Afternoon
Equestria
"Grayven!"
I grin as Lightning Dust enthusiastically demonstrates the deployment of a tactical gale on the Canterlot guard contingent and Sunset struggles towards me with a flickering cyan bubble shield protecting her from the worst of it.
"Yes?"
"What…" She looks at me, then the guard, then the billowing clouds, then back at m-.
I step back as an earth pony guard sails past and slams into a wall. Quick check… No, just some bruises.
Sunset stares at his slumped and groaning form, then stares at me.
"What?"
"Okay, so Luna and I dealt with my Anti-Life problem, and-."
"You did? The-." She frowns. "Did Twilight-?"
"No. Luna broke into my dream, accidentally released the Anti-Life fragment, we found the harmony within ourselves-" Hah! "-as well as connections to the emotional spectrum... And we blasted the thing with giant beams of light and no more Anti-Life."
She's looking at me as if she's not sure if I'm taking the Mickey. Or possibly about to explode.
"I did a song and everything. Rhyming couplets verses and a rhyming quintuplet chorus."
She rolls her eyes. "Well if you did a song then clearly there's no more problem."
"Right, exactly. Oh, I meant to ask: can you move the sun?"
She glances up at as much of it as can be seen through the clouds. "Not.. yet."
"No, I mean… As part of a group effort or what have you. I heard the hearthwarming story, about how unicorns used to-" She's shaking her head. "-control the sun and moon without alicorn aid. I thought that you might know the theory."
"I never found anything that said that story was more than a myth. In.. theory? A group of normal ponies could do it. Alicorns are more powerful than regular ponies, but only by about two orders of magnitude. If they knew how and they could all work together perfectly… But I don't know how to do it, it would take a while to work it out if Celestia is as helpful as she usually is and… Frankly, I'd rather turn this system into a nice simple heliocentric system rather than get up before dawn every day."
I smile affectionately as a pegasus guard moonwalks past us.
"That's my girl. Looking for permanent solutions to problems everyone else treats as intractable."
"Agk." She closes her eyes for a moment and holds up her right forehoof and points it at me. "This. All of this, with the guards. Why is it happening?"
"I offered Luna my help in becoming Celestia's equal in fact as well as theory. I thought that helping the guard become relevant would be a good way to achieve that."
"And… How is them fighting a mock battle with the Canterlot Weather Service supposed to achieve that?"
"Oh, this isn't the Canterlot Weather Service. This is one pony." I generate a construct megaphone. "Okay, Lightning Dust! Give them all a break!"
The winds keep blowing for a moment, then the clouds start evaporating. It takes a good deal longer then ten seconds, but gradually the blustering dies down.
Moonwalking pony collapses, panting, as Lightning Dust drops out of the sky to stand smugly next to me.
"These guys are supposed to be the Royal Guard?"
I nod. "I know, right?"
"I mean, I wasn't expecting the Wonderbolts or anything-."
"The Wonderbolts are a display team who are currently zero for two in the major fights they actually turned up for. I hope to do a little better."
She cocks her head to the left. "Zero for two?"
"They fought an infant dragon who had a magical growth spurt and he trapped them in a water tower, and they-"
"Hah hah!"
"-charged Tirek head on and got drained just like everyone else who tried that." I look at her as she snorts in amusement at her former idols' failings. "How is it that you know so much about weather? I wouldn't have thought the subject had much to do with aerobatics."
"It doesn't, but I had to make a living somehow." She looks around to where the guardsponies are picking themselves up from wherever they ended up. "Think they're ready to go again yet?"
"This was more of a demonstration session. We'll have to work out a lesson plan before you go again."
She looks dubious. "I'm… Not really big on paperwork."
"Are you big on unemployment? Because after the stunts you pulled in Wonderbolt training you're unlikely to be invited back. And a conviction for a weather-related offence makes you returning to your former employment in brushland firefighting… Improbable."
Her eyes narrow. "Are you threatening me?"
"Gosh, no. You've upheld your end of the agreement; go with my blessing. If someone hires you or if you start your own enterprise, great! Maybe it'll keep you out of trouble. But if you want a job here then there's going to be paperwork. The aim is to force these ponies to improve, not merely to laugh at their ineptitude."
A degree of the fight appears to leave her. She looks away. "Yeah."
Tempest gets the rest of the guard organised and they start clearing away some of the debris around the training field.
Hm…
"Sunset, how's your setting up going?"
"All ready. I've gotten a few things I was planning on showing the guard." She looks around. "Maybe after they've recovered a little."
"When's Celestia getting back?"
"Late evening. I've got time to deliver a lecture before she gets here. What else are you up to?"
"Lightning Dust's presence is proving rather instructive as to the destructive potential of the pegasus ponies. I've got Tempest over there to handle unicorns. That leaves earth ponies."
Sunset shakes her head. "I told you: there aren't any earth ponies in Equestria who know how to use earth pony magic."
Hm. "How true is the hearthwarming myth?"
"Which part?"
"The migration. Luna implied that it was at least partially true, but…"
"Ah… Maybe? History wasn't really my subject, but as far as I remember there's a definite pattern of settlement from the north heading south. And there's no fossil record of cave ponies or anything like that, so unless we were created by some ancient wizard our ancestors probably came over the pole at some point."
I nod.
"So there could be other ponies on the other side of the planet?"
Lightning Dust frowns. "Wouldn't the windigos have just frozen them all?"
Sunset shakes her head. "There's never been a confirmed sighting of a windigo. And even if the Hearth's Warming story is true, the windigos followed our ancestors to Equestria. If there was anyone left behind and they survived the cold until the windigos were destroyed, they would probably have managed just fine." She looks at me. "You think there might be ponies over there who know earth pony magic."
"Yep. And it certainly can't hurt to check."
Boom!
"Wanna come with me?"
