Last time on “Luna Hates Us” Quest:
>While helping Luna with her sister, received a letter from Twilight explaining your innocence. It included signatures from everyone in Ponyville to testify to that.
>Unable to figure out what was wrong with Celestia, you suggested that maybe the Elements of Harmony could help her.
>Luna agreed that was a good idea and sent a letter back to Twilight for her and her friends to come to Canterlot.
>A reply was sent back by Spike a few minutes later, saying Twilight and company had already left.
>Also suggested that maybe you're people's civilization is hidden underground somewhere. Luna supported the theory, saying that Equestria's extensive cave systems might keep them hidden somewhere, though she doesn't know this for fact. Only Celestia knew for sure.
>Not sure what else to do and with both you and Pinkie starving, Luna said good bye to her sister and lead the two of you to some guest rooms.
>She informed you that she'd send word to the guards that you'd be free to come and go, but overtly threatened your life if she ever were to discover that you're lying.
>You and Pinkie started looking through rooms, but were both still hungry so you decided the two of you would go crash a kitchen somewhere.
>Unsure where to go, both of you flagged down a guard for directions, but were interrupted by a violent earthquake that sent all of you tumbling to the ground.
You are Rusty Shackleford, a human in Equestria with no memory of his past.
Currently, you are somewhere in the Canterlot palace, sprawled in a tangled pile with Pinkie Pie and one of the guards. Even as the three of you are trying to get back up, the entire building continues to violently shake. In the distance you can hear a very loud sound, like a very loud, very base screeching, as well as the sound of ponies yelling.
You try you best to get to your feet and help the two ponies, but their combined weight mixed with the haphazard rocking of the earth makes the simple task of getting up really difficult.
"Get off!" The guard barks at you, trying to push you off with his front hooves.
"I'm trying!" You yell back as another shock wave send him forward, back on top of you.
"Hey check it out!" Pinkie says from across the hall, standing on the tips of her hind hooves, peeking her face against a window. "That bird is huuuuuuge!"
You give up altogether with trying to get up and unceremoniously crawl over the guard pony. You make it over to Pinkie by the window as another tremor knocks her on to her tail. Steadying yourself against the wall, you peer out the window as best as you can manage.
From this angle, you have a skewed few of Canterlot. High above, beyond the magical shield doming the city, you can see a massive predatory bird casting its shadow seemingly over everything. In the light of the day, its plumage shines a magnificent white tinged with gold. It's claws, which you guess must be at least the size of on the homes in Ponyville, are scrapping savagely against the magical barrier, as if trying to find purchase. Every time it does, there's a vibrant discharge of energy and seems to be whats causing all of the shaking.
"The two of you stay here!" The guard says, shrinkingly getting to his hooves. He begins running down hallway, but another shake makes him trip. He falls forward and his helmeted head bangs into a wall with a loud metallic CLANG and falls sprawled to the floor.
"Pinkie, go see if he's OK!" You shout to your little pink friend. She nods and trots over the other pony, seemingly unaffected by the random shaking that’s giving you so much trouble.
"I think he's OK!" She yells back over the noise after taking off his helmet and poking him a little with her hoof. "I think he's just knocked cold!"
Pinkie continues to plod the stallion in the face with her hoof, pulls up his eye lids, makes silly faces by smooshing his face around, propping him up on to his hooves and letting him go, making him fall to the floor. She even yells "WAKE UP!" right in his ear fairly loudly over the din over everything else. He stays where his is, limp on the floor.
Pinkie gives you a shrug from across the way.
You crawl over to Pinkie and the sleeping guard. You check him yourself; he's completely limp and unresponsive, but is clearly breathing, so you leave him alone.
"We need to find Luna!" You shout over the noise to Pinkie. She nods in reply and trots off down the hall. You try to follow, but you can't seem to find your balance for the life of you an end up crawling. Luckily, Pinkie looks back and notices this, letting you catch up.
It takes a while, but the two of you eventually find some more guards trotting down anther hall in formation. They stop when they see you.
"The two of you shouldn't be wandering around!" One of them shouts. "We're under attack again!"
"We're trying to find Luna!" Pinkie shouts back.
"The Princess? She's already on her way to take care of it. Right now we need to keep everyone safe!"
"Where's safe then?"
"I'd prefer you went back to whatever rooms the princess set aside for you, but you should be ok as long as you stay inside the palace!"
You nod and were about to reply when yet another sound crashes over the rest; there's a powerful thunderclap and a bright flash of light shines in through the windows from outside. The tremors seem to be lightening up.
You get to your feet and rush over to the nearest window with Pinkie and the guards. Thanks to your height, you easily are able to see over the bunch of them.
The massive raptor is still over the city, but now it's using its huge wings to hover in place just above the magical barrier. You are just barely able to see a small dark blue pony figure flying just in front of it outside the shield. You're only able to notice it at such a distance because they're completely covered with crackling energy. As you watch, there's another thunderclap and a flash of light, burning an afterimage in your sight.
Blinking tears out of your eyes, you see the giant bird lash back with its massive claws and shrieking a heavy caw. There's another thunderclap and the bird slams to the shield, making a deep vibrating drum beat that echos across the city. It slides slowly down the side the shield, lazily trying to grab purchase with its claws again.
You let out a low, impressed whistle at the sight. You've done your fair of monster fighting the last few days, but its clear this is on a whole level up and beyond you.
The massive bird continues to slide down the side of the dome. Its hits the ground just outside the city, sending up a plumes of dirt into the sky and comparatively more gentle shake throughout the palace.
"Woooow." Pinkie says, pushing her face against the glass of the window. "That was amazing!"
A hole briefly appears in the purple magic shield and you see two winged pony figures soaring towards the palace.
"Who are those two ponies?" You ask the guards, trying to squint as the two flying ponies come into view.
"Well, one of them has to be the Princess." One of them say. The others nod in agreement. "She and Celestia are the only one's I know that can throw around that kind of magic. Not sure who that other one is...."
"Oh oh!" Pinkie shouts, jumping up and down against the glass excitedly. "It's Rainbow Dash!"
Sure enough, as you watch the duo soar closer into view, you make out Luna's horn and Dash's tell tale colors. As you watch, the two of them set down in the courtyard just outside.
Pinkie immediately shoots down the hall at a gallop and you follow after, leaving the small group of guards behind. You follow the pink pony's bouncing bushy tail out the entrance hall and out into the sunlit courtyard. There's a bunch of guards still out here, positioned all around, primarily at the main ways in or out. Luna and Dash a bit always in the center of the area. They seem to be talking, but the princess then flies off.
Pinkie makes a b line straight to her friend and you see her blindside the blue pony with a hug before you catch up.
"Pinkie! Get off!"
"Hi Dashie!" Pinkie cheers happily, ignoring her friend's plea for relief.
"No! I mean it!"
"You OK, Rainbow Dash?" You ask, standing over the ponies on the ground.
"No!" She finally succeeds in shoving a confused Pinkie off of her with a huff and flap of her wings. "I'm exhausted, hungry and was nearly eaten by a bird trying to get here!"
"It's nice to see you again, Dash. Do you know if Rarity got back to Ponyville?"
"No!" She yells, flapping up to your height. "I don't know anything! Everyone thought it would be a great idea to just leave me behind while things were happening! I only found out the guards took you three when Twilight found me asking for my signature!"
"I'm so sorry, Dash! That really sucks. Did you.... Come to try and find us?"
"Duh! I thought we were all friends, but no one even bothers to tell me everyone's left for Canterlot until a day later!"
"I'm sorry," Pinkie says. "But they were taking Rusty away. We didn't really have time to find you."
"Did you even bother to look?!" Dash says, poking Pinkie roughly in the nose. "No! Instead I risk my butt flying out ahead of the others and nearly end up as bird feed! No one has bothered to tell me anything! What's happened to Rarity? Why aren’t you in jail? What happened to your shirt?"
"Let's not argue. Look, we're all hungry. Let's all discuss what's happened over lunch."
Suddenly, the sun shoots down over the horizon and replaced by a half crescent moon. In the distance, the massive bird has gotten up and flying away from Canterlot.
"...err, dinner."
"Fine." Dash says, rubbing her face, looking really tired. She land on her hooves and walks with you and Pinkie back inside.
"Sorry about you being out of the loop, Dash. But we assumed Twilight was going to find you and the others."
"Whatever." Dash brushes off the comment.
After asking another guard for directions to get something to eat you're told that, at this hour, you could either try your luck finding a place in town or you it could be arranged for meals to be brought to your rooms.
The three of you opt for room service and make your way back to the wing with the guest rooms, back tracking the way you came from before. On the way, you see dome ponies carrying away the knocked out guard on a stretcher, some bandages wrapped around his head.
You, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash decide to hang out in one room together so you can talk and share stories. You tell them both about your adventure underground with diamond dogs, the different tunnels, some of the strange encounter you had with the not-Pinkie dream or whatever it was and how you eventually got to Canterlot.
Pinkie's story wasn't nearly as exciting. She got away when the party was ambushed and made her way to Canterlot without much else happening.
Dash explains how she and most of the pegasi in Ponyville were working almost non-stop trying to stop all the snow.
"I still don't understand it." Dash says, lighting up some now. "Some huge cold front came in from nowhere. We did everything we could think of to disperse it, but it wouldn’t stop."
"Then how did you get it to stop snowing?" You ask
"We didn't. It just went away all of a sudden."