Cutie Mark Crusader Crusaders, yay!
Cutie Mark Crusader Crusaders, yay!
Three fillies surveyed their bounty from the small pond near their clubhouse. In the span of a few hours they had managed to catch five boots, three tires, nine tin cans, and a rusted diving helmet, but any variety of fish eluded them.
“We aren't Cutie Mark Crusader Fisherponies, that's for sure,” Scootaloo said, kicking away one of the cans.
“Maybe we could try a bigger pond?” Sweetie Belle's voice echoed, her head in the diving helmet to look around inside.
“It wouldn't make any difference,” Applebloom mumbled as the fishing rod she was holding snagged, and jerked away. She heaved, and her hook and catch both sprang out of the water, and in front of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The earth pony looked down to see a mass of moss, and frowned. She dropped the rod and started walking towards their clubhouse.
“C'mon,” she said in an annoyed voice, “maybe we can be Cutie Mark Crusader Clubhouse Cleaners.”
Her two friends shrugged and followed. As they entered the clubhouse, something caught Sweetie Belle's attention outside the window.
“Is that a fire?” she asked, pointing to a billow of smoke escaping from a nearby grove's canopy. All three darted towards the window and leaned out to get a better look. The smoke was even closer to their clubhouse than it first appeared, and all three fillies heard what seemed to be shouting by two distinct voices.
All three of the CMC looked at each other and smiled before initiating a mutual high-hoof.
“Cutie Mark Crusader Fireponies, go!”
They all darted out of the clubhouse, and towards the fishing spot they had been just a moment ago. There, they closed the small hinged viewing port of the diving helmet and filled it with water, taking off in the direction of the smoke. As they ran towards the source of the fire, the two voices they had heard earlier seemed to be getting more and more panicked.
As they entered the grove of trees they had seen the smoke emanate from, they located the voices just behind a bush. Applebloom, who had the task of actually carrying the full diving helmet on her back, rushed ahead and emptied the contents of the helmet just as she exited the other side of the bush.
Kssssssshhhhhhh...
Applebloom looked up as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo came bursting out of the bush behind her, and in front of them stood a very wet Flim and Flam. Behind them was a smoking contraption, producing even more smoke now that it had been doused.
The machine behind the two brothers was odd. It appeared as if the machine was the SSCS, stripped of all its cider-producing components. In their place, there were now strange coils and meters, and on the podium that had once only served as a place for Flim or Flam to give a speech, there was now a very large dial, with a big red button right below it.
Flim looked at Flam, then at the three fillies. “Uh, thank you.”
Applebloom was not happy to have these two tricksters back on the Apple farm, and was now wishing she had just let their troublesome invention burn itself out.
“What are ya'll doing here?” she demanded to know.
Flam gave a small motion. “A fine question, Ms. Apple...uh, Blossom?”
“Bloom.”
“We were testing a new product, and it appears that my brother's calculations were off.”
Flim glared at Flam. “My calculations!? You couldn't engineer your way out of a cake!”
Flam rolled up his sleeves and threw off his hat. “That's it!” he yelled, tackling Flim. Flim did the same and the two brawled in a chaotic dust cloud as the CMC watched.
“Uh, Applebloom? Who are these two numbskulls?” Scootaloo asked, one eyebrow raised.
Sweetie Belle looked at the ongoing fight with near pity. “They don't seem very smart.”
“They're a couple of con-ponies. They tried to talk the farm from my sister, and they got chased outta town.”
Sweetie Belle looked back at Applebloom. “Then why are they testing that big machine on your farm?”
“Hey!” Applebloom shouted, bring the fight to a screeching halt. Flim was in the middle of biting his brother's front right hoof, as Flam had him in a choke-hold. They were now both staring at Applebloom.
“Why are you two on our farm?”
Flam let Flim out of his death-grip, and they both instantly re-assumed their cheerful salespony personalities. Putting their hats back on, Flim stepped forward.
“Young fillies! What if I told you that there is, right now, a way to travel that would make the train obsolete, and the carriage a laughable antiquity?”
“Er-”
“My dear brother and I, having learned that the cider-making business is...difficult to break into, have retrofitted the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 for a much grander purpose!”
“Right you are, Flim!” Flam continued, carrying on the next part of the explanation, “In secret, we have added cutting-edge technology to the 6000, making her the ultimate in automatic transportation! We give you...” he stopped, and both brothers jumped in front of the machine and gave a dramatic flair.
“The Flim Flam Brothers Hyper Hurry Auto Flurry Mark One!” they both announced at once.
Scootaloo stared at the Mark One. “So, what does it do?”
“What does it do?” Flim repeated, “Why, it makes the economy of movement into a boom is what it does! Switch a dial, press a button, and BAM! You're where you need to be!”
“Teleportin'? Can't unicorn ponies do that already?” Applebloom questioned, tilting her head slightly.
“Only very powerful ones! We seek to bring this service to the masses!” Flam answered.
“And make a decent bit while we're at it.” Flim muttered under his breath.
“So, why are you on our farm?” Applebloom asked once again, stomping her hoof.
The two brothers looked at each other, and Flam spoke. “Well, small filly, due to some very complicated physical laws that I won't worry you with, magic simply won't work for this machine. It requires a very peculiar fuel source: apples.”
Flim nodded. “And not just any apples. We did our research: topography, genetics, appleology, and they all led back to a single result: Sweet Apple Acre apples. They're the only ones that'll do, I'm afraid. However, we both know your sister would refuse to sell us any apples, so we've been making due with wild ones within your farm. ”
Flam adjusted his hat. “We had just put in a new batch of apples when the old gal didn't take to them too well, and then you three came along.”
Applebloom glowered at both of them. “So you've been trespassin', AND stealing! I'm telling my big sister on you!” she shouted, turning back towards to farm to find Applejack.
Flam shot out of a hoof. “Wait!” he pleaded, and Applebloom turned her head around to hear him out. “I have a proposition!”
“A propo-what?”
Flim pointed towards the apple fields on the nearby farm. “If you can bring us just a few apples, just a few, we'll leave your farm and not cause any more trouble!”
“Whadya need 'em for?”
“A few to power the machine, of course. You see, we've never actually gotten the darn thing to work. If we could get the right fuel source and get one successful proof of concept run, we would at least know it's possible!”
Flam frowned. “If we can't get to run on apples, we'll have to switch to pumpkins, and that could take months to work.”
Applebloom was not convinced, and she and her two friends began to walk out of the grove.
“Also,” Flim said with a mischievous smile, “If you bring us the apples, we'll let you perform the test yourselves. It would be an adventure!”
The three fillies looked at each other and huddled, whispering to each other. Applebloom poked her head out. “Honest?”
“Honest!” Flim and Flam answered.
Applebloom retreated back into the huddle to consult with her two fellow crusaders.
“I say we go for it!” Scootaloo whispered, her wings buzzing.
“Well, I guess my sister wouldn't miss a few apples...”
They broke the huddle, and Applebloom pointed towards the brothers.
“You've gotta deal!”
The three fillies came back an hour later with a basket full of apples, many more than the few that Flim and Flam had asked for. They set it down in front of the brothers, who smiled.
“Very good!” Flam exclaimed, “This will be more than enough!”
Applebloom looked at the machine now. “So, what do we do?”
“Simple!” Flim replied. He pointed towards the podium. “Climb up there, if you would.”
They complied, slowly making their way up to the platform. Sweetie Belle was the last to make it up and tripped as she reached the stage the podium stood on. She quickly got back up and ran to her friends. Applebloom looked down at Flim and Flam.
“Uh, what now?”
Flim pointed towards the podium. “There is a dial upon the stand there. Actually, it's three dials in one, but you'll only need to use outermost one.”
“Why?”
“This is a simple test run. The outside dial only controls how far forward you'll teleport.”
“What do the other two do?”
“Oh, dimension and quantum stuff. Just concentrate on the outer dial. We'll do ten feet! Set the dial to ten, if you would.”
Applebloom, who was standing on Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle's back to be able to even reach the control panel, slowly adjusted the knob to '10'.
“Now what do we do?”
“Press the big red button!” Flam called out.
As she began to bring down her hoof, Sweetie Belle adjusted her footing slightly on Scootaloo, accidentally stepping on her wing. Scootaloo winced and in reflex tensed up, which made Sweetie Belle wobble. This is turn made Applebloom lurch forward, sending her hoof against the dial, rotating the inner two knobs. Her chest hit the red button, and the machine sprang to life.
Flim and Flam had not seen Applebloom's fumble, and began tossing apples into a small furnace in the back of the machine. With each apple loaded into it, the transporter grew louder and hummed with energy. Eventually the entire machine shook, and Flim and Flam stood back.
A brilliant flash of light consumed the teleporter, and it was gone. Flim and Flam looked to their right to witness the teleporter re-appear just ten feet away, but nothing happened.
Flam grunted. “Pumpkins it is, then.”
Three fillies screamed as they hurtled through a tunnel of rapidly shifting colors. The machine spun around behind them, having become separated from them at the instant of teleportation. Their journey through this strange tunnel only lasted about twenty seconds before they came upon a glowing white exit and reached solid ground, but none of them opened their eyes and continued screaming for a good minute.
Scootaloo opened her eyes first, and they were instantly filled with wonder. She poked her two friends to tell them that the danger had passed, and they stopped screaming and opened their eyes as well, and their mouths dropped.
They were standing on the top of a hill, and before them lay a massive city, covered with white buildings and what appeared to be churches. They could even make out strange creatures walking around in the streets below. The city itself was surrounded by rocky desert, with only the occasional shrub or tree visible.
Sweetie Belle looked into the sky. “Where are we?” she asked, wondering if they were even on their own planet anymore.
Applebloom closed her eyes and shook her head. “I can't believe I let them two talk me into that!”
Scootaloo looked behind them. About ten feet behind them was the teleporter. The wheels on it had broken, and a few of the gizmos and whatchamacallits that were probably vital to the functioning of the machine had exploded, leaving little more than a high-tech lawn ornament. She turned back to her friends. “Teleporter's busted.”
Sweetie Belle and Applebloom also glanced at the smoking teleporter, and Applebloom sat down and covered her face with her hooves.
“Great! Now we're probably never getting home!” she cried.
“Well,” Sweetie Belle said as she looked at one of the nearby creatures, “Why don't we ask one of them? They could probably give us directions.”
Applebloom sighed. “Worth a try.”
They all walked down the hill and to a road leading into the city. There was little traffic on it, and they had to wait quite a while before someone came along. Just as they were about to give up and find a busier road, one of the creatures appeared around a hill. He was wearing what looked like a white robe with a crimson red cross on it, and underneath this clothing was a shirt of chain mail. At his side was a small sword, and he wore a barrel-shaped helmet, slits cut where Applebloom assumed his eyes were located so he could see.
The strange creature didn't notice the three as he walked by, so Sweetie Belle decided to get his attention.
“Excuse me?”
The creature stopped, turned, and looked down at the three fillies. Had he not been wearing a helmet, Applebloom would have been able to see a face of pure confusion.
“Do you know how to get to Equestria from here?”
The creature said nothing, but ran down the road towards the city with surprisingly agility considering his armor.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Well, he was helpful.”
No more creatures came down the road, and before the three realized it the sun was setting. Sweetie Belle shivered, the cold desert air settling over her.
“I think we should find a place to sleep.” she said, and the other two fillies nodded. They all clapped their hooves together.
“Cutie Mark Crusader Bed Finders, yeah.” they muttered, before setting down the road.
They hadn't walked ten meters towards the strange city in the distance before a net was thrown upon them from behind. The fillies protested with screams and kicks as one of their captors hoisted them over his back and loaded them onto a horse, getting on the animal as well and riding towards the city. Two more captors followed behind on horseback, and although it was hard to tell in the darkness, Applebloom was almost positive one of them was the same creature they had met several hours earlier.
The familiar creature turned to the other one riding beside him and said something. He spoke in a language that sounded an awful lot like Fancy, but an extremely old and archaic version of it. Applebloom didn't completely lose her ability to speak Fancy after her Cutie Pox infection, and with great difficulty was able to translate.
“I told you I wasn't lying!” the creature said. The other said nothing. As they rode into the gates of the city, the horse they were being carried on stopped, and the creature riding it turned toward the three netted fillies.
“Do any of you understand me?”
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle exchanged puzzled looks, but Applebloom nodded.
“Then know this: you are now prisoners of the Knights Templar.”
The three fillies were unceremoniously dumped in a dark cell, and with the window being too high for them to attempt to become Cutie Mark Crusader Escape Artists, they began to speculate on the nature of their captors.
Scootaloo pointed to the one Templar that had been assigned to guard them. "I think they're mutants."
"Whoever they are, they aren't very nice." Sweetie Belle grumbled, having just stepped in a filthy puddle formed from the leaking ceiling.
"When we were being carried over here, I think I heard one of 'em say something about crusadin'." Applebloom said, studying their guard's white mantle with the red cross.
Scootaloo turned to Applebloom and cocked and eyebrow. "You understand these weirdos?"
The earth pony scratched her head. "Uh, yeah. A little bit. It was kind of hard to understand, but I think we're in some kinda kingdom of crusaders."
"Wait, a whole kingdom of blank flanks?" Sweetie Belle asked.
Applebloom nodded. "Yeah. Maybe that's why they're all wearin' clothes. I think they put us here until they could go get their boss."
As the youngsters talked about the land they found themselves in, another Templar came into the prison. He walked up to the guard, produced a small parchment. The guard gave it a quick read and nodded, producing a small key and unlocking the cell the Cutie Mark Crusaders inhabited. This Templar was larger and older, scars covering his face.
This older creature walked inside the cell and in front of the three fillies and squatted down, looking Applebloom straight in the eye.
"Are you the one that can speak?" he asked with a snarl.
Despite her trembling legs and quivering lips, she was able to answer. "Y-y-yes?"
"The King of Jerusalem will see you." he stated, and with blinding speed took out a sack from seemingly nowhere and stuffed the three ponies inside.
It was almost an hour before the CMC were dumped out of the sack, and onto a hard stone floor. It wasn't as filthy or wet as the one they had been standing on previously, but they still protested with moans and complaints. When the fillies opened there eyes, there stood another creature wearing what appeared to be a blue robe with a red cape wrapped around it. He possessed a short beard, and atop his head sat a crown.
The Templar that had sacked them bowed to this crowned creature. "The three little monsters as you requested, sire."
"Hey!" Applebloom protested, but he had already left. She turned back to this important-looking creature, who was looking upon the three fillies with a mix of caution and bewilderment. After a pause, he spoke, pointing at Applebloom.
"You. I was told the yellow horse could understand us."
Applebloom stood there for a second, taking a moment to translate the words in her head. When she realized the creature had called her a horse, she became annoyed.
"I'm not a horse!" she exclaimed in Old Fancy.
"Then what are you?" the creature asked simply.
"I'm a pony." she said, and then pointed to herself. "I'm Applebloom. This is Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. Uh, who are you?"
The creature straightened himself up a bit to appear more regal. "I am Baldwin of Bourcq, king of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem."
Half of those words were gibberish to Applebloom, who showed her confusion with silence.
Baldwin II furrowed his brow. "The Kingdom of Jerusalem. Established during the Crusade?"
The three fillies were about as responsive as the floor they were standing on.
Baldwin II put one hand on his face. "You cannot expect me to believe that you came all the way to the holiest city in Christendom without knowing of the Crusade."
"Chrissa-what now?" Scootaloo interjected, finding that word particularly odd.
Baldwin II didn't understand Scootaloo, but picked up the meaning in her voice. "What land are you three from? How did you get here?"
Applebloom scratched her head, trying to come up with an explanation that didn't make her appear completely insane. "Well..."
Heathens. That is what the church would call Applebloom and her two friends. Not only did these ponies not know the light of Christ, but the horse spoke of their own monarch, one "Princess Celestia", as if she were a god! Even worse, this Celestia had a sister. These ponies were shameless pagans!
"And then there was that one time I wandered into the Everfree Forest and found that village full of zomb-" Applebloom continued to spiel until the king held up his hand.
"I believe it would be better if I explained my kingdom first. Follow me," he said, adjusting his crown.
The three fillies were brought into a large church, filled with shrines and tributes to a figure that Applebloom had spotted many times throughout their walk to the site. Why didn't someone help the poor fellow off that cross?
"This," Baldwin said as the fillies began examining the various artifacts and religious symbols and asking a million questions about each, "is the Holy Sepulchre."
"Holy what now?" Applebloom questioned as she scratched some of the crosses etched one of the pillars. The various pilgrims sifting through the church stared at the strange talking horses, but none of them dared question such a miracle in such a sacred place.
"The Holy Sepulchre. This is where Jesus Christ, our lord and savior, was crucified and buried."
Applebloom looked up and one of the various crucifixes adorning the walls of the church, and placed one hoof on her bottom lip. "Hmmmm," she hummed, before pointing toward the cross while looking at Baldwin, "ya mean that feller we keep seeing on that weird-shaped 'X'?"
Baldwin's toleration for the unending heresy that flowed forth from these fillies was wearing thin. "Yes."
Applebloom was curious about this Jesus that the king and most of the citizens of the city kept going on about. From the way the pilgrims and the king kept praising his name, he seemed like a real swell guy. "Uh, who is he, anyway? Is he like Princess Celestia?"
"Unlike your heathen god," Baldwin explained, "Jesus Christ is real and alive."
Applebloom's mouth opened as she tried to grapple with what the king was implying. "Uh, what? Princess Celestia's alive too. I wrote a letter to her last week."
Before a theological debate could break out between the earth pony and the king, Sweetie Belle interrupted. "Oooh!" she awed, having climbed up on a shrine adorned with candles to examine it with closer scrutiny. By accident, she bumped one of the candles off the shrine.
The candle, flame still lit, rolled a distance and caught the robe of a pilgrim. With amazing speed, the pilgrim ripped off his robe and threw it on the ground as flaming pieces of the cloth scattered throughout the church. Multiple fires caught everywhere, and any attempts by the Christians or the CMC to put out the fires were in vain and smoke quickly filled the holy site. With no other options, the Sepulchre was quickly evacuated. Thankfully, everyone inside made it out fine, but the church was completely consumed by flame.
King Baldwin II looked on in horror as the Holy Sepulchre collapsed, sending soot and dust everywhere. So devastated by the destruction of the holiest site in Christianity that he didn't even taken notice of the blame game that had erupted between the three fillies.
"Now look what you did!"
"You made the fires worse!"
"You started it!"
"I didn't mean to!"
Baldwin simply gazed at the smoldering ruins of the Sepulchre as they argued. Eventually the three settled on blaming Discord, and walked up to the king to ask him if he was okay. Applebloom tugged on his robe, and the only response he gave was an eye twitch.
"You know what? I think we'll come back later." Applebloom said, and walked away with the other two-thirds of the CMC.
As they walked away from the tower of smoke, they all decided that the best way to kill time before Baldwin snapped out of his stupor would be to explore the city.
"Cutie Mark Cruader City Searchers, go!"
Their immediate exploration yielded no promising results, so they instead decided to explore a bit outside of the city walls. Some distance out, they found a human constructing a catapult. He hammered and sawed, and after a while wiped his brow and sat down on a nearby rock, his back to the siege engine.
The three fillies decided to investigate this weapon of war, which held a giant rock ready to launch. None of the three ponies had ever seen a catapult used for anything more serious than smashing pumpkins. The engineer was ignorant to the examination of his hard work, as the fillies examined every gear and lever the war machine possessed. Sweetie Belle was taking a closer look at one of the ropes when her horn sliced every so slightly. The tension within the catapult caused the rope then snap, and with a sudden buck the catapult launched its payload, sending the huge boulder it carried into the city of Jerusalem.
The three fillies watched as the huge rock crashed into the golden roof of a rounded building, caving it in and sending debris everywhere.
A few minutes later, a peasant ran up to King Baldwin II, who was still staring at the remains of the Sepulchre.
"Your majesty!" the peasant cried, "the Dome of the Rock has just been destroyed!"
Beyond the drool that now began to drip out of his mouth, the king did not reply.
Having been chased off by a very angry siege engineer, the three fillies were once again in the city. Their journey led them to a huge wall, with various humans praying at the base of it. Before they had burned the Sepulchre down, Applebloom had thought she had heard the king mention something about a 'Western Wall', another holy site within the city.
The people at the Western Wall were too busy praying to take notice of the small ponies, and did not protest when all three began to poke and prod at the ancient wall. As they did, Scootaloo noticed a small fissure in the giant monolith, and stuck the end of her hoof in it. With a deafening CRACK!, the fissure instantly swelled up and began snaking its way across the wall, doubling in size for every ten feet it traveled.
When it reached the end, the entire structure began to shake, and everyone fled as the holy wall came crumbling down, sending huge stone blocks into the street below. Each block caused tremors when they landed and sent up huge plumes of dirt, which now joined the dust from the Dome of the Rock and the smoke from the Holy Sepulchre.
A peasant ran to tell the king of the black news. Baldwin was in a fetal position, sucking his thumb.
Through a series of mishaps and butterhoofery, the Cutie Mark Cruaders also managed to cause a mudslide that enveloped all of Mount Zion, release a swarm of rats into the streets of the Via Dolorosa, and flood the necropolis of the Mount of Olives. By some miracle, precisely zero people died in all of the misadventures of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, unless you count the already dead residents of the necropolis.
Along the way, the three fillies had also somehow managed to procure for themselves custom-made armor, each one pure white with a red cross. They decided that they had given Baldwin enough time to cool down, and headed back to the still-smoking church. They found him lying in front of the church, staring at the sky.
Applebloom leaned over him, concerned. "Mr. Baldwin? Are you okay?"
Baldwin II's lips moved as to make words, but no sound came out.
She gave him a nervous smile. "Uh, didn't quite catch that."
"There...is." Baldwin whispered.
"What?"
"There is no God." Bladwin declared bluntly, his eyes blurred with tears and his face blood red.
"Uh, that's...nice." Applebloom replied nervously, and began to walk away to give the king more time to recoup.
"Wait." said the king, holding one arm in the air, then making a motion for Applebloom to come back. She complied, walking back over and leaning in toward him. He glanced over at her, his face filled with desperation and woe.
"There is no God of Israel," he said, "but someone has sent you to punish me. Who is this Princess Celestia you have spoken of?"
Applebloom smiled. "Well, she's the ruler of Equestria, and raises the sun every morning!"
"She controls the heavens?"
"Yep!"
The king closed his eyes. "And what of her rule? Is she just?"
"She's really nice. I don't think there's a pony out there she doesn't like."
"She loves everyone?"
"Yeah, I guess you could say that."
The king laid there for another minute, and then slowly rose to his feet. He picked up Applebloom, and with a defeated sigh stared at her with desperation.
"Help this poor soul," he pleaded, "tell me the gospel of Celestia."
Not entirely sure what gospel meant, Applebloom instead told the king of some stories she had heard from Granny Smith about the princess. They were usually tales of her kindness or power, and when she ran out of stories to tell the king hugged her, salty water flowing freely from his eyes.
"I have seen the light!" he exclaimed, squeezing the earth pony a little too tight for comfort as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked on in horror. He set her down and came to his knees, hands clasped. "I accept Princess Celestia into my heart, her holy light be praised!"
The king began wailing openly with joy, overcome with a religious fervor that Applebloom had never witnessed. Sure, ponies bowed to Princess Celestia when she showed up, but this was whole different ballgame. Several citizens that had also heard Applebloom's stories also converted on the spot, broken by the complete destruction of most of the holy sites within the city.
Just as Applebloom thought things couldn't become more awkward, a ball of light materialized behind the king. With a bang and a flash, a familiar machine appeared. It appeared to be the Mark One, but now with even more lights and gadgets. Flim was on the podium, Flam was checking some readouts on the machine, and a very angry Applejack was on the podium stage.
"There ya'll are!" she yelled, "Get on here, now!"
Applebloom was more than happy to get out of this very strange land, with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle right on her tail. All three climbed up on the podium to the protests of the king and Jerusalemites that begged them to stay. As soon as the fillies had loaded onto the machine, Flim pressed the large blue button on the podium, sending them back to Sweet Apple Acres in the same tunnel of light they had come in. No sooner had they arrived did Applejack buck both Flim and Flam off the machine.
Applebloom looked up at her sister. "Wait, how'd you find us?"
Applejack looked at the knocked out Flimflam Brothers, who were lying on the ground. "I found these two snoopin' around the apple orchard, and demanded to know what they were doin'. Flam let it slip that you did some kind of fancy schmancy test for them and never showed back up."
Applebloom pondered her sister's explanation for a second. "Wait, the one we used broke. Where'd you get this one?"
Flam briefly came out of his unconscious state to answer. "We had a backup." he muttered before passing out again.
"And you can forget about any crusadin' for the next two weeks, because you're grounded." Applejack said as Flam hit the dirt.
All three fillies, still decked out in crusader swag, lowered their heads. "Awwww..."
England, 1300 AD
King Baldwin VIII stood on the bow of his ship, watching as the coast of England slowly came into view. Behind him were thousands of ships just like his, each one catching the wind in sails that carried the holy sun emblem of Princess Celestia.
His ancestors, having converted to the one true faith by the Three Prophets, went on to conquer all of the Middle East, bringing Princess Celestia's good word to all who would listen. Not stopping there, the Kingdom of Jerusalem carried out crusade after crusade against the infidels of the Catholic Church, sacking Rome in 1291 and taking all of continental Europe in 1295. Only England remained now, her navy having just been destroyed in a great naval battle.
Baldwin VIII took out his small personal Gospel of Celestia, and decided to read a few lines of scripture.
I tell you, many shall try to enter into the holy light, only to find the cold darkness of the moon. Repent, sinners, and praise she! Harmony 2:39
The Great Prophet Scoot of Loo did then see the heathen idol of the Western Wall, and with holy might did smote it, sending down much rubble... Poultry 5:13
In the beginning there was the third generation, and their image did displease the Lord. The Lord appeared over the craven images, and spake: "Let there be Faust!" and there was Faust. Pilots 1:1
He tucked the book away, once again settling his sights on the approaching shores of Albion. One way or the other, these sinners and deniers of the good word would come to the fold. Following the Gospel, Baldwin VIII loved and tolerated.
His sword, however, did not.
