Episode 216: The Defense of Appleloosa

Smoke tainted the air with its charcoal scent, but that wasn’t half as alarming as the copper tang of blood that accompanied it. Little Strongheart was well named, courageous beyond her young years as daughter of Chief Thunderhooves of the buffalo who roamed the southern plains. She’d squared off with hostile wildlife that sometimes hunted her people, and even raided trains during the days the buffalo were in conflict with the ponies of Equestria and their expansion into her people’s lands.

Even so, her courage was tested like a strong tree being buffeted by hurricane winds, near to snapping as she dragged a wounded buffalo warrior by the thick scruff of his burly neck away from the burning crater that was, just a minute ago, the watering hole her tribe was camped near. She still wasn’t sure what was happening. Everything was confusion as she heard other buffalo yelling, and her father’s loud bellows coming from somewhere nearby. Smoke still poured in a thick, dark fog over the moonlit camp, with fires having caught among some of the tents. The explosion that had all but vaporized the watering hole had been preceded by an ugly red glow that had flashed across the sky, and other similar strobes of baleful light had marked other detonations around the edge of the camp.

Strongheart had no idea what the cause was, but the warrior she was dragging to safety was not merely burned, but had a badly bleeding cut over his side that, to her eye, looked like it came from a weapon, or perhaps the claw of some large beast.

“Strongheart!”

She turned her head at the call of her name, seeing an elderly female buffalo swiftly emerging from the smoke amid the tents, running up to her. Though old enough that some of her darker fur was turning to gray, the elder female had a powerful and large build, along with keen eyes that showed the sharpness of the mind within.

“Clear River! He’s hurt!” Strongheart said, trying to haul the wounded warrior in her grasp a few more paces, although Clear River was upon her in mere seconds, already checking the warrior’s injury with a critical eye. The tribe’s healer was wise of many things, and a core pillar of the buffalo tribe. As terrified as Strongheart felt, just Clear River’s presence was enough to help focus her own thinking. “Where’s my father? Who or what is attacking us?”

“Evil spirits, young one,” Clear River replied, using her rather dexterous mouth to pull out a pouch of various herbs which she chewed up then applied to the warrior’s deep cut, staunching the bleeding, “Your father spoke with the great rulers of the pony tribes, and we knew danger might seek us soon. Too soon. Hm, this warrior will live, but I must carry him. Strongheart, you need to gather the young ones and those too old to fight and lead them to Appleloosa, while your father and the warriors hold off the evil spirits.”

Further needles of fear clawed at her belly, hearing her father bellow in the distance once more, both in rage and in pain, and Strongheart shook her head, “No! I must fight as well. I am as much a warrior of the tribe as any other!”

“I do not doubt your heart, my young one, but it is because of that heart that you must lead the others to safety! They will follow you and your strength, you can keep them calm and protect them. Strongheart, please-” Clear River halted herself mid-speech, eyes sharply darting towards something to their left. Faster than Strongheart had ever seen the elderly buffalo move, Clear River shoved Strongheart back just in time for something hot, red, and fast to whizz past her like an angry, glowing bee. Strongheart felt a wet splash on her face, blinking in surprise as she stumbled to her hooves to see Clear River clutching at her shoulder, where a chunk of hide had been torn clean off by whatever had flown by.

A voice that dripped casual amusement chuckled from the smoke that still coiled across the edge of the camp, and a figure strutted forth, “Not bad, grandma. I was aiming for the kid’s head. Surprised you even sensed me coming.”

Strongheart had to blink a few times, as if her vision of this mysterious and strange creature was being blurred. His form was indistinct for a few seconds before it became clearer, along with a strangely cold and clammy pressure that Strongheart felt press upon her chest. He was a dark, bipedal creature, unlike much of anything that Strongheart had seen before. Spiky green hair clumped around an onyx face, with similarly green eyes that positively sparkled with playful violence. She’d seen a few rare traders up from the south whose species had arms and hands like this one, although none that had a literal hole in his stomach that she could see through like this man had, more pieces of jagged bone encircling the left side of his head like the teeth of a strange insect. The weapon he carried over one shoulder reminded her of the hatchets some of the Appleloosa farmers used for their chores, only this hatchet was much larger and reeked of the blood she could see spattering its edge.

“Run, Strongheart. Quickly!” Clear River said, shoving the wounded warrior towards Strongheart while leaping between her and this strange monster.

“Oho? Granny is gonna throw down with me? I wonder what my mom would say about me beating up on the elderly? Oh, wait, she’d get an absolute kick outta that. Your soul smells delicious, and so does the kid’s. If both of you can see me, that means you’ve got some tasty potential, so come on and show me what you got, grandma!”

Whoever or whatever this guy was, Strongheart was at least a little thankful he liked to run his mouth. It bought her time to grab the injured warrior again and begin dragging him away, while Clear River had time to use a hoof to reach into one of the many medicine pouches covering her woven cloth and bead harness. The beads rattled a little as Clear River pulled out a hoof full of several powders that she mixed together, and with a strong wind that kicked up at the right moment, she blew the fresh dust mixture towards the man.

He looked unimpressed with the faint sparkles of purple and pink dust that billowed around him in unusually swirling and contrasting patterns that didn’t seem like they conformed to the wind. His nose twitched and he shook his head, “Okay, cute, you trying to give me a high or something, granny? Like a little magic dust is gonna...uuuh...why...is the ground upside down now?”

He wobbled on his feet as if drunk, eyes unfocused and blinking. He didn’t quite fall over, but it was obvious he was having trouble keeping his balance as whatever Clear River had blown into his face had a very adverse effect on the “evil spirit’s” sense of balance and awareness. Strongheart had long ago learned that Clear River kept all sorts of things in those medicine pouches that were as magical as any unicorn’s spell, and the old buffalo had accumulated a lot of wisdom on how to make use of the plains most magical plants to generate some impressive effects. Even the basic healing herbs she’d used on the bleeding buffalo warrior had already closed his wounds to scabs and likely saved his life.

Strongheart admired Clear River and respected her skills, yet couldn’t help but fear for the elder’s life against such a strange and seemingly dangerous enemy. The two-legged creature gave off a frightful growl as he kept trying to shake his head in order to clear whatever befuddling effect the dust had on him, and as he did so he threw his open palm out. “Make the world wobble all you want, I’ll just blast everything around me!”

There was a whip-crack of noise as a dance of red energy arcs played around the creature’s splayed fingers, and Strongheart saw the swift flash of several projectiles blast from his hand as he fired randomly around him. Each swift sphere of energy moved faster than Strongheart could truly see, forcing her to duck for cover as the random shots flew overhead, tearing through tents like giant arrows. This must have been what he’d fired at her when Clear River had pushed her out of the way, and he was shooting many of them as he stumbled about, still drugged by magic but trying to hit Clear River, or anything else for that matter.

Clear River hunkered low as best she could while barreling forward at speed, her bulk still impressive for an old buffalo. Her hooves snatched a full medicine pouch from her harness and she swept it out to her left and right, creating a cloud of yellowish orange smoke that billowed towards the biped. She then drew out a small clay jug and drank deeply of its contents, just as the man started sniffing the cloud and coughing. “The heck is this? Stinks like crap! Soon as my head clears, granny, I’m making a rug outta you.”

The old buffalo did not deign to respond, instead stamping her hooves and spitting out the concoction she held in her mouth in a wide spray that, upon striking the cloud of gas around the two-legger began to ignite into brilliant pink flames. A howling detonation followed as the gas and liquid exploded, but not purely in flame, but the liquid appeared to magically transmute the fire into a burning, jelly substance that coated the ground and the man both. He began to flail about and tried to wipe the flaming goo off of him, but it was sticky as tar, and was not so easily rubbed off as the pink flames continued to burn upon him.

“Sonuvabitch! Freakin’ hell! What is this shit!?”

“The earth is a bountiful teacher of many secrets, her children of leaf and bark the holders of power seen only by those willing to learn,” Clear River said, drawing forth another pouch from her harness and spreading a line of silvery dust and mixed red leaves in front of her, “I call upon their spirits to banish you from this place, evil one.”

She blew upon the dust and leaves, the silver powder mixing upon the red leaves and clinging to them, which then turned the leaves themselves silver as they became like sharpened steaks and flew, as if blown by a massive wind, to hurl at the bipedal creature like a flight of arrows. Even if he was still dazed by the earlier drugging, he seemed to sense this attack coming and leaped straight up into the air. While his body still burned, his skin seemed able to withstand the flames to a degree, and Strongheart’s eyes boggled as she saw him stand on the air as he evaded the silvery, darting leaves.

“Huh...” the man looked at the flames slowly burning out on his flesh, then the field of silver coated leaf darts, “Kinda like that alchemy shit the Quincy use... well, screw it, my head’s clearing up, and I’m thinking it’s time to bust your head open, granny.”

He vanished, and Strongheart felt her stomach drop as she saw him appear behind Clear River as if all but teleporting there, his hatchet raised.

“Watch out!” she shouted, knowing it’d be too late as the man’s weapon descended.

A blaze of sparks lit the night as the hatchet was blocked by a long, bladed weapon attached to the arm of an orange pegasus with a short, blue mane, and wearing strange, charcoal black robes. The blade attached to his right forearm held the hatchet back, then the pegasus, wings flapping furiously, gave a yell and pushed the two-legged creature backwards. Clear River spun around, backing up in confusion, blinking at the pegasus as he faced down their apparently mutual foe.

“Leave these people alone, Arrancar. That is the only warning I’ll give,” the pegasus said.

The creature, the Arrancar, laughed, still on fire, but otherwise seemingly eager to keep fighting, “Whoa! A Soul Reaper, here!? What luck! Now I can brag to everyone else about taking down one of you assholes and earn some brownie points from mom. Let’s do this!”

A somewhat boyish sigh escaped the pegasus, “Should’ve figured.” He looked at Clear River and then Strongheart, “Both of you, go! I’ve got this guy!”

“That will hardly be necessary, young one,” said Clear River in a tone as firm as the ground beneath her hooves as she came up next to him, then took further steps towards the waiting and bemused Arrancar. She drew forth a pile of deep red dust and mixed herbs from a pouch marked with a painted symbol of a skull upon it, one that Strongheart had never seen the old buffalo touch before.

“Ma’am, these Arrancar are seriously dangerous,” said the pegasus, “Taking one on alone should really be my job-”

He cut himself short as Clear River breathed in a deep whiff of the herbal mixture, sucking it in through her thick nostrils with a huge inhaling breath. Then her body lit up with a suffused light of wafting red aura that coated her body as muscles bulged under her fur and the ground cracked under her hooves. The pegasus blinked, mouthing a baffled “What the...?”

For his part, the Arrancar looked more intrigued than anything else, licking his lips with a long, saliva dripping tongue and spreading his legs out in a wide stance while slapping a hand on his chest, even as some bits of flame still burned him, “Hell yeah, granny, that’s what I’m talking about! You or the Soul Reaper, I don’t give a shit who, let’s just get it on already!”

Once more he moved with the kind of speed Strongheart couldn’t follow with her eyes, vanishing from sight with a static buzz of sound that tickled her ears. Rather than appear behind Clear River, the Arrancar went straight in at her from the front, arm cocked back to bring his hatchet down. Strongheart once more feared the elder might be slain on the spot, and certainly the orange pegasus thought as much for he began to move as well, yet before he could intercept the Arrancar or the hatchet fell, Clear River’s fiery red aura grew as she braced her hind hooves and struck forward with her whole weight put behind an upper-cut punch with her right hoof.

There was a crack of air and a visible burst of force as the Arrancar man’s stomach indented from the blow, nearly folding him over even as the punch catapulted him upward like a loosely tossed sack of potatoes. As the pegasus and Stronghart gapped, Clear River jumped up into the air, reaching the near twenty foot height where the Arrancar spun, and then grabbed him in a bear head. Like someone planting a railroad spike, she spun him over and fell to the ground, pile- driving him into the dirt with a resounding boom.

Rolling off of him, Clear River spun and raised both forehooves up and then brought them down with punishing force. The Arrancar, shockingly, responded by ripping both his head and hatchet out of the ground and swinging the weapon up to intercept the dual blow in time, although even in doing so he was driven deeper into the ground as he spat blood from a mouth of several broken teeth.

“F-freakin’... hell! What’d you sniff, lady!?”

“The Fury of the Earth grants great strength, if only for a short time. Enough to bury an evil spirit such as you,” Clear River replied, raising her hooves again for another strike. The Arrancar sprang away this time, awkwardly as he flung himself at great speed from another earth cratering blow, causing him to roll and skid a few dozen feet before springing to his feet, still coughing blood.

“Right, so you got some good shit in those pouches. Noted. Worth busting out my own A-game for,” he ran his hatchet over his own chest, cutting himself as he intoned, “Hack them; Hormiga Leon!” (Ant Lion)

Blood boiled up from the wound, then in a swift, short torrent flowed over his body and became a bubbling froth that radiated violent malic so thickly into the air that it made Strongheart want to gag. Clear River’s eyes, bloodshot from the drug she had taken that had bulked up her muscles and covered her in that fierce red aura, now looked back at Strongheart, “Cease gawking, young lady, and go aid our tribe! There is no more you can do here!”

“She’s right,” the pegasus said, brandishing his arm blade at the transforming Arrancar, “Applejack told me about you, Strongheart. If you’re half as brave as she said, then your people need you to organize them to evacuate to Appleloosa. Leave this guy to me and the badass old lady, here.”

Clear River eyed him with a small smile, “I disapprove of foul language, but appreciate the compliment, young man. You may stay and help me put to rest this evil spirit and his ilk.”

Strongheart gulped, gripping the unconscious warrior she’d been dragging, “Okay... but what about my father, and the other warriors?”

“Applejack is going to them,” the pegasus said, “Trust me, she’s more than enough ot turn the tide here. Now get going!”

By now the transformation taking over the Arrancar’s body finished in a bloody crimson burst of energy, revealing a monstrosity twice the size of his original body and heavily altered in shape from the humanoid one he'd just had. Thick, bone white pincers spread from a wide, insectile helmet where his head melded into the twisted visage of a giant, carnivorous antlion. His lower body had grown into a long, bulbous insect shape with multiple pointed legs and arms that sprouted from a lower body now nearby fifteen feet long. Noticeably, the mandibles around his face clacked with metal, bearing a resemblance to two steel hatchets set to slice together.

“Time to grind up some meat for the barbeque!” the Arrancar laughed, “Name’s Dicer. Figured you might want to know, us getting so deeply acquainted and all.”

The pegasus showed no mirth or the barest hint of interest in being ‘acquainted’ at all, but seemed spurred by some dutiful sense of honor as he dryly replied, “Flash Sentry, Lieutenant of the Thirteenth Division, Gotei 13.”

Looking a little bemused by the exchange, Clear River cleared her throat, “Clear River, medicine cow of the buffalo Golden Plains Tribe. Is this ritual of introductions now over? We can cleanse the evil spirit?”

“Yes, let’s,” said Flash Sentry, and went flying right at Dicer, who gave a hearty belly laugh before rushing ot meet both the pegasus and Clear River as she charged in as well.

Storngheart, much to her regret, could see no more even as she heard the resounding crash of noise as the three fought. All she could focus on now was dragging the wounded buffalo warrior further past the now mostly wrecked tents in search of others to round up and help begin evacuating. Meanwhile she could also still hear the more distant roars and bellows of her father and other buffalo intermixed with the noise of explosion and screams.

That pegasus, Flash Sentry, had said Applejack was here. If that was true, Strongheart could only pray for her pony friend’s safety amid all this madness.

Among the many things one can attribute to buffalo was that they certainly knew how to charge. And Thunderhooves was the pinnacle on that count. Two tons of rock solid muscle packed into a fluffy hide of dark brown fur, massive even by his species’ standards, the Chief of the Golden Plains tribe could put the locomotives of the Equestrians to shame once he lowered his head, brought his horns to bear, and got up to speed.

It was with such speed and train crushing force that he barreled head first into his waiting opponent with the air splitting crack of an avalanche. Stout buffalo horns grinded against the flat of a curved, sickle shaped blade nearly a foot thick, and four times that length, held in the fairly muscular arms of a female Arrancar with a head of jade green hair cut short in back and long in front, partially covering her face, which gave a strained half-grin as she was pushed back by Thundrehoove’s charging form. Big rivulets of dirt were pushed up as she was shoved through the ground by the charging buffalo chieftain, while all around the pair other buffalo warriors scuffled with her fellow Arrancar in a wild melee.

All told the number of Arrancar attacking the buffalo encampment was only a couple of dozen, a pack of stragglers who got distracted more easily than their brothers and sisters who went on en masse towards larger cities. Rather than follow behind, and in their view get to only clean up the scraps after their siblings had their way with the ponies in the cities, this pack decided to wander around the mostly uninhabited southern regions, hunting wild animals at first, but soon sniffing out stronger souls. Some had gone towards the town of ponies not far away, but others thought the big, fluffy buffalo looked more appetizing and fun to play with.

For them, that’s what this bloody conflict was; playtime. The buffalo warriors for all their stern seriousness could see mad playfulness reflected in the violent assault on their people. Even as Arrancar got knocked about by the big, bulky warriors, they laughed like children wrestling on the playground, although this hardly applied to the vicious manner in which they fought. Thunderhooves had already lost several warriors, cut down in bloody heaps by the hellaciously fast and strong Arrancar. He had been told of these evil spirits by Celestia, so he knew what they were, and knew to expect them to be dangerous, but even so he was surprised by these brutish creatures’ capabilities.

His warriors were giving a decent enough accounting of themselves; none strangers to conflict. While the Arrancar were faster, and unnaturally tough for their size, each time one tried to match a buffalo strength to strength they paid for it with bleeding wounds from goring horns, and broken bones from powerful slams that broke the earth. But the buffalo had no ranged weapons to speak of, and the Arrancar could readily fall back or take to the air, raining blasts of energy down upon the buffalo, sowing confusion and chaos before leaping back in to strike with those deadly blades.

Thus far the buffalo, numbering over seventy warriors, minus a few casualties, were keeping some twenty Arrancar occupied while the rest of the tribe of several hundred noncombatants scrambled to organize a retreat to Appleloosa. Thunderhooves knew his daughter was out there somewhere among them, or at least he hoped she was. He feared any second he’d see his brave little Strongheart charging through the fray in an attempt to join the warriors in battle, and that was the last thing he wanted. He certainly didn’t need the distraction, for his current foe occupied his full attention, making it hard to even bellow orders to his warriors.

“I’m liking you, pops!” the female Arrancar chimed, finally managing to halt his use of her as a garden tool as they got pushed up against a nearby boulder, “You’re packing some real muscle! Name’s Tenna! Like, antenna? Get it? Because mom’s got a thing for bugs!”

Thunderhooves let out a deep, guttural warcry and shifted his weight to deliver a shoulder slam past her guard that cracked one of her teeth free as her head snapped around and the Arrancar was sent sprawling. Despite the hefty blow and injury, Tenna flipped to her feet, still laughing as she spun her large, curved sword in a lazy two-handed grip, “Yeah, I think the name is kinda dumb, too, but what can you do? Mom probably got bored of naming us after the two thousandth kid, you know? Really, I’m just glad I’m not part of the batch where she started in with the numbers. Can you imagine being named ‘Bob 119?”

“Stop. Talking!” Thunderhooves growled and dug his hooves into the ground beneath the boulder next to him, and proceeded to lift the giant rock and hurled it straight at Tenna with howling force. She whistled and her sword flashed in her hands, the blade cutting right through the boulder and causing it to split in half around her as the two pieces continued to fly past.

“Okay! Okay! Fine! I know we’re here to kill you all and eat your souls but you don’t have to be such a spoilsport about it. C’mon, lighten up. You only live once! In your case, for not much longer. But worry not, your death is going to the noble cause of feeding starving folk in need. Seriously, you have no idea how hungry I am.”

Already acquainted with the speed of these freakish creatures, Thunderhooves knew better than to be taken by surprise when Tenna vanished from his sight. Even if there was no way for him to react to her blindingly quick movements, his experiences had taught him many tricks for overcoming such disadvantages. Dipping his head into the ground, he dug his horns in and flung himself around in a circle, ripping up great gouts of dirt in a circle around his body. While this would do nothing to slow Tenna down, what it did do was create a ripple in the airborne dirt that he could see, cluing him into the fact that she was coming at his left flank.

While she was still too fast for him to block, he did know which side of his body to tense his muscles at so that when her sword struck down, he was already rolling with the blow. Uncannily sharp Zanpaktou metal still cut his flank deep, but Thunderhooves muscles, tensed as they were, had a supreme strength that wasn’t wholly natural by Earth standards either, since buffalo held a tie to the earth not unlike earth ponies that boosted their bodies through an innate form of magic. For Tenna, and many of the other Arrancar, striking a buffalo was like trying to hack at a particularly tough and thick side of beef using a kitchen knife. Sure, it was doable, but it it was going to take a few swings.

Her blade got caught in Thunderhoove’s thick hide for a second, muscle tension alone briefly holding her curved sword in place. Ignoring the pain from the bleeding gash in his side, Thunderhooves struck out with his left elbow, catching Tenna in the ribs with a smashing blow that caused her teeth to grind as she finally tore her blade free. He adjusted his position swiftly, goring at her with his horns. She flipped over the blow, landing on his head, where she inverted her sword in an attempt to pierce down through his skull.

Another Arrancar was sent flying through the air and knocked into her, blowing her off Thundrhoove’s head and sending both sprawling to the floor. Thunderhooves glanced over at where the Arrancar had been tossed from, seeing a huge, female buffalo warrior snorting fumes as she charged up next to him. She was broad, even by buffalo standards, with unusually red horns and her long, braided tail dyed the same color.

“Are you already, Chief?” she asked, eyeing his wound with worry.

“Fine, Big Angie. And you?” he looked her over. Big Angie, something of a mother hen to the warriors and a consummate chef of the tribe, was covered in dozens of small cuts, bruises, and burns, but otherwise seemed quite raring to fight. The Arrancar she’d tossed like a sack of wheat was a somewhat scrawny fellow with thin, scraggy hair, carrying a short knife-like blade. He was no less scuffed up than Big Angie, although also no less eager to fight as he disentangled himself from Tenna and leaped to his feet, screaming.

“Who said you could fast-pitch me, you super-sized throw-rug!? I’m going to wear your horns as my fuckin’ codpiece, I swear to MOM!”

Tenna, groaning, stood up next to him and rapped the shouting short fellow over the head with the pommel of her sword, “Shut up, Bob 119. If you let her get a grip on you, then you deserved to get thrown around. I mean, look at her, she looks like she could eat an entire platter of yous and still have room for dessert. Hi!” she waved at Big Angie, “I’m Tenna! This is Bob 119. It’s okay if you abuse him! We all do!”

“Oh, bite me, Tenna! Why aren’t we using Resurreccion, already!? Dicer just released his, so we should too!”

“Yeah, well, Dicer has the self-control of a caffeinated squirrel. Unlike most of you dorks, I actually pay attention to what mom says, and she said this world’s got some tough customers defending it. So I say we hold off on transforming until they show up.”

On the very heel of Tenna’s words, there was a noise like a mountain dropping, and then exploding, followed by a blast of air from a shockwave as a number of Arrancar near the center of the melee were hit by a fast, blazing orange object that careened around like a high-speed bowling ball. The struck Arrancar were sent spinning away, landing in heaps behind Tenna and Bob 119, who both starred as the swift moving object of burning orange light slowed down enough to reveal a pony’s shape.

Strutting between where Thunderhooves and Big Angie stood, Applejack stopped and faced Tenna, Bob 119, and the gathering Arrancar behind them who had fallen back to rally around their leader, now that this new threat had appeared. Thunderhooves had to take a moment to even recognize that this was indeed Applejack, for not only was she suffused by a bright gold and orange aura of light, she was clad in steaming, shimmering black iron armor from neck to flank, and was carrying a impressively large club-like weapon that was also made of dark iron.

“Is that you, Applejack?” Thunderhooves asked, and the farm pony glanced back at him, tipping her stetson with a small smile that seemed to sharpen into a hard look as she gazed at his injuries, and the forms of those warriors around the battlefield who’d already fallen.

“Who else ya think, Chief Thunderhooves? Appleloosa ain’t ‘bout ta let its buffalo friends deal with the like o’ these varmints alone. I’ll deal with this lot. Ya git yer folks clear o’ here an’ head ta Appleloosa.”

“My warriors and I shall stand and fight,” he said, “You needn’t face the burden of battling these evil spirits alone.”

“Ain’t alone, got Flash here somewhere, but that aside...” Applejack cracked her neck, facing the Arrancar as she slammed her weapon’s gnarled head into the ground with a resounding impact that made the earth shake all over the camp, “I can take these guys down just fine. See ta yer people, Thunderhooves. Leave takin’ out the trash here ta me.”

Thunderhooves was hesitant to comply, as his instinct as a warrior himself was to keep fighting. But behind him, amid the camp, he could see the confused lines of buffalo still trying to flee, and caught a glimpse of his daughter among them, doing her best to organize and calm those still seeking loved ones or personal belongings. He saw his warriors, tired, almost all wounded, with several dead or critical injured on the ground, their lifeblood seeping into the earth of the plains they so loved. He did have a duty to the safety of his tribe, first and foremost. He looked back at Applejack, and saw nothing but confidence and a quiet, assured power there. The lively farm mare had always been strong, but to Thunderhooves eyes something had awakened in her that went beyond that, as if he was looking at something almost more of the spiritual world than the realm of flesh and blood. Just... what had Applejack become?

Whatever the case, he knew he could trust her at her word.

“Very well, Applejack. I entrust this battle to you. Warriors, to me! We lead our people to safety! Gather our wounded and fallen!”

He spun about with impressive dexterity for an individual of his incredible size, and next to him Big Angie gave Applejack an approving nod, “Pound their blocks in for me.”

“Ya got it, sugarcube,” Applejack replied with confidence, cooling Big Angie’ concerns as she turned to follow her Chief and fellow warriors. With their leader’s orders given and not to be questioned, the buffalo were fast about picking up those who could no longer fight, moving with a well structured withdrawal towards the camp. The Arrancar, however, weren’t about to let their supposed prey escape so easily.

“Nobody said you all could just tease us with a good fight then pack up and leave!”

“Yeah, get your asses back here, you fuzzy popcorn snackies!”

About half of the salivating pack of Arrancar leaped for the retreating buffalo, howling hunger and eager bloodlust as several brandished their Zanpaktou, while others charged up Bala to fire off in tightly packed spheres of reishi. None of them were even looking Applejack’s way, and hence missed her casually flipping her iron shillelagh around in an arc over her head and slamming it into the ground in their general direction. The earth heaved as a several hundred tone slab of earth was suddenly flipped upright like someone flipping up a table, only this table of solid rock and earth was a few hundred feet long and a good fifty feet high, and slammed right into the path of the charging Arrancar.

Bala bullets and Arrancar alike ended up smacking into this wall of rock and earth, which to their shock absorbed the impact of their bodies and the reishi bullets both. It was as if this wall of packed earth was hardened by a factor of magnitudes, like an impenetrable steel wall rather than dirt and rock. As the Arrancar that slammed into it were knocked back, Applejack turned about and kicked out with one of her hind legs, striking the back edge of this wall solidly with her hoof. This seemingly small impact had the explosive effect of launching the entire wall like a gigantic battering ram at such high speed that it rippled through the air with a shockwave, catching not only the Arrancar that had charged ahead, but several of the ones who had stayed further back to watch.

This flat projectile of stone went flying, with multiple Arrancar stuck to it like flies on a fly swatter, for nearly a mile as it bounced multiple times, each impact breaking it apart a little more and sending Arrancar flying as if they were pebbles.

“Holy shit,” said Bob 119, starring for a second at the carnage, then he looked at Tenna, “Okay, now can we use our Resurreccion?”

“...Yeah... yeah we can,” she said, eye twitching as she glanced between the mile long pile of rubble and half of her pack strewn about like kicked pinecones, “Everybody, dogpile the orange glue tube! Laugh and Bleed; Grillo Ruidoso!” (Noisy Cricket)

Neon green spiritual energy exploded around her as she stabbed her sword upward, while other Arrancar began to invoke their own Zanpaktou, generating even more bursts and swirling expulsions of power. Bob 119 was the only one who didn’t immediately do so, leaping back from Tenna and hiding his Zanpaktou behind his back as he looked left, then right, as if waiting for something before muttering a phrase under his breath. Upon doing so he spun around like a top, burrowing himself into the ground.

Applejack had no idea what that was about, but she had other things to focus on as Tenna and the rest of the Arrancar hunting pack finished transforming, including a number of those who’d gotten knocked away by her previous attack who had been injured but remained conscious enough to release their Zanpaktou.

All told a sordid lineup of monstrous, transformed Hollows now arrayed themselves against the lone farm pony, Tenna at the very forefront of the pack. She herself had gained segments of bony armor down her back and shoulders which then displayed prominent, pale white insect wings, while her arms gained curved blades of bone sprouting from the back of her forearms that were shaped similarly to her original sword. Her legs had grown into reverse joined, white grasshopper legs, interspersed with pale green musculature in between the carapace joints.

“You got some pretty leg strength there,” Tenna said, flexing her grasshopper legs, “Let’s see if they match up to mine.”

“Ah’ll take that bet,” Applejack said, flexing her hind legs, “Now quit yer yappin’ an’ come at me, all ya’ll!”

Flash shot straight upwards, feeling the sharp nick upon his left hind hoof as the insanely sharp mandible blades around Dicer’s oversized helmet snapped shut on where he’d been. Even with Flash Step, it’d been a near thing, and Flash could tell that he was only just marginally faster than Dicer’s Sonido, especially as the Arrancar leaped right into the air with Flash, laughing as he stabbed upward with the dozen or so piercing legs jutting from the sides of his elongated body.

Flash deflected these with his tonfa-blade, spinning the weapon while skipping across the air even higher, using his wings in the same way he might have used his feet as a human to step off of the air’s reishi particles. Finding a break in Dicer’s attacks, Flash sliced upward with his Zanpaktou, generating a copy of himself behind the Arrancar to try and pincer him between both attacks.

Dicer surprised Flash but leaning in to the attack, willingly taking Flash’s strike on his back while biting down with his hatchet-like mandibles upon Flash’s frontal assault. Sure, Flash’s blade cut a red line of bloody pain across Dicer’s back armor, but now Flash was trapped by the arm as Dicer’s insanely sharp mandibles applied pressure to the Soul Reaper’s Zanpakout.

“Bet you figured we drones are all alike, eh!?” Dicer shouted with inflamed eyes of equal violence and eagerness, “Sure, we’re pretty frekain’ homogeneous, and none of us are as strong as mom’s big three favs! But some of us have eaten up enough Hollows, Soul Reapers, and dumbass Quincy to finally distinguish ourselves! I’m even willing to bet my mandibles might give tough guys like Pharynx a bit of a run for his money, what do you think of them, Soul Reaper!?”

“I think... that you really ought to pay attention when you have two opponents instead of one,” Flash said, raising his left palm up while pushing back against the mandibles with his tonfa, “Hado Number Four: Byakurai!”

The white bolt of intense lightning sprang from his palm and lashed into Dicer’s torso. While Flash knew the lower-level Kido wouldn’t inflict much damage, it did have the effect of briefly distracting Dicer with a moment of shock and pain while Clear River took action. Flash had seen the old buffalo moving below them on the ground, and trusted she would take action once an opening was provided. She didn’t disappoint.

With quick working hooves she had spread a series of herbs and powder upon the ground in the pattern of a circle containing a wavy geometric image similar in shape to a tree. Breathing deep and placing her hooves to either side of the circle, she made a deep, rumbling chant under her breath and suddenly the circle glowed a bright, sunny yellow and the ground rumbled. With speed like lightning, a sharp trunk of wood, enfolded by circling vines of thick thorns, shot upwards from the earth and impacted Dicer. The wood did shatter on impact, but not before cracking his exterior chitin and even cutting the Hierro reinforced skin underneath with thorns shaper than any mundane ones were capable of.

“Guh! Good hit, granny, but flyboy here is wrong!” Dicer said as he spun away from the blow and hung in the air as he glared down at her, “I didn’t forget you at all.”

Angry red energy snapped and flared along the edges of his mandibles, and this energy grew and solidified into what looked like clouds of crimson sand that spun around his mandibles at high speed, creating a whining pitch in the air as he shouted, “Arena Desollada!” (Skinning Sand)

Two independent spears of concentrated sand shot from his mandibles and flew down around Clear River, where the deep ruby sands spun about her in a cutting mass. Flash could hear the elder buffalo cry out in pain as lacerations and abrasions began to appear all over her tough hide, and he immediately rushed Dicer, hoping to end the Arrancar’s attack by forcing Dicer to focus on him. He cut in twin horizontal and vertical lines with his tonfa-blade, duplicating himself both above and below Dicer’s body as he charged in.

Dicer did have to pull his sands back from Clear River to protect himself, flipping his body in a spinning twist away from Flash’s strikes as the two sharp clouds of red sand flew back up to form barriers around Dicer’s body. Flash felt his Zapaktou scrape against the sand, and immediately sensed danger, Flash Stepping away just before the sand clouds suddenly lashed out with needle-like protrusions of sand that tried to whip at him the moment he’d gotten close.

However, he’d been so focused on evading those he barely had time to react to Dicer himself appearing behind him with Sonido, blurring into view with his hatchet mandibles snapping towards Flash’s mid-section.

“Got ya-!” Dicer said, at least halfway, but was cut short by Clear River impacting with his body like a flying, fur coated brickhouse. She’d used the last remaining strength of her magically boosted body to launch herself up into the air to grab Dicer by the waist. He hung in the air with her, her muscles straining to bear hug him while he growled and began trying to pierce her body with his spindly bug legs.

Even as she was stabbed in several places, she gripped hard with her hooves, then began to head butt his abdomen with her entire forehead, goring horns and all. Each impact reverberated through the air like a giant gong being hit by a sledgehammer. Blood spurting across her stern features with each impact, her horns driven deeper into Dicer’s elongated, insectoid abdomen, but finally he managed to pierce her sides enough with his own sharp arms and legs to drag her off of him and throw her bodily back down to the ground.

She fell, but Flash was there in an instant to catch her, or at least slow the fall of the bulky elder buffalo as he did his best to set her down on the ground as gently as possible. “Are you alright?” he asked with breathless worry, already starting a healing Kido as he raised a glowing blueish green hoof of spirit energy towards her now many, many wounds.

Clear River spat blood, snorting, “These bug bites will not be the end of me, young buck. Spare your energy for finishing our foe, for he is not beaten yet.”

Flash had several objections to field, including but not limited to the fact that he was, technically, probably a lot older than she was. Her injuries looked more severe than she was trying to play off, Dicer’s pointed bug legs having stabbed multiple holes on either side of her body. Granted, he knew not to underestimate the endurance of some of Equestria’s species, but he had to figure Clear River had pushed herself to her limit. The flaming red aura she’d had earlier was now faded away, and her bulked up muscles had shrunk back from being ridiculous while under the influence of her magic, to just being a bone-tough old lady.

“I think I’d rather heal you, just in case,” he said, “Besides, after the goring you gave him that jerk has to be near done for.”

Yet even as Flash spoke, he felt Dicer’s reiatsu spike higher, rather than fade. Up above in the air the Arrancar was wrapping multiples of his limbs around the bleeding wounds Clear River had stabbed in him, his face twisted with pain, but the bastard was still grinning under his helmet, eyes wild with a bizarre battle lust. “Whoahoho! Granny, granny, granny, I think I’ve changed my mind about what I wanna do with you! I’m not gonna eat you. You’re too much fun. Nah, I’m gonna find out, after I tear your soul out of your body, if I can make a Hollow out of a spunky old bat like you! But fiiiiirst I gotta deal with the Reaper Boy Scout down there!”

He dropped from the air and landed hard on the ground about twenty feet in front of Flash and Clear River, throwing up a cloud of dust that instantly got blown away as Dicer howled and directed the streams of his crimson sands at the pair. Clear River shoved Flash away from her, but he stubbornly remained close as he created a set of duplicates of himself as he began to spin his tonfa in a defensive arch. The ten or so copies that surrounded himself and Clear River, all of them swiftly spinning their Zapaktou the same as he was, created a shield against the scouring red sands that billowed around them like a furious dust devil. Flash grunted as he still felt sharp sand grains infused with malicious Hollow reishi slipping past his spinning blades, tearing at his clothing, his hide, and ripping abrasive wounds over his flesh.

“I bet mom will reward me plenty if I show we can make these locals into one of us! Might be a whole new kind of fun to expand the family. But, seriously, Soul Reaper, what are you even doing here by your lonesome? You say you’re a Lieutenant, but if I’m kicking your ass you can’t be all that! What, your Soul Society buddies send you here out of embarrassment?”

While the childish taunts did sting a bit, Flash was grateful for them, because it meant he got a better read on Dicer’s location, which was obscured past all of the sand. Reading Dicer’s reiatsu was difficult given the sand was infused with the stuff, distorting things, but all that hot air Dicer was blowing made it clear the overconfident Arrancar hadn’t moved from where he’d landed.

Good, that made it easier for Flash to shift gears as he kept spinning his tonfa defensively so his mirrored replicas would keep up the defensive barrier, but at the same time he tapped into a bit of his Hakuda training to wrap reiatsu around his hind legs. He then spun himself into flip kick, adding additional speed and force to the move by using his pegasus wings, which he’d also infused some reiatsu into. He felt a lot more power out of the relatively simple move, just by adding the pegasus wings to the mix. The drain on his reiatsu was high, because he had to keep up the mirrored clones around himself and Clear River, while generating four more at a space he couldn’t see, but had to guess at based on Dicer’s taunting voice.

Fortunately, his gambit bore fruit as he heard the cracking blow of his duplicated kick landing four different times over Dicer’s body as the Arrancar was thrown up and backward by the hit, and the red sand around him and Clear River was disrupted.

He saw Dicer land in a heap, coughing and sputtering. Flash dismissed his mirrored copies, and with a blur of Flash Step he rushed the Arrancar while he was still down. He almost got close enough to strike, but Dicer’s instincts were well honed, and sensing Flash coming at him, Dicer vanished out of the way of Flash’s blades with Sonido and reappeared a short distance away.

“Nice cheap shot, but you won’t get another one in!” Dicer said, wobbling on his many insectile legs before aiming his mandibles at Flash, with coursing red energy gleaming between the hatchet blades. The twin clouds of sand moved once more, surrounding Clear River, keeping her in place, while Dicer charged up a Cero between his mandibles, aimed right for Flash.

“Dammit,” Flash, knew he could dodge the Cero, but given the angle of things, if he did the beam could well hit some of the distant buffalo still in the process of evacuating their camp. He set his tonfa in front of him, prepared to take the Cero head on if need be.

Dicer seemed perfectly thrilled with that, laughing as the ruby red sphere of power gathered in front of his face, pulsating between the tips of his helmet’s mandibles, “Hahaha! Good Boy Scout! Just stand right there and take it like the half-assed wannabe hero you are! Lieutenant or not you’re not going to survive a point blank Cero.”

Flash figured that when Dicer fired, he’d be stuck in place for a second or two. Just long enough to create a duplicate to stab the Arrancar right in his Hollow hole, even if in doing so Flash would be essentially defenseless against the Cero. He wasn’t throwing his life away, at least not in his mind. He had every intention of outpouring as much of his own reiatsu as possible to try and survive the blast, protect the buffalo behind him, and finish the Arrancar off.

His training with his Zanpaktou might not have quite earned him Bankai yet, but his reserves of spirit energy had improved considerably, and at this point he was even willing to bet on the Equestrian magic of friendship that he’d seen in action himself many times at this point.

He felt Dicer’s reiatsu surge, and saw the Cero sphere pulsating in last time, compressing itself in preparation to fire...

Then the sphere faded away, blipping out. Flash blinked. So did Dicer.

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

Both spoke at the same time, showing equal levels of confusion. Dicer, his body now shaking, tried to visibly charge up his Cero again, only for the energy to only briefly gather between his mandibles and then fizzle out. The Arrancar’s eyes widened as his body began to shake even more, far more than mere confusion or fear might engender.

“What the... freakin’... why’s everything... so heavy...?”

Flash heard a big sigh of relief from nearby and saw Clear River approaching, now that the red sand around her had fallen still to the ground. She was still bleeding, but she was also expertly applying goopy healing salves from her medicine pouches as she hobbled over to Flash while giving a smugly satisfied look towards the wobbling Dicer, “It’s about time the poison kicked in. Earth spirits be thanked, I was worried for a moment this irritatingly stout evil spirit might withstand them long enough to do you harm, young buck.”

“I’m... not that young,” Flash muttered, “But what did you do to him? When did you?”

She pointed at her bloody horns, “I coated them in a specific poison before ramming the evil spirit in the air. Very potent stuff. Could even put an adult dragon into a coma, if I got enough into them.”

Dicer was now partially collapsed, struggling to even lift his head as he coughed and sputtered, “Hell... granny... you’re ruthless enough... to be a... Hollow.”

He fell face first to the dirt, not quite dead, but completely knocked out of the fight by Clear River’s poison. Flash let out a sigh of relief of his own, nearly falling to his haunches, “Yeash, and this guy wasn’t even the strongest of Chrysalis’ children. Damn monsters. Hah, and here I was, trying to be the hero and protect you, when you’re the one who took him out.”

Clear River blew out a snort and gave him a rather motherly rap on the head with one hoof, “Nonsense. My poison would not have worked nearly so quickly had you not pressed him so hard, and without your help I doubt I’d have had the opening to wound him in the first place to get the poison into his system. You’re brave and capable as a warrior, young Flash Sentry, of the Soul Reapers. You have my gratitude for coming to my tribe’s aid.”

Flash nodded, glancing off to his left where, on the southern side of the camp he could hear the loud crashes and explosions of an intense battle. His senses told him all he needed to know about that end of things, “On that note, I can tell Applejack’s taking on the lion’s share of them over there. But I can sense more, further away... they must be targeting Applelossa. I’ll escort you and your tribe there, make sure no more of these bastards get at your people.”

“And what of this one?” she nodded towards Dicer, which gave Flash a moment of pause as he rubbed his chin with a wing.

“If this were back on Earth, policy would be to finish him off with my Zanpaktou. I actually have no idea if my Zanpaktou will even still purify a Hollow while here in Equestria. Either way, Twilight might like a prisoner to interrogate. How long will that poison keep him down?”

“Indefinitely, until I administer an antidote.”

“Then let’s leave him there until this is all settled, and I can confirm if Twilight wants prisoners or not,” Flash said, “Right now, protecting you and your tribe takes priority. There’s an airship waiting in Appleloosa that should be able to fit both your whole tribe and the townsfolk.”

They pair had already gotten moving, rushing past burned down tents while making their way towards the southern side of the camp where the majority of the buffalo tribe were gathering. The ground shook with impacts, and through clouds of billowing smoke Flash could see the flash of light and collision impacts of Applejack doing battle with what he estimated had to be at least near twenty of Chrysalis’ Arrancar. Most of them weren’t anything to write home about in terms of spiritual pressure, but he sensed at least one that was as strong, if not even a little stronger, than Dicer had been.

Flash wasn’t worried. He’d seen first hand what Applejack could do, especially while using her Inheritor form. She’d be fine. He was more worried about Appleloosa itself, for he could still sense a more distant, second pack of Arrancar that must have swung around the plains away from the buffalo tribe to target the township.

It’ll be okay. Tempest, Aria, and Sonata are there with the Treasury. They’ll hold out until we get there.

“Look, whatever your name is-” Tempest said, the dusky purple of her coating making it hard to tell just how much her frustration was turning her face red.

“It’s Braeburn, ma’am,” said the annoyingly attractive stallion with the sun yellow coat, long wavy mane of orange hair under a weirdly familiar stetson hat, intense green eyes, square jaw and- okay, Tempest made a mental note to dump an ice cold shower over herself literally any other time. She’d clearly spent too much time in the Storm King’s army, if dealing with this fellow for more than two minutes was distracting her. Besides, he was getting under her hide for entirely non-handsome-appearance related matters as he continued to say, “An’ I gotta tell ya we Appleloosians ain’t in the habit o’ turnin’ tail an’ runnin’ from our troubles.”

A firm set of nods and hollers from the town of ponies who’d gathered behind him only confirmed the stubbornness of the Appleloosa townsfolk. Tempest had landed the Treasury on the eastern side of the town, with its bow angled south-south-east. This gave the ship’s cannons the greatest possible field of fire to cover Major Polish’s regiment, which was now digging in along the town’s south border. The ship’s starboard cargo ramp was open and Tempest had been waiting for the town to gather their belongings and board, having had Sheriff Silverstar and his deputies go spread the word of evacuation.

Only now this punchably handsome stallion, who’d apparently appointed himself speaker for the crowd, was telling her they weren’t going to evacuate at all.

Taking a deep, scathing breath, she did her best to loom over Braeburn from the top of the cargo ramp. She was really good at looming. Really perfected the whole art of appearing dark and menacing while glaring down her snout at somepony. Sure, she wasn’t wearing her Storm King army armor anymore and in its place had a lighter purple and blue trimmed flight jacket with a flaring twin-tail bottom. Rarity had made it for her, saying it was ‘the proper style’ for an airship captain. Tempest had accepted because she hadn’t wanted to wear the Storm King’s armor while not working for him, and the jacket was incredibly comfortable. She’d given a firm pass on the hat Rarity had tried to foist on her, however. No way she was putting something that gaudy on her head. Besides, she didn’t want to hide her horn.

“Now listen here, all of you, but especially you, you attractive nimrod with the punchable face-”

“Attractive what now?” Braeburn said, tilting his head, but she kept speaking over him.

“-I know you ponies are all about the power of community and ‘friendship’, but you hear all of those explosions in the distance?” she pointed vaguely in the direction of the buffalo camp, where Applejack and Flash Sentry had rushed off about ten minutes ago, “A bunch of really strong, horrible monsters with literal super powers are doing all of that, and there’s probably more of them coming here. To eat your souls. Like pieces of candy. Now, not to try and start a panic, but you folk could try panicking a little, so you can move your very vulnerable not-super-having butts onto this ship so we can save your lives. Please? Before I use force to hogtie each and every one of you and throw you into the cargo hold myself.”

“We’d like ta see ya try!” shouted one pony who, rather than gather his belongings to flee, had gathered a pitchfork and a mean mugging face.

“Yeah, or seem them monster varmints just try n’ eat our... our what now? Souls?” shouted another pony, waving a torch about as if unsure if he really should be boarding the ship or not.

More townsfolks shouted similar comments, with Breaburn clearing his throat and adjusting his hat before trotting up to get uncomfortably close to Tempest. She noted he had a big old red apple cutie mark. Had Applejack mentioned something about having a cousin in town before she’d gone running off to help the buffalo?

“Ah hear what yer sayin’ Miss Captain Tempest ma’am, but this here are our homes. We’ve worked hard ta make this place ours, n’ it just ain’t in our nature ta let ourselves git run off fer no reason. Besides, yer sayin’ our friends the buffalo are n’ trouble, so why don’t ya take yer fancy ship over there ta help them?”

“Because Applejack is handling that and hopefully bringing the buffalo here, and hopefully none of them are half as bullheaded as you lot!” Tempest said, refusing to back up from Braeburn despite finding him being near snout to snout to her very distracting.

“Captain! Yo, Captain!” Grubber’s voice shouted over the com system of the ship, his voice echoing out of the cargo bay. Tempest growled and turned from Braeburn to go to a intercom device beside the cargo ramp doors.

“What is it, Grubber?”

“We got incoming. Our two fish ladies on deck can sense them coming at us from the south, and our magical radar doohickeys are lighting up, too. Maybe about a couple dozen.”

“Damn it all,” Tempest glowered. She’d hoped to have had all the townsfolk on board by the time the enemy showed their faces. It would have been easier to get the Treasury airborne and meet the buffalo halfway, while still giving the Solar Guard regiment covering fire from on high. Now with the ship still parked on land, with a bunch of disorganized townsfolk arguing about wanting to defend the town, things were less than ideal.

But she was not about to crack under pressure. She hadn’t commanded the Storm King’s army for no reason. She keyed the intercom to the bridge, “Understood. Warm up the engines and tell our weapons officers that they’re free to start choosing their targets. I’ll be on the bridge shortly.”

“Aye, Captain. Time for the fun to start, eh?” Grubber’s casually relaxed tone belied the amount of his own anxiety he was hiding, but she appreciated his energy. Turning back to Braeburn and the townsfolk, she suppressed her glower, instead just giving them a grim look.

“All of you! Listen and listen closely! You can’t hurt these things with normal weapons! If you want to protect your town, you can’t do it with pitchforks and torches. So if you’re all going to be stupidly stubborn about this, then join up with the Solar Guard regiment and grab any spare weapons they have, as they’re all enchanted to at least scratch the monsters that are coming. Now, last chance! Anypony getting on this ship? Because we’re about to take off! If you got foals, or other non-combatants, get them aboard now!”

She wasn’t arguing with these folk any longer, she was just giving orders, whether they were smart enough to listen to them or not. There was a ripple of hesitance among the Appleloosian townsfolk, which then grew more profound as the sharp retorts of cannon fire began to light up the night from the Solar Guard’s defensive line.

Within seconds a number of ponies, mostly mares with children or the older and more infirm were making their way up the cargo ramp and into the Treasury's protective confines. Braeburn and a contingent of the younger, physically fit townsfolk remained, their stubbornness transformed to simple resolve as many of them started running towards where the Solar Guard were.

Braeburn tipped his hat to her, even as the cargo ramp began to close, “Best o’ luck ta yer fight, Captain ma’am.”

She let out a sigh, nodding back to him, “You too. Don’t get that well toned flank killed out there.”

When the cargo ramp closed and the ship began to take off, Braeburn turned to go galloping after the rest of his fellow Appleloosians, only briefly pausing to tilt his head again and wonder what she even meant by ‘well toned flanks’. Meanwhile, inside the cargo bay, Tempest rapidly told those who had boarded where to secure themselves in the guest quarters, and hurried rushed for the bridge, glad to be charging into battle instead of having to spend another minute dealing with the pure social catastrophe of trying to talk to that guy any longer.

Her arrival on the bridge only took a minute, and she already felt the strong hum of vibration building up in the Treasury's hull from the engines revving up. On the bridge, she was greeted by the sight of her new crew all at their stations. Grubber was at the helm, but every other station had new ponies on them, recruits either sent from the Solar Guard or volunteers from Ponyville itself.

“Captain on the bridge,” reported a young pegasus mare with a serious face, a storm gray coat, and a light two-toned mane and tail of sea blue colors. Tempest recalled her name as Windstorm, and she was the ship’s new radar operator.

“What are the enemy positions?” she said, throwing herself into the captain’s chair, “And take us up, Grubber. Two hundred feet, heading south by southwest. Weapons control, run out the cannons and activate shields.”

“My scope shows twenty two unknown energy signatures presumed to be hostile,” reported Windstorm, “Approaching from the south. Distance; six hundred meters and closing. Approximately half of them are on the ground, while the other half are coming at us from the air, Captain.”

From the left and right side weapons consoles two local Ponyville mares who’d done remarkably well on the firing tests Tempest had conducted to look for candidates now reported as they activated the port and starboard mana cannon batteries. Both mares were pink earth ponies, the one manning the starboard console having a bright yellow mane, while the one on the port console sported a lime green mane.

“U-um, yup, cannons are ready Tempest! Er, Captain Tempest!” said Lily with, the blonde, with a nervous stammer while her friend with the green mane, Daisy, reported the same. The mare's hooves poked at the controls.

“Got shields up, too! I think. That’s what the green flashy lights mean, right?”

Tempest shoved a sigh deep down in her gullet. The two mares from Ponyville had been part of a batch of volunteers from Ponyville's residents after Twilight had put up an open call for crew of what was essentially the Princess of Freindship's personal "diplomatic" flagship. Never mind the fact it was packing more heat than anything else in Equestria's skies. Lily and Daisy had shown talent for operating the weapon systems, despite their clear lack of experience. As long as they could keep it together under pressure, Tempest figured they do just fine. Rather than worry too much about her civilian crew she instead touched the intercom on the side of her captain’s chair, “Engine room, how’s our power readings? Any problems?”

A cheery, heavily accented voice shouted back, coming from a male, earth pony stallion, “She’s purring beautifully, Captain! All the little teeny-bitty adjustments I’ve made have really smoothed out the polarity in the turbo-encabulator and energized the trapezoidal dingle-arm! Why with another month to tune this gorgeous lady up and I’ll have those positronic matrix couplings rotating in reverse sympathetic pulsations faster than you can say allons-y!”

There was a crashing noise over the intercom, followed by a high pitched feminine voice saying, “Uh-oh, umm, Time Turner, do we need this coil looking thingy? It’s all bent now. Sorry.”

“Nah, nah, it’s alright, luv! Just toss that piece somewhere in the corner over there! Probably just gumming up the works, anyhows. No problems here, Captain, this tub is ship shape to fight, you just trust in old Time Turner and his intrepid assistant!”

Despite her best efforts, Tempest could tell her face was likely making an utterly less than reassured frown, but the stallion who was currently mucking around in her engine room had come highly recommended by Twilight Sparkle. Odd attitude and questionable methods aside, he did seem to have a handle on the Treasury's engineering, which was surprising given the ship was of ancient seapony construction. As for his ‘assistant’, Tempest didn’t know what to make of the rather doofy, gray pegasus mare, who’s bubbly air-headed mind seemed to somehow match the weirdness of her companion.

“Just... just don’t let anything blow up while we’re fighting, okay?” she said, rubbing her head to ease the oncoming headache.

By now the ship had risen into the air and was swiftly sailing over the Solar Guard’s line. Through the wide open glass walls along the spherical sides of the bridge, Tempest could see the yellow and blue flashes of mana cannons that the Guard ponies had set up, spearing into the night and impacting amid the plains to the south. She couldn’t quite see the Arrancar with her naked eye, yet, but knew the Solar Guard wouldn’t be firing if they hadn’t reason. This became clear enough when bloody, pin-point glows of light appeared at various points to the south, and thick scarlet beams burst forward to explode amid the dug in line of the Solar Guard regiment.

“Here they come!” shouted Windstorm, and Tempest saw more sanguine glows of light in the air in front of the ship.

“Shields, concentrate forward!” she ordered, and Lily and Daisy responded swiftly, if both with nervous yelps, hooves rushing over the controls to get the shields angled forward.

The quill-like spokes of mana crystals lit up blue like the electrified spines of a sea urchin along the hull of the Treasury. Bright white and blue light scorched into the shape of a half-dome shield at the bow of the vessel as a dozen airborne Arrancar rushing across the air unleashed Cero beams at about three hundred meters away. The potent discharges of Hollow energy splashed against the shield and the whole ship rocked. Fortunately, the potent magic billowing forth from the vessel’s potent engines kept the shields strong against the barrage.

“Whew!” Grubber whistled, “Think we’ve got their attention, eh, Captain!? Shields down to eighty percent!”

Tempest nodded, then looked at her weapons officers, “Well ladies, don’t just sit there. They’ve invited us to dance. Give them our reply! In force.”

Both Lily and Daisy had wide eyes, the later visibly gulping, "They're really shooting at us!"

"Yes, which is why we're going to shoot back!" Tempest stated with stone cold clarity, "This is a warship, in case you're just now noticing."

"B-but didn't Princess Twilight say this was a diplomatic vessel!?" gulped Lily, to which Tempest rubbed a hoof over her face.

"Yes. And guess what war is? Diplomacy by alternative means! Now, just take deep breaths, and do the exact same thing you did during the firing tests back in Ponyville. Civilians or not, you both volunteered for this, and I have to trust you to do your jobs now."

"A-aye aye, ma'am, uh, f-firing now... oooh, this is the last time I ever let Rose dare me into doing anything," Daisy said, breathing hard as she ran her hooves over her controls, Lily following suit a moment later.

Across either side of the Treasury the long, pointed crystal and brass mana cannons pointed their business ends at the oncoming Arrancar. Ten cannons on the port flank and the other ten on the starboard flank adjusted and focused skyward, while the three barrels on the belly turret adjusted down, taking aim at the Arrancar on the ground. In a flash that painted night into day, lances of blueish white mana fire cut across the sky or tore into the ground, sounding the entrance of the Treasury into the fray.

“This is Aria,” came the siren’s voice over the intercom, “Me and my sis are on the deck, ready to repel any of those ugly bastards that try to board us.”

“Good,” Tempest replied, “We’ll see how well we hold them off with the mana cannons alone. If possible I might send you two groundside to support the Solar Guard.”

“Just say when, we’ll be ready,” said Aria, leaving Tempest to watch and assess as the mana cannons of her ship continued to fire into the night. Despite the firepower being thrown out, it was difficult to even tell if they were hitting anything, for the Arrancar never stayed in one spot for more than a split second.

“Captain, the ones in the air are starting to surround us,” reported Windstorm, “We can’t seem to hit them.”

“We’re trying over here!” shouted Lily, clearly trying to control her panic, “But let’s see you try and shoot something that keeps disappearing.”

“They’re not vanishing, just moving fast,” Tempest said, “Bracket them in with continuous fire! Don’t give them any space to dodge. Grubber, tilt the ship twenty degrees to port. Lily, Daisy, coordinate your shots together and cut off the enemy’s room to maneuver.”

The ship rocked again, the hell shuddering from a Cero impact coming in from the stern. The ship’s shields were adjusted, spreading force out to try and keep up with where the Arrancar were moving, while Grubber gripped the controls of the helm and pulled the ship into a rotating turn that tilted the deck to allow for both port and starboard cannon batteries to point at the same air space. Daisy and Lily’s brows both broke out with sweat as the pair put all of their focus into combining the fields of fire of their mana cannons.

Now the sky to the left of the Treasury was blanketed in stabbing streaks of mana beams, firing one on top of the other. Tempest saw a few bursting impacts as the thickly overlapping beams struck several objects in the air. By her eyes alone she couldn’t tell if the hits were effective, but Windstorm’s eyes were glued to the ship’s sensors and was reporting with professional calm, “Two energy signatures down!” Another reverberation through the hell, “But we’ve got six of them that have broken through the aft shields! Damage to the top deck!”

“Aria, Sonata, intercept!” Tempest commanded, “They’re coming in from the stern.”

There was no reply, but the sudden flaring of magical light from beyond the bridge windows told her the two sirens had given their boarders a warm welcome.

Aria admittedly reveled in the feeling of power that coursed through her sinews as she whipped forward with the speed of a crashing wave, cleaving with a sideways swipe of her long, elegant glaive of blue and gold lined metal. Water, magically glowing bright blue, flowed over the blade and shaft of the weapon, and it carried immense force both from the magic coursing through it and the muscles of its wielder. The poor Arrancar that had leaped over the back stern of the Treasury's deck to land a few paces from Aria never even expected the sudden speed and power of the siren’s strike. There was a loud crunch of noise as the impact of both the sharp blade and hammering water exploded forth from the glaive as it crunched the Arrancar’s side and sent them flying off of the ship like Aria had just struck a home run.

“Ooooh, Aria, I think you sent that dude into orbit!” Sonata said, shading her eyes with a scaled hoof as she peering in the direction the Arrancar had been sent flying, where in the distance one could see a dusty impact in a mesas a few miles away, “Oof! Or just into the nearest cliff face. My turn!”

Her long tail flipper coiling behind her, she flew up above the deck, aiming her four armed crossbow of bright purple metal and silvery filigree at several other Arrancar that had arrived on the deck and had been given hesitant pause by their companion being catapulted away by Aria. Gleaming water frothed forth into the shape of four concentrated bolts around the circumference of the crossbow, and when Sonata fired the spinning bolts of water flew out all at odd, confusing angles. The Arrancar all tried to dodge, blinking away with Sonido, only to find the water bolts maneuvering in a dizzying set of altering directions to follow them, until each bolt impacted on or near their target. Then the water exploded outward into vibrating spheres that gave off the haunting chime of underwater song.

The water carried sonic vibrations of song into the bodies of those struck or stuck near the explosive spheres, drastically reducing the effectiveness of the Arrancar’s Hierro while sending them sprawling across the deck.

“Hey sis, I was thinking of calling these either Concerto Bolts, or maybe Aqua Alto! What do you think?” Sonata asked, to which Aria was swift to spin around and aim her glaive, causing Sonata to duck as Aria slashed from a distance, causing a spinning wave of highly focused water to fly from her glaive’s edge. The flying crest of super-pressurized water went flying by Sonata and struck an Arrancar that had appeared behind her, blade raised. Aria’s attack slammed into the burly fellow, causing blood to splatter from the cutting impact as he was thrown bodily off of the deck.

“I think we can worry about naming crap later, Sonata. Just focus on the fight.”

“Hmm, Rhythm Wave for that one, I think, yeaaaaaah...” Sonata said, rising back up and moving to get back to back with her sister as the Arrancar that had been struck by her water bolts started to get back to their feet, and several more blew past the Treasurey’s shields and constant barrage of mana cannons to surround the pair on the deck, “But guess we can workshop it after we take out all these fellas. Hehehe, it feels good to be popular again.”

“Heh, it’d feel like a real concert if we had Adagio with us,” Aria said, and Sonata sported a twitching smile both filled with a manic energy in need of release, and a longing for their sister.

“We’ll just have to sing loud enough she can hear us on the other side of the worlds, right Aria?”

Aria could only nod, and as the pack of Arrancar closed in on all sides of the two sirens, the pair opened up their mouths and their eyes lit up with potent magical light as the pair began to emit a haunting echo of heated battle song that reached through not only the very decks of the Treasury, but covered all of Appleloosa in its sonorous notes.

Author's Note

With the defense of Equestria's cities now in full swing, there's plenty of action to cover. Might sprinkle in a few scenes elsewhere in the coming chapters, just to break things up a bit, as I do want to keep things moving in other areas of the story. Gave Appleloosa the spotlight this time around since I didn't have much time to get to them in the previous chapter.

As always thank you all for reading, and I sincerely appreciate any and all comments, questions, and critiques you folks give me. 'Till next time.