Ponies, cannons, and war

“What exactly does this cube do?” Starlight asked as Moon Dancer read through Jane’s Fighting Ships and the eight pages focused on the Mikasa and USS Texas from Machines of War while Twilight and Sunburst raced around us, gathering books and tools around Twilight’s old tower home all the way back from episode one. Turns out Moon Dancer was a part of the group that was developing a ‘teleportation-based means’ of travel for me to make use of and she was using Twilight’s tower to help with research. She was more than happy to let Twilight run her experiments on the Wisdom Cubes in the tower and to help out Twilight with those experiments, especially when she found out that Twilight and co were dealing with alien technology and books.

It’s been two days since Celestia dropped the bombshell on me, that I would have to deliver a public speech to all of Canterlot alongside the princesses. Just because I like talking, or rather monologuing, did not mean I wanted to get into public speaking. Did the phrase ‘I am a coward!’ mean nothing here?

Apparently Celestia would be sending out their fastest fliers, i.e. the Wonderbolts, after lunch with her, her friends and me with all the information I had provided about the Morgan to be spread to all corners of Equestria with copies of Jane’s Fighting Ships delivered to the admirals with instructions to duplicate and distribute them amongst their forces. During lunch, Twilight had Celestia send a scroll to her dragon assistant/surrogate brother/son Spike stating that she would be staying in Canterlot for longer than she originally planned while Starlight would be returning briefly to bring over some books and equipment. Starlight would then explain the situation to their friends and that Spike would need to watch over the castle. Cadance, Shining Armor, and Sunburst would return to the Crystal Empire so that the former two could prepare for a possible evacuation of Equestria’s coastline to the Crystal Empire while Sunburst would be preparing for a long stay in Canterlot. Flash Magnus would have to stay after lunch to prepare the necessary paperwork for his position as captain of the Canterlot Guard.

I spent the rest of that day preparing for the speech with some help from Feather Duster and my fairies. I didn’t turn in for the night until after midnight and I spent most of it tossing and turning in bed, so if Luna wanted to have another chat in my dreams then she was out of luck. Celestia apparently worked fast since the speech was held shortly before lunch and what had to be all of Canterlot had gathered before the balcony on which the princesses and I would deliver the news of what was to come.

And honestly?

I got through it and put it behind me. I honestly would have said I tried to forget it, but that implied I had to consciously decide to do so. I was going to forget about it because I just found it so stressful.

Celestia spoke solemnly of those who would be soon assaulting the shores of Equestria. Of the dangers Morgana posed to their shores, and much to my surprise, even mentioned their ability to nullify pony magic. I thought the crowd would break out into a panic before Luna took over.

It was Luna who calmed down the crowd. She was the one to speak of how the Equestrian military was already preparing their shores for attacks, and how strategies were being formulated to combat their tactics. And then she introduced me as ‘a champion that had come to Equestria’s aid from shores far beyond’. That through my knowledge of their enemy, through my courage at being willing to stand against a foe for a nation not my own, and my unmatched strength, Equestria would endure, nay, defeat these foes

I honestly wanted to say that was all a crock of shit, but it was my turn to start talking. And so I did, despite the impulse to turn tail and run. At this point in time, only one day after the speech, I already forgot what I told them. The only thing I remembered was that I finished off that speech with the same, cocksure, oath from Manehattan.

After that the Princesses and I had lunch, and Twilight had shown up to say that cursory testing had been done on the cubes and they were, if not inert, then stable enough that one cube was transferred to the School of Magic and another was transferred to her old tower while one cube remained in the castle for safe keeping. Unfortunately for me, the princesses had let slip that I was in possession of books from another world, never before seen by Twilight. That led to a whole rabbit hole with Twilight demanding I give her the books and so I did. The rest of my day ended up being spent in a library being questioned by Twilight on the books. She read them at such a frightening speed and the questions were near endless that they started blending together. I barely managed to escape for dinner. After that, I ended up passing out for the night.

Which led me to today with breakfast with the princesses before Twilight teleported in and after the briefest of talks with Celestia teleported out with me in tow. I ended up collapsing to the floor, teleporting man. Two out of five, would not recommend. I had a few minutes to compose myself before Starlight asked me that question.

“Probably a lot of things I hadn’t thought possible considering it can manifest the thoughts, desires and ideas of humanity, but the main thing is creating kanmusu like myself and mass-produced or dummy ships and weapons and equipment.” I replied once I got my legs under myself.

“And it does all of that…how exactly?” Starlight asked as she neared the blue cube atop the circular table placed in the middle of the tower.

“I dunno know. I guess that since it’s essentially a cube of raw power it converts all that energy into matter. The thing is sufficiently advanced technology that is indistinguishable from magic as far as I’m concerned, and since it’s magic I’m unable to explain it.” I replied, also getting close to the cube.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Moon Dancer looked up at me, eyebrow raised, only for Twilight to speak up.

“Oh, Chesapeake comes from a world devoid of magic and her current appearance is due to the ambient magic of Equestria.” Twilight offhandedly mentioned while hovering by a bookcase with a book floating in front of her face.

“Her current appearance? You mean she isn’t a pony?” Moon Dancer was now looking at me intrigued.

“Right, before she came to this world she was a human. From my understanding, humans are great apes characterized by their hairlessness, bipedalism, and high intelligence.” Twilight answered.

“Huh.” Moon Dancer took a glance at the recreations of the photos depicting Mikasa’s pilot house. “Would explain the architecture, the doors look like they were designed for skinnier minotaurs or thin adolescent dragons.” She commented out loud.

“Ok, so if Wisdom Cubes can ‘manifest the thoughts, desires and ideas of humanity’ then does that mean only you can use them since you're human, or at least were human?” Starlight pointed out while switching her attention from the cube to me.

“Maybe.” I replied while admiring the shiny blue cube that was reminding me of energon from G1 Transformers. A highly efficient, clean energy source that is easy to generate and store. I was wondering if that crossover was canon, and/or I could actually meet Optimus Prime…not the live action one.

“Then why don’t we have you try to use the cube?” We all looked at Starlight. “What? We’re pretty much stumped at this point since we don’t know anything about the cubes in the first place. Might as well see if Chesapeake can get it to do something at least.”

“That’s reckless! Is she usually like this?” Moon Dancer cried out.

“True and yes, but she has a point.” Twilight glided down to the floor by me and Starlight. “We’ve made no progress in understanding the cubes while the Morgana are still out there. We simply don’t know where and when they’ll strike. If Chesapeake can use the cubes to recreate the weapons the Morgana uses, we can reverse engineer them and build ships powerful enough to assist her in defending Equestria.”

“So…you want me to use it?” I asked, to which Twilight nodded her head before summoning a shield around us and the cube before teleporting herself and Starlight out of the shield.

“There’s not much else we can do at this point. If anything goes wrong we can teleport you outside the shield and ensure that nothing else happens.” Twilight answered to which Sunburst joined in to strengthen the shield while Starlight prepared a teleportation spell.

…

Wait, did they just leave me in a shield with what’s potentially a bomb that could threaten northern Russia?

Concerned I looked back towards the innocuous looking cube and swallowed.

Well…I’ve had a good run, right?

As I felt my veins freeze over I slowly but surely touched the cube with my hoove. When nothing happened I held the cube in my hoof and thought about the ‘manifest the thoughts, desires and ideas of humanity’ shtick. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize my desires.

Battlecruiser turned fast battleship Kongo. Not the blonde saber wielding version from Azur Lane. The British-born returnee from Kancolle. A hyperactive and cheerful character nuttier than a box of peanuts who was wiser than her appearance and actions suggested, having participated in two world wars before being unceremoniously torpedoed by a submarine.

…

I opened up my eyes and looked around.

…

Nope, nothing, nada.

I closed my eyes and tried again.

Benson-class destroyer Laffey. A destroyer that raked Hiei’s superstructure with gunfire, badly wounding Admiral Abe and killing his chief of staff. Her close quarter, almost berserker like last stand earned her a Presidential Unit Citation post sinking.

I took a quick glance around.

Still nothing.

I sighed before focusing on my armament.

14-inch/50-caliber guns. Before I knew it the specifications of the gun came to my mind. Barrel length, caliber, elevation, rate of fire, effective and maximum firing range, it was all there. Suddenly I could see a white glow against my eyelids. A quick look revealed that the cube was glowing brighter.

Pop

Suddenly I was right by Starlight as she and everyone else stared at the cube worriedly.

“What did you do!?” I wasn’t sure whether it was Twilight or Starlight asking me as I couldn’t wrench my eyes away from the cube.

“I don’t know! I just thought about my guns.” I replied as the glow got brighter and brighter until it blinded us.

When the cube blinded us we heard two sounds. Shattering glass and the heavy boom of metal hitting the floor.

In an instant the glow was gone and when we were able to look our mouths dropped to the floor.

Sitting right in front of us, in the middle of the room, was a massive turret that housed a pair of guns.

“What is that thing!?” Twilight yelled out as she and Sunburst staggered about from having their shields destroyed by the hunk of metal.

“Oh, that’s my gun turret.” I replied nonchalantly as I began circling the turret. I mean, damn. Pictures of Texas’s turrets do not do it justice, even if they were shorter caliber guns than the ones I mounted. Pretty impressive.

“That’s your gun turret!” Moon Dancer was looking between me and the gun turret. “I’ve seen the photographs of your rigging and there’s a big difference between the two!”

“Hm.” I thought about it before summoning my own rigging in a flash of light. Oh goody, I still have all of my guns.

“Hey!”

And I’m missing forty eight 14-inch shells apparently, which might explain why I’m feeling a tad bit peckish.

“It looks like I just made a pair of 14-inch/50-caliber guns in a twin turret and all it cost was a Wisdom Cube and forty eight rounds of munitions. Does anyone wanna order a sandwich?”