Unforeseen Consequences - The chaos carnival (pt2)

>Chaos would be the word that described perfectly the current status of the Guard HQ. Guards were running left and right, flying up and down. Some were carrying piles upon piles of large scrolls and blueprints. Others were bringing in what seemed ponies that broke the law, among which you counted dozens.
>”Sheeesh, kinda makes me wanna go back to Ponyville and chillax there… but meh, at least I got to fly with the ACTUAL Wonderbolts for two days! Speaking of which, that reminds me that we kinda were tasked to patrol the outskirts events, sooooo, see ya later squirt!” RD extends her wings and prepares to take off buuut, you can’t have that just yet
“Wait! Is ponyville as bad as it is here?”
>Dash stops for a moment to think “Hmmm, well… have you seen Discord’s chaotic shenanigans?”
“Well… kinda, but never in this level. Please, I need to know so I can at least get an idea of what’s there”
>”Ehhh…” RD rubs the back of her neck “It is kinda hard to explain buuuut you have nothing to worry about. Believe me, Discord put TONS of effort into this… but really I gotta go… so see ya later squirt!”
>RD waves her goodbye and dashes off with an incredible speed. It was difficult to see thanks to the high altitude that they were flying, but the rainbow colored trail that she left made it easier to see that she joined her squad with no problem.
>You take another look at the whole situation that was unfolding right in front of your eyes… sheesh, you have never seen something like this. It almost looked like a movie where the military is preparing to make a big move…
>But, you also didn’t want to stay here for too long, so you turn to Aegia and ask her what needed to be done next
“So, Hey Aegia, where do we go now? I know that we have to report, but to who?”
>You had to almost yell, even when the fort had such high walls, the noise coming from outside was simply overwhelming, and the situation that was going on inside the fort didn’t help either.
>”Zat would be easy Mon petit. We need to report to ze commander in chief of zis operation. I zink zat you are aquiantiance wiz her. She is ze general of ze Night Guard…”
“Wait, you mean Moonlight? Oh man, that’s a relief, I knew that she was going to be here, but now I’m glad that we are actually going to see her… anyways… lead the way please”
>Aegia nods and gives you a salute “Wiz pleasure. Ze comman room should be-“
>The white mare gets interrupted by a thundering noise and a powerful quake that shock even the air. Everyone in the HQ stops completely what they were doing with so much diligence and look up to the cloudy sky.
>Similar to a whale coming from the depths of the sea. A gigantic boat comes from the sky, tearing away the clouds that were on its way. It was being guided by a few bat ponies to the HQ… wait a minute.
>The boat was painted with a teal orange, the hull looked thick to say the least. While you could see that the foundations were made with wood especially when looking at the propellers that were installed on the back of the ship, the metal placed in what you assumed were strategically reinforced spots stood out like a sore thumb.
>The gray balloon that what you assumed was used to make the ship fly, was partially deflated and bore a stylized Pegasus with a banner draped around her shoulders as she held a coat of arms. You could only hope that these ponies used magic instead of hydrogen gas to inflate the balloons, because otherwise a pretty hot death awaited everyone at the HQ.
 “A boat that can fly? Are you kidding me? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s quite pretty, but seriously?”
>“In ozer circumstances, I would be surprised zat you don’t know about airships. But Princess Celestia has informed me of your land of origin. Now come wiz me please, I’m sure zat we will find General Moonlight zere”
“Egh, whatever, I have seen weirder things here… and I have the feeling that Discord has more inside that cloud. But I’m curious, what makes you believe that Moonlight will be there?”
>Aegia’s attention was completely on the ship, she narrows her eyes for a second “Because zat is not ordinary ship. Take a look at it and you will see”
“Eh, not to be rude but… remember that this is literally the first flying boat that I’ve seen in my life. And while we had boats, this one looks like it would be centuries old in my old world…not to boast or anything, but tech was pretty rad there.”
>”I see zat Princess Celestia’s words about her mon petit’s arrogance were true. But ignoring zat comment. Look at ze sides of ze ship. No civilian airship has zat kind of weaponry.”
“Ooooooh, so you are saying that normal flying boats usually doesn’t carry like 200 canons… hmmm, good point”
>Aegia nods  "twenty-eight if my calculations are correct. And zey always are. Zere are eight cannons on each broadside. It’s easy to see ze four cannons in ze stern and ze ozer four in ze bow. I can’t say how many mortars, but a ship of zis size must carry around two to four.” and she doesn’t say any other word, again, her attention was focused on the airship, and the process that the Night Guards were performing to guide it in its landing efforts.
>As the airship touches the ground, you can see better the color of the balloon. Yes, it was mostly gray, but it also was colored with a neat white on the top. It’s funny actually; the whole thing kinda resembled a nightingale… a very deadly, outdated and convoluted nightingale.
>”Now, I’m sure zat it’s safe to approach right now. All of ze Night Guards are surrounding ze ship. Zat usually means zat ze crew has surrendered.”Aegia starts walking with a steady pace towards the airship with you following close behind.
>A gigantic ramp comes from the ship making a loud thud when it hits the ground. Shortly after that, a bunch of mares… incredibly good looking mares... who were dressed in cute sailor outfits… starts to come out of the ship and to walk down the huge ramp.
>You doubt that this was something that Discord came up with, but if he did… oh baby! He really knew your tastes.
>You look around and almost every stallion guard seemed to be thinking the same thing as they stare with lust and confusion to the female crew… mostly lust.
>And before you could turn your head to enjoy this amazing sight, you feel a slap on your head. You turn to Aegia who was looking down at you with that emotionless stare of hers
“Agh! What was that for?!”
>”You need to keep your focus on, mon petit. I can’t allow you to start drifting off like ze rest of zose guards.”
>”WHAT ARE YOU KNUCKLE HEADS DOING! COME HERE AND HELP TO GUIDE THESE MARES TO THE CELLS OR YOU WILL DEAL WITH ME INSTEAD!” A voice more powerful than any thunder bomb echoes across the HQ, making a lot of the guards rush down and take the crew of sexy mares into custody.
>You look to the top of the ship, to where that thundering voice came from. And lo and behold there she was standing with a pride but powerful pose on top of the airship bridge, clayed in her imposing armor, wearing tons of little belts across her front and rear legs that had all sort of devices attached to them, and armed with a sword that was hanging onto her back was the general of the Night Guard and commander in chief of this whole operation: Moonlight Shadow.
>”And that goes for you too cute-face! You better move or we will have problems!” Moonlight barks at someone and immediately an orange pegasi wearing a blue coat and an eye patch comes out running down the ramp.
“Pirates? Are there really air pirates?”
>”Oui. And it would seem zat General Moonlight has caught a band of zem. At first glance of course, zere is more in zese zings zat what meets ze eyes”
“That’s not my point… well, it kinda is…but who would be so stupid as to try to do something this big near the carnival? I mean, like half the Guard is here and I’m sure that Discord wouldn’t take so kindly that a band of pirates ruined his big event”
>”Aahhh, again wiz ze sharp mind.” Aegia briefly nods and smiles “Oui, I zought exactly ze same. Nopony is ZAT stupid as to try to attach such a heavily guarded place or to lure ze anger of ze spirit of chaos”
>Moonlight was inspecting that the whole deal with the “pirates” was going smoothly when she finally sees you. She flies and orders one of the bat guards to supervise everything for her while she talks with you.
>”Anon! What a relief!” With an incredibly fast dash, Moonlight lands in front of you and gives you a brief hug “One worry less…” She looks at Aegia and narrows her eyes “Who are you?” Moonlight asks with a tone that showed authority.
>Aegia steps forwards and offers her hoof to moonlight “My name is Aegia. First commander of ze equestrian secret service. I was tasked with ze protection of ze Prince during ze chaos carnival”
>Moonlight ignores the hoofshake and goes directly to the point “Show me your papers”
>Aegaia doesn’t seem offended at this, or at least her emotionless face didn’t show that. She just nods and pulls a bunch of documents from her saddlebag “Zere. You will see zat everzing it’s in proper order. Now, since we have reported to the HQ, we need to go. Ze spirit of chaos is waiting for us at…”
>”Not so fast, I want to talk with Anon first… in private. So if you excuse us” Moonlight brashly returns the papers to Aegia
>”Zat won’t be possible. My orders are to keep ze Prince safe. Besides I don’t take orders from anypony from anozer division”
>Moonlight shakes her head and chuckles “Well, that won’t be a problem since the papers clearly says that you are not working for the secret service for this “operation”. You are here as Anon’s provisional bodyguard, and guess what? That means that you take orders from the ACTUAL bodyguard, who by decree of Princess Luna, it’s me.”
>You see Aegia briefly narrowing her eyes with disdain at Moonlight. But as usual, her face go emotionless in less than a second, she nods and gives Moonlight a salute “As you say Madam.”
>”Good, now if you want to be of some use, the captain of the ship is over there…” Moonlight points to the yellow pegasi with the eye-patch “They come from Prance, and I assume that you speak their language. Please inform them that they are currently being held under arrest for breaking the no fly for airships zone that was set up since last week”
>Aegia salutes Moonlight “As you wish Madam…” She turns to you and makes a small bow “Please don’t take long, mon petit. We still need to get to Ponyville and meet wiz ze spirit of chaos”
>When Moonlight makes sure that Aegia was at a far enough distance, she pulls you to her side and starts walking with what felt was no direction other than to get as far as possible from Aegia.
“Moonlight? Why the grumpy attitude? I know that this whole situation must be serious. But I can’t understand why you acted so… aggressive towards Aegia”
>Moonlight looks over her shoulder before replying to you ”I don’t trust the ponies at the secret service, that’s why! They usually mean bad news. Heck not even that goofball of Shining Armor trusts them completely, and he almost married the changeling queen”
“WHAT?!”
>”SHHHH!” Moonlight puts her hoof on your mouth and checks that no one else was looking to your way. When she’s sure that the coast it’s clear, she resumes her explanation “Yes, that’s a story for another day…” Moonlight inspects your necklace and smirks
>“Heh, so Luna did follow my advice…eh, this is kinda over the top to be fair. A necklace that it’s worth more than a school teacher annual salary could bring more troubles buuut I have to agree that it’s a cute gift…”
“Yeah, I actually like it a lot. I don’t care how much money it’s worth though… I just like it because this is something that my mom really wanted to give me”
>Moonlight strokes your mane and rolls her eyes “Oh, believe me. She REALLY wanted to give you this necklace. It was originally going to be a gift for another occasion, but since this whole thing came up, she got… well, you saw her before you left right?”
>You nod
>”She actually was CALM compared to how she was last night…. Seriously, she was mad as tartarus… but anyways, Luna told you how the necklace works, right? Please tell me that she didn’t forget”
“Yup, I just have to tap it and it will tell you that I’m in danger and where I am, right?”
>Moonlight nods, and then she looks over her shoulder to see if the coast was clear. You notice that her ears were moving like crazy, trying to listen to anyone that could be spying on you “Now,  if you feel that the secret service mare its acting weird, then you give that necklace a tap, understand?”
“Okaay, but why? Don’t get me wrong, I know that you are super good at your job of being the big kahuna of the Night Guard and I assume that you have a very good reason to not trust Aegia, it’s just that I cannot see why. She’s weird, and super serious, and her formality it’s starting to drive me crazy, but I don’t feel that she’s up to something”
> Moonlight sighs “Listen, for the past three days or so, Discord has been using his magic to promote it across all of Equestria and somehow, he managed to convince tons of famous ponies to perform here… I don’t know why, or how, but he did it… and believe it or not, that’s not the surprise, what WAS a surprise was that you became a part of his marketing campaign…”
“WHAT?!”
>Moonlight nods and pulls out a poster from her armor and handles it to you “Take a look…”
>You grab the poster with your magic and read it. It was a fairly minimalistic piece of advertising. This was honestly surprising coming from Discord, but a welcomed change, all things considered.
>The poster showed Ponyville’s silhouette over a yellow background with the title “CHAOS CARNIVAL: Where all of your dreams can come true!” on the top and written with big, pink letters.
>On the bottom it specified dates, locations, permits and so on. That was all fine and dandy until you see one of the taglines that the poster had bellow the specifications of a prank contest that had what you felt was a real big prize in cash…
“With the guest of honor: Prince Anon! Come and meet the son of the rulers of Equestria…”
>You toss the poster away, and rub your temples. That son of a fucking bitch wanted you there as some sort of attraction. That’s why he invited you and why he wanted so hard for you to go.
“Dissssscooooooooord!”
>You take a deep breath and look to Moonlight. Thinking very hard and very deep about what could this whole thing mean, and Discord’s motivations.
“Do you think that he’s up to something? Because if that’s the case… I don’t know…I understand that he looks suspicious, and I have my reservations too, especially with something like this… but if we think deeper about this, why would he -“
> Moonlight cuts you off, deducing where you were going with your train of thought  ”Discord’s intentions are legit, he’s doing all of this because he wants to save face after the Tirek debacle… which I guess it’s something that Luna hasn’t explained you yet”
 “Eeeeh, nope…. But more importantly, how do you know that? I don’t suppose that Discord just told you everything”
>Moonlight gives you a little smirk, looking proud of herself “Did you really think that I wouldn’t double check his intentions? I’m fully aware that he’s not the most honest guy around…but his best friend is, and so are the rest of the elements of harmony, all of them are vouching for him. He’s really doing all of this to show all of Equestria that he’s a good guy now”
>So that Tirek shit must have been a big fuck up from his part. What did he do? Summoned a gigantic space green hand or something?
“Oh! You mean that yellow pegasi…errr…flutter-something… yeah, I remember that Discord brought me to her just so he could show off how much of a good guy he is…. But seriously, all of them? Even Twilight?
>”Yup, even the Princess of Friendship… of course that doesn’t justify that you became one of his marketing major attractions, but that’s not point, these posters didn’t start to circulate until yesterday afternoon, and it seems that they were everywhere except for Canterlot and Ponyville. Nopony in the Guard knew about this before today except for…”
“The secret service?”
>Moonlight nods again “That’s correct, they must have held that information on purpose…”
“But for what reason? Listen, my mom… err… Celestia in this case, agreed to let me go to this mess of an event yesterday. So Discord must have started circulating these things after that, why would the secret service held that information on purpose? I’m not sure that my mothers didn’t know
>“I don’t know if Princess Celestia or Luna knew about this. But I can tell you that we only knew about this today’s morning, trust me…” Moonlight takes off her helmet, revealing that beautiful pink mane of hers “if I had known about this earlier, I would’ve declined the commandership of this whole operation so I could be your bodyguard…”
“So what you are saying is that the secret service wanted to assign one of their members to be my bodyguard? That sounds… “
>Moonlight places her hooves on your shoulders ”I know how it sounds, but they always do this kind of over convoluted stuff, that’s why I don’t trust them. So please little dude, if that mare starts to act weird…”
“I tap the gem on my necklace, got it…”
>”Or you tell Discord…” Moonlight puts her helmet on again, detecting that someone was approaching “We don’t have much time left, so I will just say this again. Discord’s intentions are legit, so he’s not a threat here, if something bad happens, you either tap that gem or tell that chaotic spaz that you are in some deep trouble, understand?”
>You nod and as a joke, give her a military salute “Yes ma’am!”
>Moonlight cringes a little bit at your cute display, but pats you on the head nonetheless ”Eeeeeh… just a yes was enough… take it from somepony that’s not your mother… that cutesy attitude gets old very fast, and when that happens, you will end up looking like a wimp and nopony…”
“Likes a wimp, yeah, Cherrywood told me the same… no need to be that stiff, you know? I was joking, and I have enough stiffness coming from…”
>”Ahhh, Mon Petit, here you are. It is time for us to go to Ponyville. So please, if you have finished your business with General Moonlight…” Aegia pulls you closer and gives Moonlight an emotionless stare
>Moonlight looks to Aegia and then to you. She gives you a little wink and you nod ”We are finished, here…”
> Aegia pulls you even closer ”Good. So zat means zat we can go now, oui? Because I don’t zink zat ze spirit of chaos is known to be very patient…”
>”Yes… “ Moonlight gives Aegia a distrusting look “I’ll make sure that the Princesses know that their son has arrived safely. I expect that you can keep him like that for the weekend…”
>Aegia nods “Zat won’t be a problem. I’m le crème of le crème. Nozing will harm the Prince while I take care of him. Oh, and before we go. Ze captain of ze ship zat you captured comes from Prance. Her name is Sunset Airlines. She came here to see ze carnival as a reward for her crew. So please consider zat when you write your report” Aegia gives Moonlight a military salute
>Moonlight nods ”I was aware of the first part, and I will talk to that prench pony later… oh and Anon?”
“Yes?”
>Monlight gives you a soft smile and a hig before parting ”Don’t worry, I’ll send a letter to Luna telling that her “little star” is safe and sound… Ah! And before I forget, Cherrywood says that you better keep that radio… whatever it is, on. She REALLY wants to know how the carnival is like”
>And with that, Moonlight gives you one last hug and flies away to face the madness that the Guard HQ was undergoing currently. At this point, you can’t do anything other than wish her the best of luck.
>”Now please follow me, Mon Petit. We need to get into zat chariot and reach Ponyville. I zink zat many ponies are waiting for you…” Aegia motions you to follow her, you take a glance at her… yeah… something wasn’t right with this mare.
>The two of you get on the chariot. While it takes off, you have a last glance at the outpost… everyone was running around. Moonlight was discussing something with that prench captain, and more and more ponies were being brought inside the HQ… what a nightmare.
>The chariot continues its journey towards Ponyville, getting closer and closer to the strange cloud that surrounded the entire town. The noise from the festivities going outside was assaulting your senses, but the sight of this gas formation…
> It was something that made your mind go haywire with endless hypothesis about what it could be and how it could be possible, all of them tracing back to a single answer: Discord.
>Your body tenses when the chariot finally starts to penetrate the cloud, and your nervousness was increasing by the second, as the further the chariot breached the cloud, the clearer it was to see the strangest and most fantastical things that you have ever seen, and probably will ever see in your entire life.
>No one dared to speak a word as the chariot flew through these clouds of madness. Even Aegia was awe struck at the otherworldly spectacle that was happening in front of her eyes. You have to give your respect to those pegasi who were pulling the chariot across the storm of chocalete milk and cotton candy that was raging.
>You can easily see the fear in their eyes, and despite not being able to hear their whispers, you know that they are talking about being pulled to certain doom, but they march on as the brave stallions that they were.
>Buildings conformed of Non-Euclidean forms comes flying close, too close to the chariot but never actually come close to being an actual danger, almost as if it was some kind of taunt or sick joke. Some came from the front, others from behind, others from below and above… and others comes flying in more impossible angles, the kind that would defy any natural law.
> Among the clouds and gas formations you could easily see weird and terrifying shadows and shapes, some made of disgusting palpitating globes, others looked like a combination of an octopus, with an elephant and even human, others were shapeless and yet pulsating with life.
> All of them were flying around, seemingly convulsing at the rhythm of what you think was music, or at least that’s the only thing that you could come up with about that sound’s nature. It had certainly an identifiable melody, that was sure, but it sounded so mad, so incomprehensible, and so alien that it sent a shiver down your spine, and making part your mind to come up with the most extravagant explanations about you were witnessing.
>For anyone who was a good observer, the little details among the chaos were clear. Almost as if this madness was some sort of grandiose orchestra, the buildings came in regular intervals; the shadows were dancing in their strange and nauseating choreography. The more that lent your attention to the music, the more coherent it started to sound. As crazy as it sounds, this was the work of a master in chaos.
>But everything has come to an end, and thankfully this little trip into the depths of madness finally meets its own as the sight of Ponyville becomes clear in the near distance. This is it, there’s no turning back… the chaos carnival it’s finally here… and you are the main attraction.