A Displaced Lich

As the royal airship floated into view of the Griffon Empire, they noticed something rather alarming, large aircraft shooting down at weird looking tanks, tiger tanks to be exact, these airships looked like nothing they had ever seen, like a large triangle, with two large yellow engines spitting out flame as they flew with their machine guns blaring at the fleeing tanks, taking most out, ones not hit by the bullets were taken out with missiles, overall the wreckage of Zero’s, tanks, and a few airships, littered the land around the outer part of the Empire, their wrecks still burning bright with flames.

“Oh my Celestia… this is far worse than we could have imagined.” Twilight said as she looked out on the carnage beneath them. Trying to see beyond the smoke in the air. Thankful that they were too high up to hear what she was certain were screams of agony, and the stench of death. “Than you could have imagined.” Rainbow dash said, her fists clenched tight enough to turn her knuckles pale blue. Twilight turned and looked at her friend, an apology on her lips, but Dash just turned on her heel and went to the ships cabin. “Save it for someone who needs it, Twi. I'm going inside to comfort Fluttershy. She's an emotional wreck right now.” The door closed, and Twilight Sparkle stood there, looking after her friend, a small tear hanging on the corner of her eye. She just wished she knew the answers to what was happening to her home, to her life. All around her, guards hustled about. Keeping the airship on course for the home of the Griffons.

As the airship got closer to the capital of a new unmatched empire, a larger airship, four or so times the size of the one they were in, floated, or rather shot, into view, it having larger versions of the yellow engines that spat flames on each side, and it clearly was not powered by crystal sugar like standard airships were, it came to a halt by the engines flipping around to slow the craft down as it slowed and pulled up next to their, by comparison, small airship, and griffins could be seen wearing weird metal cloth armor, and holding weird looking rifles as a griffon with blue feathers and a loudspeaker stepped into view, guarded by four griffins armed with the weird rifles. “This is commander Storm Beak, you are hereby ordered to land your craft, failing to do so will result in you being shot down to protect the Empire’s airspace.” As if to hold up to this threat, the howitzers on the side of the massive airship took aim at them, and a locking sound was heard as they were loaded up with fresh shells.

Nodding, Twilight Sparkle gave the signal for the crew to land the airship. Mentally preparing herself for the coming conversation between herself and the Griffin captain. As they went lower, she could hear the sounds that she wanted to avoid. And the stench of blasted earth, burning wood, metal, and worst of all, flesh. She was glad that Fluttershy was inside the cabin. Away fro- “O-oh my…” never mind. She turned and saw the other five standing shortly behind her, most of the color drained from their features as they saw that they were still a ways away from the Griffin capital. “What's goin’ on here sugarcube? We thought we were at the capital.” AJ asked as they finally landed. The larger ship landing shortly after. “It looks like they are heavily protecting their airspace. Afraid that there might be somepony irrational enough to threaten them. I'm sorry if anything happens. This still feels like it shouldn't have happened at all…” Twilight turned back, to watch the other airship. Hoping this wasn't a trap.

The larger airship, Twilight noticed had a black flag on it, with a weird skull of a species she had never seen, it had large horns and green fire in the sockets of the skulls eyes, the airship did not land per say, but hovered in place, the large jet engines slowing down to keep it from going up further than seven or so feet, a automatic gangplank was lowered, and griffins wearing desert colored armor, with small bits of what LOOKED like metal plates in the cloth, marched out, holding STG-44's of course, Twilight didn’t know what they were called, neither did the other ponies, but to Twilight, it looked like a weird fusion of a machine gun, and a rifle, but small enough to be easy to use in combat, and currently they were aimed at them as Commander Storm Beak stepped down the gangplank, in a black uniform adorned with a few small metals, and an officers cap that had the same skull seem on the ships flags. “You are to tell us why you decided to come into Griffion Empire airspace without clearance, you could have been shot down in the confusion.” The griffion guards took aim with their rifles.

Twilight cleared her throat and spoke out to the Griffin “We are a peace retinue from Equestria. I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship. We apologize for our lack of decorum for not sending word ahead of us. We knew of no way to alert you of our coming. We are unarmed, and the only passengers on this ship are ten guards, the ship hands, and the six of us.

May we please proceed to your capital? You may search the ship. To confirm that we mean no harm to you or your empire. We only seek to form a truce, or at the least, an understanding as to why this is happening.” Her knees wobbly as she finished her speech/plea. She placed her hands on the banister to steady herself.

The Commander chuckled, as if finding it funny. “I have no idea why the King does what he does, I just control the air force, the tactics used are created by him, or his ideas, he has complete control of everything, what he says, goes, no exceptions, for anyone, I will call in to see if he will allow it, as he has instructed us to use a specific channel to communicate with him at any needed time.” Stork Beak grabbed a small little black box on his chest and pressed a button before speaking into it. “This is Commander Storm Beak, we have uninvited Equestrians who come for ‘peace’ and want to know what exactly is going on, whatever the hell that means, permission to let them into the capital your majesty?”

There was static for a few moments, before a deep sinister sounding voice, mine, responded through the radio. “You may allow them in, however if any try anything, such as shooting, you are to shoot to kill, head shots, then body shots, and remember the rules, don’t stop shooting until they stop twitching, you are to do so if they try ANYTHING.” That voice, it did not sound natural whatsoever, in any way shape or form.

Storm Beak placed the black box back into a pocket of his uniform. “Alright, you heard em, get these ponies into the capital and strait to the castle, keep a tight guard on them, you heard is orders, now follow them, Miss Sparkle, you are to follow these fine soldiers to the capital, post haste.” The griffins boarded their airship, keeping a tight eye on the crew.

Twilight nodded humbly, the crew began prepping the ship to lift off again, most shaking as badly as the princess, others either too old and jaded to show care for these things. The guards still standing in their positions, at attention. As the ship lifted and began to follow the larger airship, she put her back against the ships barrier and slowly slid down. She felt like she was going to throw up. The first to get to her was Pinkie Pie. Her eyes slightly less sparkly than usual, bags under her eyes. “Hey there Twi. It's going to be okay. I'm just thankful I decided to leave my party cannon behind. . . heh, hope Gummy takes good care of it.” Twilight looked up at her cotton candy colored friend, a sad smile on her face, “Thank you Pinkie. I'm just feeling like this was a bad idea… but it needs to happen. I mean. . . Rainbow lost a lot more than just her wings back in Ponyville… I just want to find a way to give that back to her, but I-I just don't know how to.” She stood back up, wiping an errant tear from her cheek, then patting Pinkie on her shoulder, walking to the group of friends. All faces downcast after hearing the voice from the little box, except for Dash. Her teeth were gritted, and fists clenched. She knew that voice, she knew it well, it was burned into her memory, the pain, the snapping sound of flesh and bone, she dreamed about it every night since the day it had happened.