sneak into the Royal Palace. Perhaps a different tech-pony would be able to get what I needed. Again, that banked heavily on hope, this time the hope that another tech-pony wouldn’t be just as crazy, if not crazier, than the one that I had already fled from. Even shooting my way in was beginning to sound like a plausible idea except for the glaring problem in that tech-ponies were often so mechanical that ‘sleep’ had been replaced with plugging into a wall outlet.(2) A lazegun would be, at worst, a mild inconvenience for Rarity; at best, a pleasant, warm sensation to brighten her day before ruining mine. After a lengthy internal debate, I was still no closer to a solution that didn’t run the risk of levelling the observatory in the process. “What am I going to do Spike?” I asked out of the blue, catching my compatriot by surprise.

“I’m still confused as to what we’re doing now,” he replied. “You’ve been walking for like ten minutes without saying so much as a word.”

“Oh...right,” I muttered upon realizing that I hadn’t been keeping Spike up-to-speed on my still non-existent plans. “The tech-pony at the observatory was...difficult to deal with. Just like every pony I’ve met on this planet. Now I just...” I trailed off for a brief moment, partly because I was unable to find the right words to express my concerns and partly because I didn’t want to talk about my work in public. I decided to rectify at least one of those issues and made my way to a clearing, scaling the weathered stone steps at the foot of a massive cathedral. With festivities and celebrations springing up across the planet, the cathedral probably didn’t see much traffic and I was able to take a seat at the top of stairs with nopony in the immediate vicinity to eavesdrop or pester me.

“You seem to be getting a little bit stressed out Twilight. Maybe you should take a short break,” Spike suggested as he hopped off my back. ‘A little bit’ was an understatement but I simply nodded in response rather than let on how much the strain was getting to me. In hindsight, he probably knew far better than he let on.(3) “Here’s my idea - you stay here and maybe unwind for a bit and I’ll go back to the observatory with Fluttershy and talk to the tech-pony there.”

As my assistant, Spike’s duties typically consisting of cleaning up my messes both big and small as well as handling all the little tasks that I was often too busy to pay attention to. He tidied my libraries, fetched my books and scrolls from the archives, made sure I ate properly when my studies kept me preoccupied, and always provided me with a second opinion on matters whether I had asked for it or not. All in all, Spike made sure I was free from distractions when I needed to be but this marked one of the first times that he had volunteered to fulfill my duties for me. Either he finally recognized the degree of the threat I was attempting to prevent or he could simply tell just how badly the ordeal was affecting me. Whatever the case, I was infinitely grateful for his offer and I even managed a weak smile back when I nodded. “Just...be careful around them. They can be a bit peculiar.”

“To ponies maybe. I’m a dragon, remember? You’re all a bit peculiar to me.” I had to concede that point to Spike. Even though he had been raised amongst ponies his entire life, there were things inherent to his dragon nature (4) that clashed with pony culture or this case left him indifferent to things that normally made other ponies uneasy. At the very least, dragons were incompatible with bionic augmentations (5) so he wouldn’t have to worry about becoming Rarity’s next customer. With his newly appointed task, Spike raced off to find Fluttershy, disappearing into the crowds like a drop into the ocean. For the first time in a while, I was truly alone with my thoughts and it did not take long for me to immediate begin wishing that Spike had remained with me. I felt a bit lost and despite my earlier eagerness to isolate myself, I soon came to the realization that what I really wanted was somepony to talk to free of all the expectations that came with being an Inquisitor.

Perhaps a more spiritual pony would have noted that it couldn’t have been a coincidence that I was having these thoughts while sitting on the steps of a cathedral. Being of the more logical school of thought, I merely thought of it as a fortunate turn of events in a day that had been plagued by the opposite. I couldn’t recall the last time I had spoken to a priest but I figured if anypony could give me peace of mind, it would be a servant of the Ecclesiarchy. Upon opening the towering wooden doors, I was greeted with a waft of a rather peculiar aroma. Most cathedrals I had visited smelt of burning candles, incense, and old ponies but instead I was met with the fragrances of cinnamon, cake frosting, apple pie, and numerous other baked goods. Were it not for the three-story tall statue of Empress Celestia at the far end of the grand hall, I would have concluded that I had stepped into a bakery that had been cleverly integrated into a house of worship to capitalize on the massive congregations. The more likely explanation, however, was that the cathedral was simply lending its facilities to the ongoing festivities and this became evident when a pony emerged from the back room pushing along a cart topped with various cakes and pies. The main thought running through my head at the time was a wonderment as to why Equestrian architects had such a fascination with stone columns, as there were a dozen of them running the length of the chamber on each side. Then again, back during my days as a filly, I had insisted that the posters adorning my dorm room were of equal dimensions and evenly spaced across the walls as to maximize coverage. My judgment of aesthetics was questionable at best. The vast chamber seemed to amplify and reverberate every sound to the point where one could have heard a mouse hiccup from across the room and the pervasive silence meant that we were the sole occupants of the room. And because of the aforementioned acoustics, my approaching hoofsteps were as noticeable as an oncoming train. The pony pushing the cart stopped in her tracks as I was about half-way down the aisle.

“Oh, hello! If you’re looking for something to eat, you’ll have to go around back and wait for the cake like everypony else,” the priestess said cheerfully.

“Actually, I’m not here for cake,” I corrected her. The baked goods did look quite tempting though and the constant assault of delicious fragrances was quickly reminding me that I hadn’t eaten in quite some time.

“Well that’s just silly. Why would you come here if not for the cake?” she replied as though amused by this concept. “And everypony’s out back, no point lolly-gagging around in this big ol’ empty hall.”

“I was kinda hoping I could find a priest to talk to,” I admitted reluctantly.

“Oh! In that case we should find you the head priestess. Oh wait a minute, that’s me!” At first I thought she was laughing because she was pulling my leg but the sight of a Celestial Star pendant hanging from around her neck confirmed that this was no joke. I was at a bit of a loss for words at first - she wasn’t what I had expected from a priestess. Most ranking members of the Ecclesiarchy were stuffy, old ponies with graying manes that droned on about how only following the word of Celestia would ensure joy and harmony in life.(6) The priestess before me, however, was probably no older than myself and her curly pink mane looked to be more full of life than all of me put together. “I’m Pinkamena Pious but everypony just calls me Pinkie Pie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before. What’s your name...and more importantly, do you prefer cake or pie?”

Confused didn’t begin to describe my mindset at the time, though I did manage to stammer out, “Twilight Sparkle...and, uh...cake, I guess.”

“All right! That’s another point for team cake,” the priestess cheered. “And since you’re new here, you get a free welcoming slice!” While the rational part of my mind knew that this wasn’t the time for cake, those thoughts were knocked out cold by a swift haymaker of hunger pain. Since I couldn’t operate on an empty stomach, it was easy to justify a quick snack. “Now how about you wipe that nasty frown away with some of my patented super-duper pink forest gateau?”(7)

Pinkie Pie didn’t even wait for a response before slicing off a piece of the aforementioned cake, which consisted of a tantalizing combination of chocolate cake layered with pink frosting and sweet cherries. Any semblance of self-control surrendered in the face of such a desert and I proceeded to wolf down the desert in a fashion quite unbecoming of a representative of the Empress’ will. But for a brief instant, as I savoured the moist, bittersweet cake, all the troubles of the galaxy just seemed to melt away.

“What did I tell ya? Nothing can stand against my gateau,” Pinkie Pie remarked. It took a second for me to realize that I had been subconsciously smiling as I ate the cake, a smile that persisted long after I was finished eating. “So how you take a seat and tell Auntie Pinkie what’s on your mind?”

“Well...okay,” I said reluctantly as I took a seat in one of the nearby pews. I was still uncertain whether this Pinkie Pie character was the right kind of pony I should be taking my concerns to but she was here and seemed genuinely concerned so it didn’t feel right to snub her. Besides, I owed her at least that much after that slice of cake. Actually I would have taken on the entire legions of Chaos single-hoofedly for another slice but that was beside the point. “It’s just...been one of those days where anything I try to do seems to fall flat on its face. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that my work is incredibly important and on a very tight deadline. But whenever I try to get any work done, I keep getting interrupted by some pony who wants me to be my friend.” I thought I would have been a bit more cautious with my words but it seemed that once I opened the door, all my frustrations and grievances came tumbling out. “I know friends are important and all but none of them ever seem to be able to get it through their thick skulls that I just need some alone time so I can do my job and prevent the Equestrium was tumbling into unbridled chaos!” After realizing I had let slip far more than I should of, I wanted to pound my head against the back of the pew in front of me until the stupid had been knocked out of my mind.

“Oh, I know what you mean,” Pinkie Pie replied sounding remarkable calm. Now either she didn’t believe what I had said or she simply didn’t understand the implications. She shifted into the pew in the row ahead of me, resting her forelegs on the backrest, continuing on as casually as two old friends chatting over lunch. “Why the other day I was baking cakes for the big festival but then this funny looking pegasus came in asking if I could bake up a batch of muffins for her. That wasn’t too hard since I had plenty of mix left over from my last orders but just as I was putting the muffins into the oven, Commissioner Applejack shows up and she’s all ‘Ah need more pies!’ Then she just dumps a big ol’ bag of apples onto my table and I mean big! There were apples everywhere! By the time I got the apples all cleaned up it was the mid-afternoon post-lunch, pre-dinner rush so all the ponies were storming in wanting to place orders of their own.”

“So...what did you do?”

“The only thing I could do, of course - I asked the Commissioner and the pegasus to lend a hoof so I could get everypony’s order done in time,” she answered in a very matter-of-fact tone. “But then the kitchen caught fire so everypony got their orders done flambe style.” I wasn’t certain how that was suppose to be reassuring or uplifting since Pinkie’s attempts to help everypony created a small disaster instead. If anything, it justified my frustrations. However, the priestess wasn’t finished with her tale. “Since Applejack felt so bad about my kitchen, she sent down all her tech-ponies (8) to help fix it all back up and she even brought in a bunch of her friends to speed things along. Thanks to her, I was able to get all my orders finished and even had time to bake extra cupcakes for Applejack and all her guardponies as thanks! That just goes to show that when you take care of your friends, they’re always there to take care of you. It’s like the God-Empress once said, ‘the Equestrium was built upon the backs of ponies united and so long as they stand together, so shall the Equestrium.’”

“Hm...I guess...I guess you have a point there,” I muttered in response. “I’ve been so quick to insist on doing everything on my own and avoid delays that I didn’t consider how much they could have helped speed things up. Funny, you’d think as an Inquisitor I would know better than this...”

“You’re an Inquisitor?” Pinkie gasped as I mentally face-hoofed my lapse in judgment. “That’s so awesome!”

I was expecting something to follow: a demand, a request, a favour, something. But aside from an awe-inspired grin, that was all the response I got from her. “That’s...it? It’s awesome?” I asked, poking fate with the proverbial stick when I should have just left it alone.

“Well of course, silly! You get to fly around the galaxy in big, super cool space ship and get to meet all kind of ponies. And everypony’s always happy to see you because you fix all the stuff that’s making them unhappy. It’s like being a superhero but without all the secret identity stuff and an unlimited budget (9) - what’s not awesome about that?”

We were both genuinely surprised by the other pony’s reaction. I had always viewed my duty as exactly that - a commitment to all ponykind. Gifted with exceptional magical talents and a keen intellect, I felt obliged to use these talents to their fullest and to help the Equestrium prosper. A position within the Inquisitional allowed me the chance to use my talents to their fullest while also allowing me access to the largest repositories of magical lore in the galaxy. And to be honest, it was the chance for study and research that interested me most of all. Helping ponies was important but I had always figured my contributions to the Equestrium would be of the academic nature - helping ponies on a much grander scale with new knowledge and theories. To coin the old adage, I wanted to teach a pony how to farm than just give him a bag of oats. But perhaps in my fixation on the grand scale, I was ignoring one of the most crucial aspects of being an Inquisitor - a symbol of hope. The ponies who I thought of as a nuisance didn’t come to me with their problems, they came to me with their greatest hopes and dreams. And they all aspired to serve the Equestrium in the greatest capacity they could just as I aspire to every day. Perhaps if I had been more accommodating, I wouldn’t have been in the situation that I was.

“Wow...I never really thought of it like that,” I said, finally breaking the prolonged silence from reflecting on the priestess’ words.

“And that’s why I get to wear the fancy robes,” she said gleefully. “Plus it’s like wearing a giant bib all the time.” Deciding a need to demonstrate this fact, or simply because our conversation had made her peckish, Pinkie Pie dove head first the remainder of the pink forest gateau, devouring it in a most unwholesome fashion that sent frosting and cherries flying in every direction. Quick wits and quicker reflexes were the only things that kept me from getting hit by the collateral as I ducked behind the pew, narrowly avoiding a cherry to the eye.

“Too bad I couldn’t have found you sooner, might have saved me from wasting an entire day,” I remarked with a quiet sigh. I could see through one of the nearby windows that the sky was turning crimson from the setting sun, which meant that if I was lucky and got started, I might be able find a place to rest before nightfall. Worse case scenario, there was a cot in the Pegasus-lander, which was only marginally better than sleeping on a slab of granite.

“What are you talking about?” Pinkie Pie replied as she licked excess frosting off her lips. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. You’ve got at least five hours of this beautiful Celestia-given day to enjoy!”

“Then...why is the sky all blood red and...oh no...” It took all my willpower to keep from flying into a panic as I raced out the doors to confirm that my worst fears had come to pass. As I stood upon the landing, I was stopped dead by the sheer, overwhelming silence of the once-bustling city. Every pony had their eyes cast skywards, watching curiously as dark clouds began to churn above and bark out bolts of lightning out to the horizon. “No...no, no no, no! It’s too soon. This isn’t supposed to be happening already. They can’t be here already!”

Now despite my reaction, the priestess, who had followed me out, simply stared skywards with a quizzical look in her eyes. “You mean there’s a schedule? Maybe you should have sent out an RSVP. Sooo...who can’t be here?”

“It’s Chaosmistress Luna! She’s summoning a rift (10) in the warp from which the unholy terrors of all that is madness and chaos can spew onto this world like a tidal wave of insanity!” Perhaps I was laying the hyperbole on quite thick but one could not stress the severity of a full-blown discord uprising. As the clouds coalesced, the rift began to open in the center of the formation, an unholy red eye of terror across the sky from which the legions of Chaos began to emerge from. First came the Chaos pegasus, flying directly out of the rift and blackening the sky with their vast numbers as they spread across the city. Then came the daemons and monsters of the warp as bolts of fiery energy flew from the rift, creating smaller rifts across the city from which these monstrosities could emerge. The deafening silence had now been replaced with blown panic as the citizens began to run in all directions, their terrified shouts drowning out the blaring alarms of the city’s loudspeakers.

“I...am going to need to make a lot more cake...” the priestess muttered, apparently finally beginning to realize the severity of our situation.

“This isn’t the time for cake!” I snapped. “I need to get back to my ship and...oh sweet Celestia! Spike! I need to find Spike before it’s too late.” Hopefully, Spike was rushing back the cathedral at that very moment but the panic in the streets wasn’t going to slow him down, if not bog him down completely. And as if things were already looking pretty bleak, my eyes caught another glimmer in the sky and that was when I saw...her. It was Chaosmistress Luna without a doubt. And though she was miles away, little more than a glowing ball of light descending from the rift, her arrival sent a chill through my very soul as though the very fabric of the universe shuddered at her presence.

Then, as though she were standing before me and speaking directly into my ear, the voice of Luna herself echoed in my mind. “Hear my words, unbelievers, carried to your minds by the power of the Prince of Madness himself. He has marked this planet for his own and the Lunar Legion has come to spread His word. Our numbers shall blacken the sky; our great machines shall make the earth tremble beneath your hooves; our dark magics shall bend reality to our will. There is no hope in opposing the inevitable. Rejoice, unbelievers! For your slavery to the false Empress ends today!”

I thought that I had known fear or at the very least knew what fear was. That day I felt what true fear was as I watched the seemingly endless legions of Chaos flooding across Ponyville. But I knew that I could not allow the fear to take root - I had to act, if only keep my mind focused on something other than that urge to flee and panic. There was some fleeing involved, however, but for an entirely different reason as I noticed one of the fiery bolts of energy hurtling towards our position.

“Incoming!” I screamed as I shoved Pinkie back into the cathedral. The corporeal meteorite slammed into the landing, setting the stone ablaze in warpfire, and through the rift emerged a daemon of the warp. I recognized it immediately as a manticore - a mid-level daemon of Discord (11) that possessed the wings of a dragon, the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion. It wasn’t the first time I had encountered this particular breed of beast but it was the first time that I did so without an army of space mareines standing between me and the monstrosity. “Run Pinkie!” I shouted as I tried slamming the cathedral doors on the beast. They lasted about as long as a single-ply tissue against a runny nose as the manticore simply smashed the doors clean off their hinges. I barely had enough time to dive out of the way, let alone scramble for cover in the pews. Wooden pews, however, were an ill-advised source of cover and no sooner had I taken cover was I running for my life again as one of the doors was hurled in my direction. I decided to return fire in a similar fashion, uprooting one of the remaining intact pews and tossing it at the manticore. In retrospect, if a foot-thick door didn’t give a manticore pause, a flimsy cathedral bench wasn’t going to fair any better. The beast smashed the pew with one swipe of its paw before charging headlong towards me. Thankfully, if there was one lesson that Star Swirl had been hammered into my mind like a tent stake, it was to always have your teleportation spell at the ready.(12) I was on the other side of the room by the time the manticore went barreling through the remaining pews.

“Alright warpspawn...it’s that’s how it’s going to be, then let’s party,” I called out as I mentally braced myself for the next attack. As I had predicted, once the manticore spotted me, it charged once again at full speed. Just before it pounced, I dove to the side and hit it with the strongest sleep spell I could muster. The disorientated beast fell headlong, at full speed, right into the stone column that I had strategically positioned myself in front of. Wooden doors and furniture might have posed no threat but there was nothing like the reliability of Equestrian architecture leaving a functional pointless stone column. Unfortunately, my victory was short-lived as the manticore’s skull proved to be far more durable than I had imagined, appearing unharmed despite having nearly broken the column in half. It slowly got back to its feet, dazed but now angrier than before, which meant another blast of a sleep spell would be as effective as a lullaby. But just as the warpbeast set its eyes upon me, a cake suddenly flew in from the side, striking the manticore in the face - a pink forest gateau cake to be precise.

“Out! Out I say!” shouted Pinkie pie as she hurled another frosted payload at the creature. “I cast thee out in the name of deliciousness!”

“Pinkie, I told you to run,” I called over to her. With the manticore’s face smeared with frosting and cherries, I had the opening I needed to regroup with the priestess, who now sported a bizarre contraption upon her back. It looked like some kind of artillery but it had been painted over in pastels, adorned with flags, spinners, and streamers, and the mouth had been paint molded to resemble that of a clown’s face. “And what in the name of Celestia is that thing?”

“You said ‘let’s party’ and it’s not a proper party until I bring out my trusty party cannon,” she explained, seemingly proud of her jury-rigged invention.(13)

“This isn’t really that kind of a party.”

“That’s okay, this isn’t really that kind of a cannon.” As the manticore wiped away the last of the frosting, Pinkie Pie fired a blast from her party cannon. While the recoil launched the priestess off her hooves, the shot roared from the cannon in a shower of smoke, confetti, and streamers, detonating in a brilliant flash and a near-deafening bang. The manticore, blinded by the shot, roared and swung wildly in its frustration. One unfortunate swipe, however, hit the stone column already weakened by the previous impact, fracturing it and sending it toppling down upon the beast. When the dust settled, the warpspawn beast was rendered unconscious and pacified.

“That was...unexpected.” The rather unorthodox display of pacification tactics left me struggling for words but Pinkie Pie seemed uninterested in any kind of praise.

“It’s also great for birthdays,” she replied as she began hopping towards the open door. “Come on, let’s go find this Spike of yours!”

Normally I would have argued that this was no business for a priestess, no matter how heavily armed, to get involved in but at the moment I was horribly outnumbered and if I were to have any hope of reaching the Relic of Harmony, still stowed away in my ship, I would need every bit of help I could get. The situation outside was rapidly deteriorating as scores of mad ponies began pushing through the streets. The sound of lazefire and cake cannons in the distance at least reassured me that the Equestrian Guards were responding to the situation but with the rift still open and more Chaos ponies arriving every minute, it was only a matter of time before the Apple Guard were overwhelmed by weight of numbers. My only hope, the planet's only hope, was in me getting back to my ship and using the Relic of Harmony to stop Luna. That planned hinged on me not only accomplishing that which no other pony had done since the time of the Luna Heresy but also standing in the presence of Chaosmistress Luna for more than ten seconds without being reduced to a wallowing mess of babbling lunacy. I always had a tendency to set high expectations for myself but I had outdone myself that day.

"We need to get to the observatory," I explained as we hurried down the stairs. Unfortunately, a pair of ponies emerging from a chapel of the Empress caught the attention of every Chaos-worshipping pony in the vicinity. They were already amassing at the bottom of the stairs, their madness-filled eyes fixated on us, along with their assortment of lazeguns and cupcake stubbers.(14) "Well Pinkie, looks like this party just got a whole lot bigger." The odds were stacked heavily in their favour but it took more than a twenty-to-one odds to discourage me, especially when I had a pink-maned artillery piece at my side.

“Praise Celestia and party on!” she cried out, firing a volley at the heretical ponies. With our opponents sufficiently blinded and disorientated, I had time to charge up a powerful sleep spell. It was a risky move, however, as sleep spells were rarely used on such a wide scale and I ran the risk of being knocked out as well, either by the spell backfiring or sheer exhaustion. Thankfully, weak-minded heretics don’t take as much energy to lull to sleep so I was able to put the forty or so ponies to bed without joining their ranks. But only just barely and trying to trot down a set of stairs while half-awake was an equally daunting challenge. I almost managed to make it all the way down the stairs but unfortunately almost only counted with horseshoes and grenades and I unceremoniously face-planted into the sidewalk before the last few steps. “Come on Twilight,” Pinkie Pie encouraged as she lent me a helping hoof, “this is no time for napping. Nap time comes after party time.”

“You’re right...this is no time for resting,” I said groggily. However, even if I had wanted to rest, there were another dozen heretical ponies who had no interest in letting me do so. They stretched across the width of the street, barring our path. “Okay...going to need a new plan,” I murmured as the next horde of heretics closed in on us. I was still a bit winded from my last spell but I was prepared to take the risk.

By the Empress’ grace, however, that didn’t need to come to pass. “Friendship from the skies!” a familiar voice shouted overhead just seconds a blue-armoured pony crashed into the streets between myself and the heretics. It was an Ultrapony space mareine and, judging by the rainbow-coloured plume on the helmet, it was none other than Rainbow Dash. “Feel the love of the Empress, heretics!” she bellowed as she drew her pistol and started firing into the crowd. The Chaos ponies tried to return fire but their lazeguns and cupcakes were no match for the hate-enduring might of Dash’s power barding. Her shots burst into clouds of potent laughing gas amongst the heretics, causing them to double over in fits of uncontrollable laughter until sheer exhaustion rendered them pacified and silent.(15) With the enemies pacified, Dash holstered her weapon and turned to Pinkie and I. “Now that is how you make an entrance!” she exclaimed boastfully. “Swooping in right in the nick of time and then ‘bam bam bam!’ Down go the heretics! Be sure to let the Wonderbolts know about this moment when you tell them about me.”

Sweet Celestia, I prayed that Dash hadn’t flown all the way across town just to safeguard her hopes of becoming a Wonderbolt. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the timely rescue but most ponies would have at least been a bit more tact about their reasons. “Shouldn’t you be with your fellow mareines?”

“Actually Commissar Applejack asked me to find you and take you to her,” she explained. “She said it couldn’t have been a coincidence that you showed up just before all this madness broke out so if anypony had an idea how to stop this, it’d be you. Please tell me you have a plan. As awesome as I am, I can’t pacify an entire planet on my own...well, maybe I could but that’s a lot of work.”

“Well we need to find my assistant first. He should be somewhere near the observatory with Private Fluttershy.”

“Then let’s hurry, Applejack can’t wait forever.”

“Hold on,” Pinkie Pie interrupted just as Dash was about to take off. “You forgot one of your grenades.”

“No I didn’t,” Dash insisted despite the fact that Pinkie Pie was directing our attention to the grenade on the ground between us. “I have a little display in my helmet that tells me how many grenades I have left. Obviously this is somepony else’s...oh ponyfeathers...”

In retrospect, we should have realized a lot sooner that somepony had thrown a grenade at us.


Footnotes:
1) Unfortunately, Twilight vastly over-estimates what the other members of the Inquisition thought of her. At this stage in her career, she was barely even known within her own circle of Inquisitors. She was ‘that purple one that lives in the librarium.
2) Most tech-ponies have sleep regulator chips, which allow the organic parts of their mind to sleep while the mechanical components take over conscious function. It’s kind of like controlled sleep-walking.
3) Of course I knew, it was my job to know. A job made easier by the fact that Twilight can’t hide her stress at all. There’s a twitch she has when she gets stressed.
4) Recovered dragon technology suggests that dragons are ‘taught’ even during gestation, hence why I could speak dragis without ever having met a dragon before.
5) That has something to do with a dragon’s incredible regenerative capabilities and unfamiliarity with our physiology. I am, to date, the only dragon the Equestrium has had long-term contact with. And I wasn’t about to let them start probing me.
6) Typically, it takes twenty or more years to reach the rank of Head Priestess. Pinkie Pie’s eccentricities ensured that no other priest wanted to be around her and her popularity made her impossible to replace. Thus, she earned the position by default.
7) It really is patented. And it was declared Ponyville’s official dessert in M42.123 after being credited with ending the Nanosprite Crisis.
8) Known as Enginseers, these types of tech-ponies are assigned to Equestrian Guard regiments to help maintain their vehicles and equipment. They are usually considered the most ‘normal’ of the Adeptus Mechanicolt.
9) Inquisitors are responsible for their own finances so it’s technically not unlimited. However, being able to seize any and all property as needed makes accumulating wealth very easy. Why do you think so many Inquisitors have gold-plated barding?
10) Typically, to breach the veil into reality, a summoning ceremony is required on our side of the warp. The star cluster alignment that Twilight was worried about, however, weakened the veil enough for Luna to create a rift on her own.
11) Daemons come in five different flavours, four of which represent the different aspects of Discord - madness, power, hate, and greed. The fifth type, such as a manticore, represent Discord as a whole.
12) The other two essential components to any successful Inquisitor, according to Star Swirl, were a loaded lazepistol and a thermos of tea.
13) We’re still not sure how it worked without blowing up in her face. It’s now considered a holy relic of the Ecclesiarchy.
14) Slang term for any primitive, food-throwing form of weaponry.
15) Standard space mareine sidearm is the Colt-Pattern Jokester pistol, which fires a shot containing a potent compound made of laughing gas, endorphins, and sedatives.

Next Chapter: The Dawn of Friendship: Part Four Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 2 Minutes
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