The Takeover

Five days later, The Training Grounds, 7:30PM, Wednesday

Khan

I smiled as I soared around the track to complete my second of the five laps required. There was only one pony ahead of me, the others behind me. The wind was ripping through my mane, causing my tail to ripple and leaving a trail of blue behind me. I took a peek back at the rest of the trainees, some of them very young and one or two of them on their last year of training. I saw Nova neck and neck with somepony else for fourth. There is four other pegasi behind me, including Nova.

I slowed myself down ever so slightly, so as to not wear myself out as I passed the line for the third lap, the pony in front of me still going full speed, only about ten feet ahead. The last few days have been very strenuous and Vida had not sugar coated the severity of these exercises in the slightest. I am actually glad she didn't, because it would have sucked if she did and then we were thrown into this. I passed by two unicorns and five earth ponies as they ran around the track, also having to do five laps. That's the one thing that was truly fair about all of this is that everypony got the same treatment and the same amount of strenuous activity, regardless of race. Nopony could complain about somepony else's exercises being easier.

At 6 in the morning, the pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies all run five laps together and then run to the training ground's mess hall and ate breakfast within twenty minutes. Once everypony was done eating, we ran back outside and did whatever the drill instructor told us. Monday, we were sparring with each other, the drill instructor pitted us against difference races and different sexes. The thing is, it was all out. We were legit fighting each other, real hits, no pads, and we fought til one of us couldn't go on. The pony I had been paired against was a unicorn that was about nineteen. Did I mention that magic was legal. Well, he certainly used his to his advantage. The first thing he tried to do was blast me away with a cone of fire but I had noticed his horn lighting up and dodged out of the way. I flew towards him and tackled him to the ground, me and him rolling over each other. We had a ring that we had to stay in also, that had a thirty foot diameter. I quickly started hitting him in the head, hoping I was doing enough to keep him from doing anything. My wing was still healing, it was good enough to fly but not much more than that. His telekinesis wrapped around my wing and was putting a dense amount of pressure on it, him dragging me over to the ground next to him. I brought right hoof around and punched him in the side as hard as I could, the hit knocking the wind out of him and breaking his magical hold on my wing. I got on top of him and hit two or three more times before stepping back, giving him a chance to stand up. He didn't. I hadn't knocked him out, but I guess he didn't want to keep going. I was glad too because my wing hurt bad after that.

Nova was pinned against an earth pony mare, thankfully not a stallion. They fought it out, lasting at least two minutes, just back and forth swinging, hitting and missing. The mare was only about sixteen or seventeen to Nova's twenty-three, just a testament to the fact that age didn't matter here. Nova ended up winning, but barely. Towards the end Nova was tackled by her opponent, Nova quick to flap her wings and soar out from beneath the opposing pony, who was surprised by this and stumbled backwards whereas Nova used the surprise and tackled her opponent, the mare hitting her head hard on the ground and Nova rearing back to bring her hoof around when the mare shouted, "I'm done!" and held her hoofs in front of her face. It was a really good fight, entertaining to watch, but regardless of who was better, my bet laid with Nova anyway.

Afterwards, we all did exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, shuttle runs, and more. The pegasi had wing specific exercises like wing push-ups, hovering, and flying up and dropping and opening our wings at the last second, while earth ponies had leg specific exorcises, basically more of the basic stuff that everypony else was doing, and unicorns had spell specific exercises like holding a sphere of fire for as long as possible and levitating various weighted things.

"Last lap, maggots!" I heard Coldfire yell as I passed the line marking my fourth lap. "Last two pegasi and last to ground ponies have KP!"

I was still in second and the closest pony to me was about six feet behind. I poured on the speed, trying to catch up with pony in front of me. I think I'm going to pass him. It didn't really matter as long as I didn't get put in the last two. I was approaching him, his tail almost touching my face. I flapped harder, pulling up next to him I looked over at him. He looked at me, I was clearly able to see how tired he is. I poured all of my being into pulling ahead of him. We were neck and neck but not now. I was a hooves length ahead of him, starting to extend to an even longer lead.

That's when I heard something next to my ear snap, my left side erupting in pain and I slammed into the wall we had been racing along and fell to the ground with a head over hooves roll before slamming to a stop on my side, dirt kicking up all around me. I groaned. "Damn it."

I heard somepony land next to me. I looked up and saw Coldfire standing over me. "That was quite the crash. You gunna be alright?"

I groaned again as I stood up, keeping my left wing spaced out from my body. "Yes, sir. I'll make it."

"Do you need to go to the infirmary?"

"Absolutely not," I said back, leaning over a bit. "Still healing is all."

Nova landed next to Coldfire and asked, "Are you okay?!"

I noticed that the pony ahead of me just crossed the finish line behind her which means...oh no.

"Did you drop out of the race?" I asked her concernedly.

"Well, yeah! I had to see if you were okay," she replied.

"The conditions still stand. The last two pegasi across the line have KP," Coldfire sentenced.

I don't know why she did that. I know that cleaning the kitchen is going to be a bitch. Which also meant it was going to eat up all of our free time after dinner.

The last two ground ponies just crossed the finish line, one unicorn and one earth pony. Well, at least unicorn will make cleaning a lot faster.

<--------o------O------o-------->

Later...

Khan

The sponge made a splat sound as Nova flopped it onto the table as I swept the floor, getting in between the chairs and under the tables. I can hear the clatter of the dishes from in the kitchen where the unicorn, Dusty, is washing them. She seems like a nice pony.

The earth pony, although I can't remember his name, was back there also, probably cleaning the stoves or the grill.

"You really shouldn't have stopped in the race for me," I said, not taking my eyes off the task at hand.

"You shouldn't have crashed," she retorted.

"Now you're stuck here, cleaning a nasty ass kitchen."

"That's not so bad," she said softly, "with yo-"

There was a loud crash in the kitchen, sounded a lot like a few pots and pans falling over, followed by a strained, "Shit!" It made me smile a little bit, little things like that make me laugh, I can't see it but with the sounds I can imagine it. That's when I realized I hadn't caught what Nova had said. "Sorry, I zoned out. What did you say?"

"It was nothing," she replied hastily.

I stopped sweeping for a minute and looked over to her and said, "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

"I know," she said. There was a long silence and I continued on sweeping, I was almost done but I just remembered that I'm going to have to mop afterwards; which means I'm not almost done. I let out a quick and sour sigh. I swept up the last of the dirt on the floor and poured it into the trash bag laying by the front door. I walked outside and grabbed the mop by the easy-bite handle and put it in the pre-made mop water in the bucket and put it in the strainer. A little pulse of pain went from my back to my wing, making me stop for a second. I hate that feeling. I haven't felt this kind of pain since that trampoline accident when I was a foal.

As I finished wringing out the mop, I opened the door again and instead of seeing the mess hall, I saw Nova, face to face. I jumped backwards, dropping the mop in the process.

"You scared the hell out of me," I said with a chuckle, bending down to pick the mop up.

"I'm sorry," she apologized quickly. "Um...I've got to tell you something."

"Okay," I started, then noticing her nervous eye movements.

"You said I could tell you anything right?" She asked lowly, like she was really worried that I would judge her for whatever it was.

"Of course, I told you that just a second ago." She was really looking worried now. She searched my eyes with hers, bouncing back and forth from the left to the right.

She looked everywhere accept at me, then she met my eyes and held them. "I lied."

"About...?" I was a little bit confused. She couldn't have lied to me recently, there was nothing to lie about.

"I'm not really gay."

I let my face express my shock. "What?"

"Please don't be mad at me! I only did it because I thought you guys were going to kick me out of the band like seven years ago and I decided if I broke up with you it would be easier to go." The entire atmosphere changed.

"Kick you out of the band?" I asked softly. That was absurd. The thought of something like that had never once crossed my mind.

"I know! It's crazy!" She said, getting a little more worked up than before. "And the truth is-" she stopped and looked down at the floor. "I still love you."

My mind was drawing a blank. I didn't know what to say. I loved her too and always have, even after she broke up with me.

"Khan, I'm really sorry! This has been eating me up for years and it's even worse now after all that's happened and I don't want to be alone in all this and-" I cut her off with a kiss. I watched as her eyes went wide and she pulled back a little. I really hoped I hadn't just messed something up but I had to prove to her that it was alright. I knew that it the my goal was achieved when I felt her lean into me, now returning the kiss.

She pulled away, with still worried eyes and asked, "So you're not mad at me?"

"Why on earth would I be mad at you?" I asked with a sincere smile.

"I lied. Why would anypony be happy about somepony else lying?"

"Because now," I said with a small pause trying to find the right words. Found them. "I have the mare of my dreams back."

She hugged me and laughed, "You're so full of shit."

"What? It's true!" I said with a laugh. This is awesome. This is the best news I've had since we found out about our first sold out show.

Although, this was even better.

We still had things to do though. "Let's get finished, huh?" I said to her.

"Yeah."

I picked up the mop and went to the other side of the dining hall. My sluggish movements that made up my effort to clean the place earlier was replaced with rejuvenated,more energetic movements. I am happy; almost like a high feeling, that makes you feel good all over.

She may have thought I was kidding, but that's probably the most truthful statement I have ever made. I tried not to think about her that way too much because it hurt to do so, knowing I couldn't be with her. But if I knew then what I knew now, I would have asked a long time ago.

I would have normally been brought down by how much we still had to do and being as tired as I was didn't help anything neither did my aching wing, but I feel uplifted and good.

I feel alive.

<--------o------O------o-------->

The Barracks, 9:15PM

Khan

Finally. We're finished. Nova, Dusty, and the other earth pony I had identified as Kicker, and myself were walking side by side back to the barracks, all of us ready to lie down and go straight to sleep. My wing wasn't hurting, although there was an occasional pulse of pain, although not as bad as it was that first time. I probably should have gotten it checked out, but I'd be fine.

"That was a pretty bad crash you had earlier today," Dusty said, breaking the silence. Looking at my wing that I held out from my side by about an inch. "I'm going to have to agree with Nova that you should probably get that checked out."

"I'll be fine," I said, looking at her and then at Nova's concerned look. I gave her a smile, "I'll be just fine." We continued our walk in silence for a little while longer. We were probably a little more than half way back.

"So," I heard Kicker say from my right. "You two are outsiders. What did you two use to do out there? Based off you cutie marks, I'm going to guess that you were involved in music in some way."

"That would be correct," I said. "We were in a band."

"Really? Which one?"

"Stormborne. I was the rhythm guitarist, Nova was the singer."

He contemplated this for a second as we continued onward and I saw Dusty give me this really surprised look and Kicker said, "So what do you mean by was the rhythm guitarist and was the singer"?

"I mean, three of the members are dead. We aren't a band anymore," I said sadly, ears drooping back a little."

"WHAT?!" I heard Dusty yell, causing all of us to stop in our tracks. "What do you 'three of the members are dead?"

I want to tell her but I don't want to stir up past problems. I looked over at Nova, who was also looking a bit saddened by the subject.

I said, "I don't want to talk about it. We don't want to talk about it."

"Stormborne is like my third favorite band! Are you two really the only two surviving members?" She pressed.

"Yes," I said, not knowing whether to be proud of that or not.

"As I was saying," Kicker said, then clearing his throat. "I wasn't talking about your whole group. I was talking about the two of you. You are still a guitarist and she is still a singer, are you not?"

"Well, yeah," Nova said, still a little down.

"Then that's what you are. Your cutie marks do not apply to you as a group, but individually," he said, trying to be as uplifting as possible. "You are still musicians. You can still do what you love, even if the rest isn't here to help."

"Yeah." That's all I said. I really just wanted to drop it the subject.

We continued on in silence, coming up on the barracks. We came up on the doors to the inside, where there was a lounge like area that had rows of fold-out chairs and a T.V. mounted on the wall. There was only one thing different about this room the previous three nights. Everypony in the barracks was in this room, including Coldfire, and the T.V. was on. When we walked in, everypony was looking at us with wide eyes. Then I looked up at the T.V. and everypony turned back to the T.V. as if in a trance.

"-as you can see behind us, this is the wreckage of a private jet, owned by the rising band, Stormborne. Authorities say that the plane left Manehatten at 9 A.M. Sunday morning on the 26th of July en route to Ponyville when the plane's signal was lost at around 6:30 that evening, about an hour away from Ponyville. Five bodies have been recovered and identified so far-" The screen was replaced with a list of names, next to them a picture. "Three of them are band mates, Griel, Cayne, and Stone, their manager, Smokey, and the pilot, Cruise."

They showed their faces and I couldn't look away. I stared into that T.V. and it stared back. The reporter continued as the screen changed to a picture of me and Nova, along with the co-pilot, "Authorities are also puzzled, as the bodies of Stormborne's lead singer, Nova, and rhythm guitarist, Khan and the co-pilot, Eaton, are nowhere within a five mile radius. Conspiracies are bring brought up everywhere, including some that insist that Khan, Nova, and Eaton, being the only pegasi on board, may have gotten out alive and are lost somewhere in the forest and other theories being that they sabotaged the flight and went into hiding."

After that everypony looked over at us right as our pictures went off the screen. About eight of the ponies stood up and ran over to us with shouts like, "You two are from Stormborne?!" and "Will you sign this?"

Nova and I were overwhelmed by the attention, not knowing what to do. I knew one thing for sure though. I am extremely pissed off, especially after that news broadcast said that we might have sabotaged the plane. Why would she say that on a news report? That almost immediately screwed over our reputation, because if there's a conspiracy, somepony's going to be tossing bits in and buying it.

We were crowded by ponies and with my anger levels almost maxed out, I lost control.

"Would you all back the fuck off!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, everypony in the room going completely silent, except for the T.V. "We were just in a plane crash and lost every single pony we that we loved and all you shit heads are worried about is if we'll sign your fucking t-shirts?!" I had never done anything like this to fans before and I was already feeling down because of it but what was said was done; No going back. Nova was looking at me, a mixture of shock, concern, and mutual anger was plastered on her face.

"You need to cool it, recruit," Coldfire said to me from across the room and all I did was stare at him. I looked back around me in disgust at all of the ponies that surrounded me. I walked over to the door to the bunk rooms, my head hanging low. Right as I got to the door frame I heard Coldfire say, "Was that a 'yes, sir' that I heard?"

I sighed through my nose hard enough to be heard. You really think your authoritative position concerns me right now? Typical control freak. I replied through gritted teeth, "Yes, sir."

I walked through the door, close to fifty saddened or agitated eyes staring at my back as I entered the dark room and found my bunk at the end of the narrow isle on the left, against the wall.

I laid down, laying my wing softly on my side. I pulled the blanket over me and used the wall as a support for my back and put my hoof under the pillow to heighten it, as it felt weird using only one pillow when I was used to two.

I heard everypony else coming into the room, the hoofsteps reverberating off the walls. There were no bunks past mine, which meant I wouldn't have to see anypony as they came in. Thank Celestia for that. I was thinking over it and maybe I did overreact, but there was a point be to made and I certainly made it. I didn't hate them, I understood their excitement. I remember meeting my favorite band and it was a really happy day but my favorite band wasn't missing any members at the time either.

As all of the shuffling of hooves ceased, I heard Coldfire at the entrence say, "Alright, cupcakes. I've let all of you stay up past shutdown, but you're still getting up at 0600 hours, sharp." I could hear the groans of some of the ponies. "So I suggest you all get some some shuteye."

The light from the doorway faded as the door closed and the room became dark enough to not tell the difference when you shut or open your eyes.

That's when I heard the sound that only pegasus wings could make.

"Hey, it's me."

<--------o------O------o-------->

Nova

I don't know what I think I'm doing. I could probably get in serious trouble for being out of bed if Coldfire came back but I felt like I should risk it. "Hey, it's me," I said with a barely audible whisper.

"Nova?" He whispered back.

"Yeah."

He reached out and felt around on me until he found my hoof and pulled me closer to him until I was in the bed next to him. Well this escalated quickly.

I was facing towards him, I could feel his breath hitting my mane. He reached down and grabbed the blanket and pulled it over me. This wasn't the first time we had slept in the same bed. We used to all the time when we dated but we never did anything...sexual. We had gotten close once but I told him I wasn't ready yet.

"You could get in trouble, what are you doing?" He asked me, unable to read his expression because of the intense darkness.

"Well, we are dating again, surely this is okay," I whispered back. "I really don't know what I'm doing. Bringing back a little bit of familiarity, maybe?" He didn't respond for a little bit.

"This does feel really familiar," he said finally. He scooted the pillow of to me, thankfully it was long enough for both of us. He put his hoof under my side of the pillow and ran it back behind me, wrapping around and ending on my upper back.

Celestia, I was having an extreme sense of déjà vu. It felt...It felt like the love was never lost. Like maybe he had still loved me all of these years. It felt good just lying next to him; it was just like old times.

We had laid there for minutes in silence before I remembered an event from earlier today. "Khan?"

"Yeah?"

"Kicker was right you know."

"What?"

"Kicker, he was right," I said, I'm pretty sure he was catching on by now. "Maybe we should continue writing songs. It is apart of who we are."

He took a second, probably thinking it over. After his recent burst of anger, he might not have felt like talking about this kind of thing and I understood if he didn't. He was right though. It was pretty selfish of those ponies to do that but they are fans. Almost all of them would have done the same thing.

"I still remember some of the lyrics that Smokey had wanted us to look over," he said.

"That's good. Think we could turn it into something?" I asked, getting a little excited.

"Maybe if we had instruments."

That was certainly a problem, but not one for today. "We will figure out a way. It's obvious that there are some instruments somewhere, considering Vida and that stallion from the lunch line said there would be music at the anniversary festival."

"Well," he began, I could feel him shifting in the bed, but I couldn't see anything but I guessed he turned over on to his back because of a soft grunt. "That's a different problem, for a different day."

I leaned up a little bit. "You're right." I crawled on top of him.

"Nova," he said with a slight chuckle. "What are you doing-"

It was my turn to cut him off, as I planted my lips on his. It didn't take him but a second before he was leaning into it also. We both stayed in it and he eventually got his tongue past my lips and my tongue fought back. We were at a stand still that stood off for at least another thirty seconds. Then I felt something touch the front of my right leg. We both pulled away at the same time, I could feel a very soft and restrained pant from him and he said, "I'm sorry, I couldn't-"

I kissed him again. "It's okay," I told him, slowly lifting myself up and then laying back down next to him. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling; the time we had come extremey close to doing something this had happened. I didn't mind, it's not like it was something I hadn't seen before and I wasn't something he hadn't seen. I knew he couldn't help it and I was starting to feel a little sore down there myself but I still wasn't ready for that level of commitment, it was the same reason as the last time. It made me wonder if I'd ever be ready for something like that.

I took my mind off the subject; a different problem for a different day. My entire body ached but I haven't been so relaxed in ages. I was facing the opposite wall and when he felt it was appropriate, he wrapped his arm around me and I scooted back into him, his stomach against my back.

He leaned forward, his muzzle next to my ear, "I've been wanting to say this for six years and have it actually mean something to you," he said before pausing for a minute. "I love you."

My stomach was full of butterflies. I almost couldn't say it back because of the guilt of him not being able to say that for so long. I feel a little selfish, coming back to him when I needed it most but I couldn't help it. The purist thing I have ever said is my reply.

"I love you, too."