Canterlot, Equestria, and Anything

"EVERYPONY UP, THIS SORRY EXCUSE FOR AN AIR-SHIP IS GOING DOWN, EVACUATE ALL PASSENGERS VIA LIFE CHARIOTS. DUSK STRIDER AND CLOUD TREADER WILL BE LEADING THE EVACUATION PROCEDURES. HOP TO IT, LADIES!” With that, all pegasi from the E.R.T Stations were off; shambling, tripping over each other, and trying to get the ringing out of their heads while charging to the six-pony operated Life Chariots and towards different hallways alerting all passengers that a ship 30,000hv’s off the ground was about ready to make an immediate, unplanned, stop.

While everypony was either having a last drink in the bar; screaming frantically while flailing their hooves every which way; or just trying to find a way to pass the time until either a Life Chariot was open to be whisked away to safety upon or until they got a first-class seat to a hands-on demonstration of Gravity 101; Dusk Strider was coordinating the evacuation procedures along with her companion, Cloud Treader.

“I really wish the Captain was more subtle with the alerts. I don’t think many ponies like getting woken up in the middle of the night panicking. Did he know that it went throughout the whole ship and not just to the Emergency Response Team Stations?” Dusk asked after giving the orders to the last of the rescue teams, while watching from the clouds at the air-ship that was now descending awkwardly backwards.

“It is his first time being the Captain and--…Is the ship supposed to be descending backwards like that?” asked Cloud after marking off the team that had just left checking in for new orders.

”I’m sure that’s just the influx of ponies shoving and pushing their way to the Life Chariots coming back from the first group, by the way, how many more groups are there?”

“After this group, maybe two or three more, at this rate we might be able to send the Life Chariots back to actually grab everypony’s luggage.” Cloud was now sketching different types of ponies running to and fro on her notebook that was meant to keep track of the Life Chariots that were coming and going.

“That ship has been falling for about an hour now ever since the night-watch missed the un-emptied hail cloud the size of that one pony we met at Ponyville…”After a few moments of thought and deep contemplation that put the amount of thought she put into the safety procedures to shame. “I can’t believe I forgot his name.”

“Did you mean Big Macintosh?”

“No, the white coat one. The one that liked yelling a lot and who flew quickly but had tiny wings.” Dusk said as she mimicked tiny flapping wings with her fore hooves.

After some deep thought of her own, “….Oh, Roid Rage.” Cloud said with a grin on her face as she saw the last of the Life Chariots fly away to the nearest opening on the ground. “I liked him, he was a great coach back in Cloudsdale, even though he kept showing up from nowhere during flight practice yelling ‘YEAH!’ at the top of his lungs. He even said it when some of us were doing poorly or crashing through the obstacles. I just assumed he was being optimistic most of those times seeing as he was the cause of most of those crashes anyway. ”

Dusk now facing Cloud with a smile, “That was a very interesting impersonation of him.” Letting out a chuckle, she motioned Cloud to follow. “I guess it’s time to get back with everypony else. Was there anything you wanted to grab from the ship before we go? I’m sure they have a surplus of that special cider you’ve been gawking every time we passed the bar area.”

After thinking it over and with a short sigh, “No, I’m sure when we get back with the others, they’ll just question how I managed to snag a bottle of ‘Apple Acre’s Special Brew’ during an evacuation off a burning ship slowly descending into its final destination…either that or they’ll just keep nagging me for a cup.” With another sigh, Cloud lifted herself up off the cloud and gave Dusk the nod that she was ready to follow her to the ends of Equestria, or at least to the camp where the survivors were dropped off.

With Dusk and Cloud making their way to the camp, the ship named after the famous Captain, who once sailed the treacherous skies to help sick ponies, zebras, and gryphons alike, cross the land and sea to reach aid in Equestria and who had succeeded in that feat, but succumbed to the deadly weather that had thrashed him about as he stood at the helm of his ship that is now in the ‘Museum of Lost but now Found History’ in the Culture District of Canterlot whose story will be told at a later date, was now descending still, ever so slowly, to the ground with its bow and stern now at level with each other.

If anypony had actually took the time to look over the damage from the un-emptied hail cloud the size of a pony more akin to Big Macintosh rather than Roid Rage, then those pony would have realized it would have been far more easier to just have board and stitch it up instead of unnecessarily pulling on 42 of the 100 alarm switches on the ship.

They would also know that you only need to pull one switch to alert the bridge who would have alerted the rest of the ship in a calm steady matter instead of over-reacting to the amount of alarms going off and yelling into the over-com that the ‘Sorry excuse for an air-ship is going down’ and causing mass panic to a group of mares and stallions who are more used to quiet evenings in ball rooms and calm social events instead of emergency evacuation procedures that involved screaming foals and loud ponies whose first language is the same volume as an orchestra with only bass drums and have your ears ringing as loud as the one triangle that managed to make it in the same orchestra as the bass drums at the last minute.

In the end, it was too late, the hole just got bigger and thanks to somepony that had absent mindedly left the furnace door open and let a few flames scatter itself upon the floor unattended, the ship went down like a meteor…a meteor on its maiden and retirement voyage.

“30 minutes?” asked Dusk as her eyes shifted between the gentle colts and rescue crewpony, “It took 30 minutes to convince these colts that they should leave the bar and get on the Life Chariots?”

“They were very convinced that they were about to meet their end and wouldn’t stop insisting that they just stay till everypony else was off. When we came back to get them, they were so out of it that they told us again to get everypony else off and wouldn’t budge from their seats. The only reason we managed to get them on the Life Chariots at all was because the bar had already ran out of anything to drink and the giggling kept them from resisting much, so we ended up just dragging them off.” After the crewponys statement, one of the colts collapsed to the ground hiccupping while his companions were leaning on each other, giggling, preventing themselves from joining him.

With a blank stare at the inebriated colts, Dusk turned back to the crewpony, “Right, well, you made the right call. Get these three to the others and tell your team leader to give you and the rest of your team a well-deserved break.”

With a stern look, a quick nod and a smile, he whistled for the rest of his team and hauled off the noble inebriated colts to where the rest of the survivors were. After making sure there were no other interesting events, Dusk took off to catch up with Cloud who had just finished taking note of where the other rescue crews were and how many passengers were accounted for.

After a quick trot, Dusk managed to catch Cloud off guard near the edge of the encampment and open to a very loud verbal surprise. With a deep breath and the perfect ‘Bullhorn’ impersonation at the ready, she let out her volley, “CLOUD TREADER, REPORT IN AT ONCE!”

As soon as the first syllable ruptured into Cloud’s ear, her spine began to tingle; her wings unfurled from her sides so quick that if her saddle bags were still on, they would have been fired cannonballs; she leapt ten-hooves off the ground and if that wasn’t enough; she let out a squeal that would cut glass and leave Dusk laughing on the floor which, incidentally, was actually happening.

“Oh Celestia”, Trying hard to hold back her laughter just to be able to spurt out a few words, “I’m sorry, but after your Roid Rage impersonation, I had to try my Bullhorn impersonation.” And with that, she began her laughter again.

Nearly on the verge of complete meltdown and still shaking, Cloud managed to spurt out some words, “That…it…I’m ok, it was funny.” Letting out a few fake chuckles, Cloud started to calm down.

Dusk’s smile and laughter quickly died down after catching Cloud’s tone of hurt feelings, “I’m sorry Cloie, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Cloud was now just lying on the ground looking away from Dusk with her head on her hooves, “No, I shouldn’t have over-reacted, I’m sorry, it was a good impersonation.” She said, looking back up into Dusk’s eyes with a half sincere smile.

Dusk went closer and lowered herself to Cloud’s level, unfurled one side of her wings and tucked Cloud under it, “No, I’m sorry, after what happened at Cloudsdale between Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, you and me, I should have known that would have been a very bad idea.”

Cloud, now with a sincere smile, “its ok, my cousin and I knew it was just a joke, but like she says, ‘Surprises are nice, but you should be careful about it, or you might startle somepony and being startled can be…”

“Startling.”, Dusk said in unison with Cloud as she nuzzled her close friend. “I’m still sorry; maybe we should go see the Captain now before we get a first-hand demonstration of how to really do his voice.” They both chuckled and stood up; looking about their surroundings hoping nopony saw what had just transpired. With both satisfied and sure that nopony were rubber necking, they made their way towards the middle of the camp to meet the inevitable end of their ear drums.

When Dusk and Cloud got to the Captains tent, they were hesitant to just walk in like it was a casual evacuation for a ship that could have been saved if somepony on the ship would have actually paid attention in Air-Ship Engineering class.

Most ponies thought the ship was doomed from the start anyways seeing that not just the ship was new, but 85% of the crew barely came out of their respective job classes and that the Captain at the helm never actually had experience captaining a ship but was actually just a captain in the royal guard which has a 35% relevance between the two captains. 5% being that your title is captain and 30% is that you spend your time telling others what to do, which Captain Bullhorn did swimmingly.

It was like asking a surgeon in hospitals for a prognosis on a guy with Gingivitis. In the end, that surgeon is just going to end up sending that pony to the dentist.

The only ponies that had any real experience were the Emergency Response Teams, and that’s only because half of them were on the ship for vacation who consisted of earth and unicorn ponies while the other half who were actually on duty were pegasi fresh out of ‘Cloudsdale Rescue Flight Academy’.

Dusk Strider and Cloud Treader were assigned to be the second hand of the Captain and the only reason for that were the direct orders from Princess Luna and Princess Celestia. Dusk Strider came from Princess Luna’s aerial night guard while Cloud Treader came from Princess Celestia’s aerial day guard, and with they’re history of being close to one another and difficult to separate, were the perfect pair for the assignment…Also they’re names popped up on the yearly raffle of who would get a paid vacation which, due to current events, ended up being a paid work day…with not even a bonus in sight.

After finally bracing their nerves and ears, they moved into the tent where a very menacing and very yellow suited pony sat with his back towards the entrance.

Captain Bullhorn was a gray crew-cut mane and tan coat Pegasus with a cutie mark that looked like an ear with bandages on it. It didn’t take long for many pony to wonder why, but if any pony was still curious though as to why ‘The Thunder of the West’ did have a damaged ear on his flank and were crazy enough to ask the canvas of the unique mark, they were given such an intricate and colorful verbal lashing, that you could of sworn that the pony on the receiving end of the verbal bombardment had actually received an expansion to their vocabulary while they were explaining why they were in the hospital with ear-muffs on.

Bullhorn was also known to be one of the most harsh, yet unorthodox, drill instructors of his battalion. On one account, he was known to have had a pony in the ‘Royal Guards Academy’, who was caught having snuck a jelly donut in his trunk, eat the whole donut and donuts that Bullhorn requested from the mess hall, in front of all the ponies in his barracks while they were doing their daily drills. Feeling as if that wasn’t enough punishment, the Captain punished the Donut Baron’s bunkmates rather than him whenever he fell out of line. He faced a grizzly end though; reports were sketchy but it was something about a strawberry jelly splashed wall in the shower room.

Due to a few complaints from half of Canterlot, The Royal Guards from Day and Night positions, some birds, denizens in the Everfree Forest and a Manticore with very fine paw writing, Bullhorn is not allowed to directly project his voice towards whoever he is talking to or anyone in the vicinity. He has even had to, in some circumstances; talk into his helmet or straight into the air when completely surrounded. Thankfully, he had one of the crewponys bring his hazard suit which muffled his voice so deeply that it was like you were talking to a pony using their outdoor voice in a library, which was useful for him since he liked examining the expressions on the faces of the pony he was talking to.

“Oh good, I was about to go and send somepony to fetch you. You Sugarcube delights did a fine job up there. I believe that a captain should go down with their ship, but seeing as you saved everypony’s lives, it didn’t have to come down to that. There was even enough time for me to give a speech of how I should actually go down with the ship to all the rescue ponies that came by. Some of those flip-flops had the nerve to actually interrupt me and try to haul me off. I taught them a lesson by beating the 6…no…maybe it was 12, of them into submission. After I had realized that we were still ‘descending’, and after retrieving the ‘Apple Acres Special Brew’ from the bar area…” Bullhorn was now pointing at the bottle on the desk, to which Cloud responded with a frown, “…I decided it was about time to leave. So I rescued the rescue team and hauled us off to safety on the Life Chariot the parked outside the bridge. How’s that for a captain who doesn’t know how to fly an air-ship?”

After a long blank stare from Dusk and Cloud, Dusk finally spoke up, “Umm, I think that…— did you really just say you beat up the ponies that were trying to save you and hauled them off yourself to safety?” She asked, hoping it was just the hazard suit and not him actually being sincere.

“Yes indeedy, lil lady, bunch of nandy pandy ponies if you ask me. They didn’t even so much as try to fight back. All they really tried to do was dog pile me…fat lot of help that did them. Few tried to run away, just ended up getting dragged back to face a 'Royal Takedown'.” He said with what could have been assumed as a smug face past the plastic mask.

With another blank stare from the two dumbstruck ponies, Cloud was able to throw her words into the ring of awkward silence, “Well I think you did a great job.” She followed with a light ‘woohoo’, “Was there any other items of discussion you wanted to bring up while we were here Captain?”

“Actually there was, I need you two buttercups to report this incident in with the ‘Royal Aviation Club’ at Canterlot. Seeing as the flight only lasted one day, we shouldn’t be too far. After you make your report… I guess you can get some help to retrieve those hoity toity ponies outside, but if you ask me, they can use the outdoors and wilderness, instead of being in their posh and pampered villas and mansions, you know? Really put them into the…”

“OK, CAPTAIN, AYE AYE.” Dusk abruptly cut in to prevent Cloud from hearing anything she might regret, “We’ll get right on it, let’s go Cloud we have a lot of sky to cover. If we’re lucky, we can reach Canterlot before evening.” With a big fake smile, Dusk was already pushing the tent entrance folds aside but was stopped midway when Cloud asked one more question which turned the fake smile into a real look of worry.

It’s never really been understood by Dusk Strider, but ever since an incident that involved a slip of the tongue between Rainbow Dash and Dusk with Cloud unknowingly present, she found out that few words should never be said around her companion, lest she wants to explain for two hours that the only reason she said those words was because she was retelling a story in full detail, towards a trembling rain cloud, or rather, a white cloud with water coming out of it. After explaining herself, Dusk decided to promise to never use those words or anything like it around Cloud again. Now, Dusk has been used to not saying those words for so long that she doesn’t even say them even if Cloud isn’t around, but still protects Cloud from them, even if she has to be physical about it.

“Captain Bullhorn, what were you about to say, I’m sorry but I didn’t quite catch that last part.” She asked as innocent as a filly asking where foals came from.

Captain Bullhorn shifted his gaze from Cloud to Dusk multiple times before finally leaving his eyes on Cloud. With a smile that can pierce even the murkiest of swamps, he began, “Well Peach Cobbler, what I was about to say before I was interrupted by your friend here was that…” Dusk was now shaking under the nervous pressure she was feeling from the torturous conversation.

“..We can put these hoity…” every word feeling like an eternity just to say, “…toity…” you can almost hear the grinding of teeth coming from Dusk that almost sounded like rusty gears, ”…ponies into the...” with her heart racing, Dusk prepared herself into the ‘Comfort Position’ that she used whenever Cloud popped into ‘Shocked and Awed’ mode. With one last look towards Dusk to see how much she was dreading this, which was immense, he turned his attention towards Cloud who was wide eyed as ponies watching Celestia raise the sun on the Summer Sun Celebration were, “…essence of nature…” he finally said with a great pleasure in his voice, “…and teach them there’s more to life than being in Canterlot all day and night. Get in touch with their nature side.” With that, Dusk would of feinted right there if the air-ship hadn’t decided to take matters in its own hull and finally crash down as if on cue, and that if she hadn’t caught the satisfied smile on Cloud’s face who was now ready to leave, “Now you two go on, I’ll be teaching those twinkle noses out there how to survive off the land and maybe get them to help clean up the mess that took its sweet time to make itself.” Cloud left the tent and waited outside for Dusk, who managed to catch a wink from Bullhorn before turning his back to the entrance.

Dusk and Cloud went off to gather their saddle bags and get their bearings. After a few farewells to the rest of the Crewponys and after checking on a few of the survivors who were still awake and wondering when the non-existent buffet would be open, they flew off into the sunrise…before realizing that was completely in the wrong direction and turned themselves about and headed towards the West.