Transistance

Radioactive

For the first time since she had arrived in Manehattan, Luna flew over the streets. The hot pavement provided massive updrafts, and let her coast over the marching crowd that approached the Manehattan Courthouse. The mass of ponies had grown since they had set out nearly an hour before. The city was big, and Celestia’s speech over the screens had done more to help Luna than even the court case had done. Somehow, the citizens of the city that prided itself on being more on its own than part of Equestria hadn’t taken well to being reminded of who they were ruled by.

The air felt cool on Luna’s fur, and she switched off all her neutral tech to allow herself to fly without distraction. She drifted only a few hundred feet above the crowd, though she would have preferred to be higher. She figured that most of the protestors wanted to at least see their leader, though, so she stayed close.The jets had appeared once again, but none bore down on the crowd. Instead, Celestia’s guard kept their distance.

Luna felt a cold ball of fear gather in her stomach. She was flying by the tips of her wings, and she had no idea what she was doing. Her eyes scanned the ground in front of them, but the way to the courthouse was clear. Not even any traffic. Celestia was waiting for her, and was letting Luna take her time. Part of her desperate wanted to turn around and fly back, never to return.

A blur of purple and pink shot out from the crowd and flew up to Luna. Twilight had grown into quite a flyer, she saw, who sped as fast as a meteor into the sky but managed to stop next to Luna with plenty of time to spare. The only telling part of the performance was the windswept look Twilight’s mane took on.

“Hey,” Twilight said, a little out of breath. “You doing alright up here?”

“I’m fine,” Luna said.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I’m simply up here to keep me from worrying all the other ponies. I read somewhere, once, that officers in the Royal Guard are removed from the troops just so they seem more invincibile and distant.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly an army.” Twilight laughed. “More like a slightly-organized mob.”

“A mob that is working for me, and will follow my orders,” Luna said.

“Still a powerful mob.”

“What is a mob to a queen?”

“A very large group of ponies that you don’t want to upset.” Twilight hesitated, then placed a hoof on Luna’s shoulder. “You can do this, Princess. You’ve grown a lot since you came back from the moon. You’re a mare of the common pony.”

Luna sighed. “But is that a good thing?”

Twilight didn’t answer her . . . until, she gave a shrug and drifted down toward the ponies below. Luna watched her go. She watched her head for the convertible in the middle of the crowd that held Sapphire and Rarity, almost forgotten in the whole commotion. Luna thought about heading down to them, but decided against it.

Though, just as she was heading back up for some more altitude, she noticed a commotion near the front of the crowd. Ponies were gathered in one place, and none moved up the street after a point in the street. Luna flew down toward the epicenter of the problem, and hoped that what was wrong wouldn’t be anything major.

Seeing the glint of golden armor the closer she got, Luna’s hopes of a quick and easy solution began to fade. When she landed, she trotted up toward the front of her mob to see that, sure enough, a contingent of Royal Guard troopers were standing in the middle of the street in a wall, dressed in full battle gear.

Their eyes watched the crowd before them, made up of ponies who looked at the guards’ weapons projectors in fear.

Buck Shot came running up to Luna, out of breath. “Out of the way, out of the way!” he said to the crowd. Then, he reached Luna. “Hey, Princess, what’s going on?”