Consolidating

+++ Unusual cloud formation +++

Sergeant Airman Meghan Brown brought her Delta-271 "Drake" low over the clouds. She had just swept over some tank and walker battle in the middle of the Great Plains when a wave of energy swept over her jet plane. At first she didn't think anything of it, but then she noticed a cloud that had suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of the Drakes nose. She tried to report the incident to command, but from the sounds of it, command had enough to worry about. Something about horses of some sort. Horses couldn't bother her up in the clouds, and some strange cloud that suddenly appeared probably wouldn't gain much attention, and would probably earn her a demotion for bringing up useless clouds... Sighing, she switched off the comm.

But as the jet propelled gunship/fighter plane rocketed closer towards the cloud, it being in the way, Meghan saw BUILDINGS sprouting out of the cloud.

"What. The Hell." she stated to no one in particular, as her current mission was a solo. She veered the stick towards the strange cloud, deciding to investigate it. Multicolored dots soon came into focus around the cloud. At first Meghan thought they were birds, but then she nearly flew into one. In the briefest of glances, one of the adrenaline fueled ones that let's a person see huge amounts of detail, a... A Horse? With feathered wings... Wearing metal plates... Meghan almost immediately brought the screaming engines down to a murmur But even with the engine whispering, the machine was still going well over 100 kilometers per hour. She juked through the cloud of strange creatures, noting that some had leathery wings, while the rest had feathered wings, and the two different groups were in a battle of some kind...

She swerved through buildings and columns that wouldn't have looked out of place in ancient Rome... Taking extreme care to not clip the bizarre structure with her wings, what if they were solid? Drakes didn't build themselves after all, Meghan zipped around, exploring the strange cloud scape as a medieval aerial battle played out in it's streets. Suddenly a flash of lighting drew her attention, a sudden flash from below her craft made it very noticable. Meghan turned the engines off and activated the rotors that were in the Drakes wings, making it a very dangerous hovering gunship. She brought the nose around to point in the direction of the flash, and began to descend.

The sight that showed itself was very surprising and puzzling. Two horse like beings, a dark black one, and a burning white one, both with wings and some kind of horn, seemed to battling with some kind of laser weapon... But since lasers didn't wrestle with each other, those could easily be ruled out. She continued to stare at the fighting duo for several minutes, trying to make sense of their very existence. Such beings did not, COULD not exist on Terra... Finally they stopped firing their lasers at each other, noticing that they now had an audience. They seemed to speak to each other, if horses would talk that is... The two then glanced at her aircraft with mischievous grins.

"Fuck." Meghan stated as she brought the multi-lasers in her wings online. She then turned on a speaker that was mounted on the hull of the vehicle. "Unknown assailants... Cease all hostile actions immediately... I am Sergeant Airman Meghan Brown of The United American Alliance... Do NOT attempt to fire on me, any attempt to do so will be met with lethal force." she stated into her mic. The two pointed their horns at the aircraft, witch were now starting to glow with light. "Don't say I didn't warn you..." Meghan muttered as the multi-lasers burst into life, sending burning beams towards the duo faster than a mini-gun could. A kind of force shield appeared in front of them, blocking the barrage. Meghan turned the mic off just in time to say "Fuck."

The creatures horns began to glow once again. See if you can catch me... Meghan thought to herself as she flared the twin jet engines into life. Suddenly going so fast, the plane broke the sound barrier only 10 meters away, thankfully Humanity had somewhat mastered gravity engines, making the sudden acceleration seem like the transition from walking to running. She swooped in a large loop-de-loop, bringing the nose pointed downwards at a 90 degree angle, right over the two beings that were bound to be bewildered. Meghan armed some of her fragmentation rockets, and set the war heads so they exploded with a proximity of a meter. Reaching about 30 meters from impact, she fired the rockets downwards and pulled up. The sudden deceleration of pulling up let the sound wave of the resulting explosion catch up, Meghan quickly glanced behind the machine... Only to see the two relatively unharmed... And battling each other once again, but this time flying after her craft.

"They obviously haven't learned their lesson..." she muttered, turning back towards the nose of the aircraft. She set the engines loose again, breaking the sound barrier and scattering some of the building shaped clouds. There wasn't much that could out fly a Drake, especially when going super sonic... And certainly nothing a HORSE could use could come close... Meghan thought to herself.

Her Drake sped through the cloud city, dodging winged horses and spires with ease. Meghan absent mindlessly glanced to her right, and what she saw shook her very soul... The burning horse was RIGHT outside the transparent aluminum... And was gazing through the cockpit window AT her... It's eyes... They were miniature super novas, burning with an ancient hatred... How a horse could match the speed of the Drake, she had no idea. Even if the creature had managed to keep up, there was no way it could out outmaneuver her jet plane. Meghan tilted the Drake away and pulled out of the trajectory. The predatory jet punched through the wispy clouds underneath. Suddenly the aircraft shook.

"The hell?" Meghan asked herself while looking around. She found the answer to her dilemma when she looked at the left wing. Standing there, despite going faster than the speed of sound and partially upside down, was the dark winged horse, unfazed by the whipping elements around it. Meghan began to hear whispers. She shook her head and accelerated again. "Let's see how you like this..." she grimly whispered to herself, making the speeding jet dance. Despite the barrel rolls, juking, and other extreme maneuvers, the dark creature stood resolute on her wing. CLUNK. It took a step forwards. The whispering became louder. CLUNK. Meghan could hear distinct words now. CLUNK. The words weren't any language that she knew. But their meaning was clear.

Surrender yourself to me...

"In hell I will..." Meghan murmured in defiance, letting the twin jet engines loose once again. The whispering turned into laughter.

Do you honestly believe you can knock me off your wing?

"Absol-fucking-lutly." grinned Meghan, suddenly reversing the engines, making the jet take a instantaneous stop. Whatever force kept the creature on her wing didn't expect the sudden deceleration and the horse was thrown off her wing. The whispering disappeared. Meghan let loose a sigh of relief. Then she started to notice that she had stopped in the middle of a plaza, or what appeared to be a plaza, if one could be this high. Horses with the leathery wings began to gather on the surrounding buildings. How they managed to stand on top of a cloud, Meghan could only guess at. Suddenly her jet shook again, more violently and warning lights came on.

"Major engine damage." a calm voice stated. A holographic version of her plane appeared on her HUD, showing a massive hole that had torn through the jet engine propulsion vents.

"Fuck." Meghan whispered. There went her any escape plan that she could've thought of. But what had hit her anyway? Meghan peered out of the cockpit, looking down.

Below the now damaged jet plane, was the dark horse standing on the cloud, and pointing its horn upwards towards the jet.

Surrender mortal!

Meghan grinned to herself. Nah. She thought. Even if her jet was no longer capable of super sonic speeds, the multi-lasers still worked. And by god... She would teach these horses what the definition of "overkill" meant. The already powered multi-lasers spat searing blasts of light into the gathering bat winged ponies, who immediately surged towards her hovering jet. Several of the flying horses immediately vaporized, some were burnt into two, but most mobbed the wounded plane.

The Drake's turbines strained as Meghan tried to keep the plane under control. The HUD started to flash red.

"WARNING WARNING" the computer calmly stated. "IMMINENT DANGER PLEASE EJECT." Meghan ignored the computer and kept the multi-lasers trigger pressed, sending searing laser blasts into the swarm. One of the horses landed on the nose of the Drake, it was the strangest thing Meghan had ever saw. The bat winged horse, if that wasn't strange enough already, had cat eyes... CAT eyes... Thoughts about cats and horses were ripped from Meghan's mind as the jet swerved sideways. She wrestled with the stick, trying to keep the jet in the air.

"Command, this is Barracuda. I am going down, I repeat, I am going down."

+++ Unknown holding facility +++

Captain Blackwing awoke with a start. The past few hours were all a blur. After being captured by the strange bipedal creatures, her remaining squad were hurried to unknown locations. Where, they were put into some sort of natural "holding pen". There were about 40 other ponies in there, not including her squad. It was soon became apparent that they weren't all on the same side, as there were other Lunar Guards and Solar Soldiers as well. But it was the third, much smaller group that Blackwing was interested in. While the warring ponies were at each others throats, these few sat huddled in the corner, not understanding what was going on in between the others. That, and they spoke like the strange aliens that had imprisoned them.

Blackwing realized what had woken her up. The Solar Soldiers had started yelling again, but only louder. The Lunar forces that weren't under her command started to argue back. Thankfully, her squad had remained outside the argument.

"ENOUGH!" she yelled, finally sick of the constant bickering. "We are trapped in an unknown location, held hostage by unknown aliens, and are yelling at each other when we SHOULD be trying to escape... NOW STOP BUCKING ARGUING!" This ceased all yelling, although there were still murmurs.

"I'm not listening to moon scum like you." stated a stallion unicorn in sun armor. Blackwing looked at him. His armor had more intricate designs than the average sun soldier, indicating him as a Captain. Blackwing sighed.

"And you are?" she asked.

"Captain Blueblood." stated the stallion. "Now get back on your side..." he commanded, gesturing with his hoof towards the wall behind her.

"Side?" asked Blackwing, looking around. Finding out that some pony had drawn a line in the dirt, separating the pen into two sides, Blueblood was pointing towards the obviously smaller side. "Don't you understand? We're stuck here, where ever here is, until we we can escape... And you want to continue the war in here?"

"Hmmph... Like moon scum like you can stand before the Solar Guard..."

"You're kidding right?"

"No, now get on your side."

"How much of an imbecile are you?" asked Blackwing, legitimately concerned that such an idiot had been promoted.

"You dare to call Princess Celestias nephew an im... im... an idiot!" he stammered. Blackwing rolled her eyes.

"So that's how you got above Private... A Prince would certainly get special treatment..." Blackwing smiled evilly, this "Blueblood" was now obviously Prince Blueblood, Celestias adopted nephew, an idiot by reputation. The crown Prince of the Solar Empire looked like he was about to explode.

"That's it! I'll teach you moon scum a lesson!" he yelled, as his horn began to glow. Blackwing was waiting for this. Her face took on a bored expression as her hoof shot out and knocked the irritating unicorn unconscious.

"Now that, that's settled..." stated Blackwing, her dominance clearly being obvious to every pony. "First of all, what they hay is wrong with them?" she asked pointing towards the third group of ponies that stayed away from every pony else. There were general mutterings. "What was that?" Blackwing asked.

"We don't know." one of the Solar Soldiers piped up after a moment of silence. "They seemed curious at first but they don't speak Equestrian... So they kind of... Clumped up over there. And we just sort of left them alone..."

"Does any pony know a translation spell?" Blackwing asked. One of the Solar Unicorns raised her hoof.

"I do... But we didn't have enough Unicorns to perform the spell..." she said.

"How many do you need?" asked Blackwing.

"Twelve." the Unicorn said. Blackwing did a quick count. With her squad included, they now had 13.

"We have 13 now... Can you start preparing for it?"

"Sure..." she murmured. "Just give me a couple of hours to get it ready..."

After seven hours of erasing Bluebloods line, carving runes, testing said runes, and teaching the available Unicorns what to do... They were ready, well sort of.

"All we need now is some pony to use as a reference..." said the lead Unicorn.

"A reference?" Blackwing asked.

"Well, for the spell to work, it needs a kind of reference to work from, kind of like a sample to copy." explained the unicorn.

"We could use them..." Blackwing pointed at the group of strange ponies.

"Good luck trying to get one in the circle..." stated the mare.

"Why?" Blackwing asked.

"Look for yourself." she said, pointing towards the huddled group. Blackwing looked closer, now seeing a Lunar Earth pony trying to communicate with them.

"I'll see what I can do..." Blackwing said, as she started towards the strange group. When she got there, the Earth pony was desperately trying to communicate with the strange ponies. And strange they were... Instead of the iron plate armor of the New Lunar Republic, or the magically reinforced gold brass of the Solar Empire, they had stiff green cloth that had strange symbols on the chest and shoulders. None of which made any sense to Darkwing.

"Any luck?" she asked the Earth pony stallion.

"Nope..." said the stallion. "They just don't understand Equestrian... At all..." he said.

"Go take a break... I'll try for a little while." she said. The stallion sighed with relieve and walked away. Blackwing sat down and examined the group in silence. Most of them were stallions, only one mare was in the group... Most of them didn't have a cutie mark, which was strange as they were all fully grown... The only one that did, also seemed to be the oldest. But it was the strangest thing, and it made no sense to Blackwing. It was some sort of ape skull that was wearing a beret... She had no idea what that meant, so no ideas there. They sat in silence for several minutes, studying each other, and trying to think of ideas to communicate.

Finally Blackwing had an idea. She took her hoof and drew in the dirt. It was one of the symbols on their "uniforms". A kind of arrow that pointed upwards. The ones who had the symbol inclined their heads towards her, they seemed to be the youngest of the group. That was something... Blackwing modified the symbol, by adding another upwards arrow. This gained the attention of more of them. The ones who had the modified symbol seemed to be a little older. If these arrow things signified age... Then she could use that to communicate. Somehow. Blackwing then modified the symbol so that it matched only the symbol that matched the oldest stallions vest, he was the only one with lines underneath his arrows. But this time she including a drawing of a pony standing in the middle of a rune circle. She then pointed at the stallion and pointed at the real circle. The stallion cocked his head in confusion. Blackwing repeated the gesture, and then pointed at her drawing of the pony in the circle. He nodded in apparent understanding. Then he got up and went into the middle of the enclosed space, standing in the middle of the rune circle. Blackwing followed him but stopped at the edge of the circle.

"I think we're ready." she said. The twelve Unicorns gathered around the circle, equally spaced apart.

"Ok... Start in... 3... 2... 1!" yelled the lead Unicorn. Immediately the Unicorns started to pump their magic into the circle, the stallion in the middle looked worried and scared, but he remained still. The strange pones also approached the circle, but remained behind the watching Lunar and Solar ponies. The runes began to glow and move in circles. They swirled faster and faster until suddenly they stopped. The lead Unicorn stepped forwards.

"Can you understand me?" she called. The Stallion whipped his head towards her and smiled.

"Loud and clear."

Author's Note

Merry Christmas all! I figured I'd release another chapter this week for the holidays and whatnot. And now we get to the FUN section of this story >:D